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Thomas Friedman

Thomas FriedmanAKA Thomas Lauren Friedman

Born: 20-Jul-1953
Birthplace: Minneapolis, MN

Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Journalist

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: New York Times

Thomas L. Friedman is a three-time Pulitzer Prize recipient for The New York Times. In 1978 he married an heiress to a fortune in shopping mall properties, and her $3-billion makes the Friedmans one of America's wealthiest families. He was hired as a financial reporter for The New York Times in May 1981, and within a year was appointed the newspaper's Beirut bureau chief. Rising rapidly through the ranks, he became The Times' bureau chief in Israel, then its chief diplomatic correspondent, White House correspondent, international affairs correspondent, and, since 1995, a foreign affairs columnist.

As a reporter, Friedman won Pulitzers for international reporting from Lebanon and Israel. Remembering his time on assignment in the Middle East, he has written that "the Western press coddled the PLO. For any Beirut-based correspondent, the name of the game was keeping on good terms with the PLO, because without it you would not get the interview with Arafat you wanted when your foreign editor came to town". As a columnist, he won a Pulitzer in 2002, "for his clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat". In 1989, he wrote the award-winning From Beirut to Jerusalem, been translated into several different languages, and is often used as a college textbook on the Middle East.

In the build-up to America's 2003 invasion of Iraq, Friedman made it clear that he thought the "stated reason" for war was mostly public relations. He chided George W. Bush and Tony Blair for "hyping" the evidence, and stated plainly that converting Iraq to democracy "would be a huge undertaking, though, and maybe impossible, given Iraq's fractious history". And yet he was among the many prominent pundits who supported the invasion. In the aftermath, he predicted several times over several years that "the next six months" would be a turning point.

Wife: Ann Bucksbaum (teacher, b. 13-Apr-1954, m. 23-Nov-1978)
Daughter: Orly Diane Friedman (b. 28-Jul-1985)
Daughter: Natalie Harold Friedman (b. 20-Apr-1988)

    High School: St. Louis Park High School, St. Louis Park, MN (1971)
    University: BA Mediterranean Studies, Brandeis University (1975)
    University: MA Philosophy and Modern Middle East Studies, Oxford University (1979)

    The New York Times 1981-
    American Philosophical Society 2003
    Bilderberg Group
    Council on Foreign Relations
    Trilateral Commission
    Pied at Brown University (22-Apr-2008)
    Pulitzer Prize for Commentary 2002
    Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting 1988
    Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting 1983
    National Book Award for Nonfiction 1989 for From Beirut to Jerusalem
    Polk Award 1982

    FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
    Revenge of the Electric Car (22-Apr-2011) · Himself

Official Website:
http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/

Author of books:
From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989, international affairs)
The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (1999, economics)
Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11 (2002, collection)
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (2005, economics)
Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution -- and How It Can Renew America (2008, social studies)
That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back (2011, international affairs)


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