Experts
Kurt Andersen
Novelist / Host, "Studio 360"
Recent Activity
Big Think Interview With Kurt Andersen
Big Think interviews the author and host of Studio 360. … Read More
October 20, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
Wall Street politics before the crash
This morning I happened to be looking through the May issue of Portfolio, which is a magazine that turns out to be a lot more compelling eight months after publication. A little info-graphic subtitled “How Investment-Bank Executives have split their donations to presidential campaigns” is especially interesting in hindsight, because two of those banks no [...]
December 23, 2008, 1:45 PM
Bernie Madoff’s bizarre media invisibility
How extremely curious it is that Bernard Madoff — uncannily successful investor and manager of billions for the rich and famous, Wall Street bigwig, generous philanthropist, important civic personage, New Yorker of consequence and stature for decades — was a virtual nobody until the second Thursday of December, according to the paper of record. Before [...]
December 19, 2008, 9:40 PM
Half of Americans are in Obama’s “base”
In the discussion of “electability,” and which broadly defined constituencies are and aren’t drawn to Barack Obama, the focus has been on what has turned out to be Hillary Clinton’s strongest constituencies — working-class whites and people over 65. There is conversely a tendency to consider Obama’s reliably enthusiastic constituencies — black voters, voters under [...]
May 11, 2008, 3:10 PM
Depends what the meaning of the word “slight” is
In an NPR interview yesterday, Hillary Clinton was asked whether she was “willing to win ugly.” Instead of answering, she complained that the premise of the question represented “a double standard,” since Barack Obama is not being asked whether he will fight dirty to get the support of superdelegates necessary to win the [...]
April 9, 2008, 9:14 PM
Kurt Andersen, host of Studio 360 on NPR, is a journalist and the author of the novels Hey Day, Turn of the Century, and The Real Thing. He has written and produced prime-time network television programs and pilots for NBC and ABC, and co-authored Loose Lips, an off-Broadway theatrical revue that had long runs in New York and Los Angeles. He is a regular columnist for New York Magazine, and contributes frequently to Vanity Fair. He is also a founder of Very Short List.
Andersen began his career in journalism at NBC's Today program and at Time, where he was an award-winning writer on politics and criminal justice and for eight years the magazine's architecture and design critic. Returning to Time in 1993 as editor-at-large, he wrote a weekly column on culture. And from 1996 through 1999 he was a staff writer and columnist for The New Yorker. He was a co-founder of Inside.com, editorial director of Colors magazine, and editor-in-chief of both New York and Spy magazines, the latter of which he also co-founded.
From 2004 through 2008 he wrote a column called "The Imperial City" for New York (one of which is included in The Best American Magazine Writing 2008). In 2008 Forbes. com named him one of The 25 Most Influential Liberals in the U.S. Media.Anderson graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, and is a member of the boards of trustees of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Pratt Institute, and is currently Visionary in Residence at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He lives with his family in New York City.
