George Robert Stephanopoulos is an American television journalist and a former political advisor.
Stephanopoulos is most well known as the chief political correspondent for
ABC NewsABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
– the news division of the
broadcast televisionTerrestrial television is a mode of television broadcasting which does not involve satellite transmission or cables — typically using radio waves through transmitting and receiving antennas or television antenna aerials...
network
ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
– and a co-
anchorA news presenter is a person who presents news during a news program in the format of a television show, on the radio or the Internet.News presenters can work in a radio studio, television studio and from remote broadcasts in the field especially weather...
of ABC News
's
morning news programBreakfast television or morning show , is a type of infotainment television program, broadcast live in the morning...
,
Good Morning AmericaGood Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...
(
GMA). He was previously the host of
This WeekThis Week is ABC's Sunday morning political affairs program.The Sunday morning talk show has aired on Sunday mornings on ABC since 1981; the program is initially aired at 9:00 AM ET, although many stations air the program later, especially those in other time zones...
, ABC News
's Sunday morning news program. He is the primary substitute anchor for ABC News
's flagship news program,
World News with Diane Sawyer.
In recent years he has co-hosted ABC News
's special live coverage of political events with
Charles GibsonCharles deWolf "Charlie" Gibson is a former American broadcast television anchor and journalist. He was a host of Good Morning America from 1987 to 1998 and 1999 to 2006 and anchor of World News with Charles Gibson from 2006 to 2009....
and
Diane SawyerLila Diane Sawyer is the current anchor of ABC News' flagship program, ABC World News. Previously, Sawyer had been co-anchor of ABC Newss morning news program, Good Morning America ....
, and has appeared regularly on
GMA,
World News, and launched
George's Bottom Line, an ABCNews.com blog.
Prior to joining ABC News, he was a senior political adviser to the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign of
Bill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
and later became the
White House Communications DirectorThe White House Director of Communications, also known as Assistant to the President for Communications, is part of the senior staff of the President of the United States, and is responsible for developing and promoting the agenda of the President and leading its media campaign...
for two years, before being replaced by
David GergenDavid Richmond Gergen is an American political consultant and former presidential advisor who served during the administrations of Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. He is currently Director of the Center for Public Leadership and a professor of public service at Harvard Kennedy School. Gergen is...
after political fallout from the mid-term election of 1994, in which the Republican party took over the U.S. House and Senate.
Early life and education
George Robert Stephanopoulos, the descendant of
GreekGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
immigrants, was born in
Fall RiverFall River is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It is located about south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and west of New Bedford and south of Taunton. The city's population was 88,857 during the 2010 census, making it the tenth largest city in...
,
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, and grew up in
PurchasePurchase, New York is a hamlet of the town of Harrison, in Westchester County. Its ZIP code is 10577. Its name is derived from Harrison's purchase, for Harrison could have as much land as he could ride in one day...
,
New YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, and suburban Cleveland,
OhioOhio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
. His father, Robert George Stephanopoulos, is a
Greek OrthodoxThe Greek Orthodox Church is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity sharing a common cultural tradition whose liturgy is also traditionally conducted in Koine Greek, the original language of the New Testament...
priest and Dean
EmeritusEmeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...
of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in New York City, New York. His mother, Nickolitsa ("Nikki") Gloria (
née Chafos) Stephanopoulos, was for many years the director of the national news service of the
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of AmericaThe Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, headquartered in New York City, is an eparchy of the Church of Constantinople. Its current primate is Archbishop Demetrios of America.-About the Archdiocese:...
. As had his parents, young George became a follower of the Greek Orthodox faith; he had long considered entering the priesthood himself.
Stephanopoulos attended
Orange High SchoolOrange High School is a public high school located in Pepper Pike, Ohio, an eastern suburb in the Greater Cleveland metropolitan area and part of the Northeast Ohio region. Orange High School primarily serves the affluent communities that historically formed Orange Township, which are Hunting...
, located in a suburb of Cleveland. He
wrestledWrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...
competitively in high school. In 1982, he received his bachelor of arts degree in
political sciencePolitical Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
from
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York, where he was a sports broadcaster for WKCR-FM, the university's radio station. While in college, he announced soccer games with current
New York MetsThe New York Mets are a professional baseball team based in the borough of Queens in New York City, New York. They belong to Major League Baseball's National League East Division. One of baseball's first expansion teams, the Mets were founded in 1962 to replace New York's departed National League...
Sportsnet New YorkSportsNet New York is a New York City-based regional sports cable network which airs in the New York metro area and all of New York state, and nationwide via satellite. It is owned jointly by the New York Mets, Time Warner Cable, and NBCUniversal...
announcer
Gary CohenGary Cohen is an American sportscaster, best known as a radio and television play-by-play announcer for the New York Mets of Major League Baseball....
. Stephanopoulos was the
salutatorianSalutatorian is an academic title given, in the United States and Canada, to the second highest graduate of the entire graduating class of a specific discipline. Only the valedictorian is ranked higher. This honor is traditionally based on grade point average and number of credits taken, but...
of his class and was also awarded a Harry S. Truman Scholarship.
Since Stephanopoulos's father had always wanted his son to become a lawyer, if not a priest, he promised his father that he would attend law school eventually. Initially he took a job with a congressman
Ed FeighanEdward Farrell "Ed" Feighan is a former American politician. He served as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, and as a Democratic Party U.S. Representative from 1983 to 1993, serving Ohio's 19th congressional district.-Early life and education:Feighan graduated in 1965 from St...
from Cleveland, and served as an aide in Washington, D.C. Nevertheless, his father persistently questioned him as to when he would attend law school, so Stephanopoulos agreed to attend law school if he was offered a
Rhodes ScholarshipThe Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for study at the University of Oxford. It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships, and is widely considered the "world's most prestigious scholarship" by many public sources such as...
. Although he had been rejected for the scholarship during his senior year at Columbia, Stephanopoulos was successful in his second attempt.
Stephanopoulos earned a master of studies in theology at
Balliol CollegeBalliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England but founded by a family with strong Scottish connections....
during his
Rhodes ScholarshipThe Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for study at the University of Oxford. It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships, and is widely considered the "world's most prestigious scholarship" by many public sources such as...
. He reported spending much of his time trying to root his political leanings in the deeper philosophies that he studied while at Oxford.
Early career
After college, Stephanopoulos joined the staff of
Ed FeighanEdward Farrell "Ed" Feighan is a former American politician. He served as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, and as a Democratic Party U.S. Representative from 1983 to 1993, serving Ohio's 19th congressional district.-Early life and education:Feighan graduated in 1965 from St...
,
U.S. RepresentativeThe United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
from
Ohio's 19th congressional districtOhio's 19th congressional district was created following the 1830 census and was eliminated after the 2000 census.From 1992-2002 it included all of Lake County and Ashtabula County together with a collection of Eastern suburbs of Cleveland...
, as a legislative assistant and later worked as his
chief of staffThe title, chief of staff, identifies the leader of a complex organization, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a Principal Staff Officer , who is the coordinator of the supporting staff or a primary aide to an important individual, such as a president.In general, a chief of...
.
In 1988, Stephanopoulos worked on the
Michael DukakisMichael Stanley Dukakis served as the 65th and 67th Governor of Massachusetts from 1975–1979 and from 1983–1991, and was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. He was born to Greek immigrants in Brookline, Massachusetts, also the birthplace of John F. Kennedy, and was the longest serving...
1988 U.S. presidential campaignThe United States presidential election of 1988 featured no incumbent president, as President Ronald Reagan was unable to seek re-election after serving the maximum two terms allowed by the Twenty-second Amendment. Reagan's Vice President, George H. W. Bush, won the Republican nomination, while the...
. He has noted one of the attractions to this campaign was that Dukakis was a Greek-American liberal from Massachusetts. After this campaign, Stephanopoulos became the "floor man" for
Dick GephardtRichard Andrew "Dick" Gephardt is a lobbyist and former prominent American politician of the Democratic Party. Gephardt served as a U.S. Representative from Missouri from January 3, 1977, until January 3, 2005, serving as House Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995, and as Minority Leader from 1995 to...
,
U.S. House of Representatives Majority LeaderParty leaders of the United States House of Representatives are elected by their respective parties in a closed-door caucus by secret ballot and are also known as floor leaders. The U.S. House of Representatives does not officially use the term "Minority Leader", although the media frequently does...
; he held this position until he joined the Clinton campaign.
Clinton Administration
Stephanopoulos was, along with
David WilhelmA former campaign operative who rose to prominence as chair of the Democratic National Committee in the 1990s, today Wilhelm is an entrepreneur and impact investor devoted to building sustainable jobs and wealth in small town America....
and
James CarvilleChester James Carville, Jr. is an American political consultant, commentator, educator, actor, attorney, media personality, and prominent liberal pundit. Carville gained national attention for his work as the lead strategist of the successful presidential campaign of then-Arkansas governor Bill...
, a leading member of Clinton's 1992 U.S. presidential campaign. His role on the campaign is portrayed in the documentary film
The War RoomThe War Room is a 1993 American documentary film about Bill Clinton's campaign for President of the United States during the 1992 presidential election.-Background:...
(1993).
At the outset of Clinton's presidency, Stephanopoulos served as the
de facto press secretaryThe White House Press Secretary is a senior White House official whose primary responsibility is to act as spokesperson for the government administration....
, briefing the press even though
Dee Dee MyersDee Dee Myers served as White House Press Secretary for the first two years of the Clinton administration, from January 20, 1993 to December 22, 1994.-Early life and education:...
was officially the
White House Press SecretaryThe White House Press Secretary is a senior White House official whose primary responsibility is to act as spokesperson for the government administration....
. Later, he was moved to Senior Advisor on Policy and Strategy, when Myers began personally conducting the briefings (following several verbal missteps by Stephanopoulos) and
David GergenDavid Richmond Gergen is an American political consultant and former presidential advisor who served during the administrations of Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. He is currently Director of the Center for Public Leadership and a professor of public service at Harvard Kennedy School. Gergen is...
was brought in as the new White House Communications Director. The move was largely viewed as a rebuke to Stephanopoulos's handling of public relations during the first six months of the
Clinton administrationThe United States Presidency of Bill Clinton, also known as the Clinton Administration, was the executive branch of the federal government of the United States from January 20, 1993 to January 20, 2001. Clinton was the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second full term...
.
On February 25, 1994, Stephanopoulos and
Harold IckesHarold McEwen Ickes was White House Deputy Chief of Staff for President Bill Clinton. He is the son of Harold L. Ickes, who was Secretary of the Interior under Franklin D. Roosevelt. Ickes is a graduate of Stanford University and Columbia Law School. Ickes was a student civil rights activist in...
had a conference call with
Roger AltmanRoger Charles Altman is an American investment banker, private equity investor and former United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury who served under Bill Clinton.-Early life and career:...
to discuss the
Resolution Trust CorporationThe Resolution Trust Corporation was a United States Government-owned asset management company run by Lewis William Seidman and charged with liquidating assets, primarily real estate-related assets such as mortgage loans, that had been assets of savings and loan associations declared insolvent by...
's choice of
RepublicanThe Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
lawyer Jay Stephens to head the
Madison GuarantyMadison Guaranty was a Little Rock, Arkansas financial trust company.Starting in 1982 and operated by Jim McDougal-Susan McDougal Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan failed in the late 1980s. On April 14, 1997, Jim McDougal was convicted of 18 felony counts of fraud conspiracy charges...
investigation, that later turned into the
Whitewater controversyThe Whitewater controversy was an American politics controversy that began with the real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their associates, Jim and Susan McDougal in the Whitewater Development Corporation, a failed business venture in the 1970s and 1980s.A New York...
.
Stephanopoulos resigned from the Clinton administration shortly after Clinton was re-elected in 1996.
His
memoirA memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
,
All Too Human: A Political Education (1999), was published after he left the White House during Clinton's second term. It quickly became a number-one bestseller on
The New York Times Best Seller list. In the book, Stephanopoulos spoke of his depression and how his face broke out into hives due to the pressures of conveying the Clinton White House message. Clinton referred to the book in his autobiography,
My LifeMy Life is a 2004 autobiography written by former President of the United States Bill Clinton, who left office on January 20, 2001. It was released on June 22, 2004. The book was published by the Knopf Publishing Group; the book sold in excess of 2,250,000 copies...
, apologizing for what he felt in retrospect to be excessive demands placed on the young staffer.
Stephanopoulos's book covers his time with Clinton from the day he met him in September 1991 to the day Stephanopoulos left the White House in December 1996, through two presidential campaigns and four years in the White House. Stephanopoulos describes Clinton in the book as a "complicated man responding to the pressures and pleasures of public life in ways I found both awesome and appalling."
ABC News
After leaving the
White HouseThe White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
at the end of Clinton's first term, Stephanopoulos became a political analyst for ABC News and served as a correspondent on
This Week, the Sunday morning public affairs program;
World News Tonight, the evening news broadcast;
GMA, the morning news program; along with other various special broadcasts.
This Week host
In September 2002, Stephanopoulos became host of
This Week, and ABC News officially named him "Chief Washington Correspondent" in December 2005. The program's title added the new host's name.
When named to the position, Stephanopoulos was a relative newcomer to the show, usurping longtime panelists and short-term co-hosts
Sam DonaldsonSamuel Andrew "Sam" Donaldson, Jr. is a reporter and news anchor, serving with ABC News from 1967 to the present, best known as the network's White House Correspondent and as a panelist and later co-anchor of the network's Sunday Program "This Week."-Early life and career:Donaldson was born in El...
and
Cokie RobertsMary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Roberts , best known as Cokie Roberts, is an American Emmy Award-winning journalist and bestselling author. She is a contributing senior news analyst for National Public Radio as well as a regular roundtable analyst for the current This Week with Christiane...
who, for a few years, briefly replaced the long-term original host,
David BrinkleyDavid McClure Brinkley was an American newscaster for NBC and ABC in a career lasting from 1943 to 1997....
.
Opinion columnist and part-time ABC News commentator
George WillGeorge Frederick Will is an American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winner best known for his conservative commentary on politics...
is the only remaining member of the original
This Week panel from the Brinkley days to participate consistently in the weekly show; Donaldson and Roberts still appear on the program on a very limited basis.
Fareed ZakariaFareed Rafiq Zakaria is an Indian-American journalist and author. From 2000 to 2010, he was a columnist for Newsweek and editor of Newsweek International. In 2010 he became Editor-At-Large of Time magazine...
was a weekly panelist during the first two years of Stephanopoulos's tenure, broadening the show with his perspective on world and Middle Eastern issues.
This Week ratings
ABC News executives reportedly offered
Ted KoppelEdward James "Ted" Koppel is an English-born American broadcast journalist, best known as the anchor for Nightline from the program's inception in 1980 until his retirement in late 2005. After leaving Nightline, Koppel worked as managing editor for the Discovery Channel before resigning in 2008...
, former
Nightline anchor, the
This Week host job in 2005 after the program's ratings had become a regular third-, fourth-, and sometimes fifth-place finish after competitors NBC, CBS, Fox and syndicated programs. However,
This Week beat
Meet the Press on January 11, 2009, when Stephanopoulos interviewed
president-electPresident-elect of the United States is the title used for an incoming President of the United States in the period between the general election on Election Day in November and noon eastern standard time on Inauguration Day, January 20, during which he is not in office yet...
Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
.
In February 2009, the gap between NBC's
Meet the Press and its competitors – CBS's
Face the NationFace the Nation with Bob Schieffer is an American Sunday-morning political interview show which premiered on the CBS television network on November 7, 1954. It is one of the longest-running news programs in the history of television...
and ABC's
This Week – began closing.
Meet the Press posted its lowest ratings since NBC's
David GregoryDavid Michael Gregory is an American television journalist, and moderator of NBC News' Sunday morning talk show Meet the Press.-Early life:...
became moderator in early February, with the show airing Sunday, February 1, averaging just 3.9 million viewers.
Face the Nation averaged 3.33 million total viewers, while
This Week came in just behind with 3.32 million total viewers.
2008 U.S. presidential debate
On April 16, 2008, Stephanopoulos co-moderated, with
Charles GibsonCharles deWolf "Charlie" Gibson is a former American broadcast television anchor and journalist. He was a host of Good Morning America from 1987 to 1998 and 1999 to 2006 and anchor of World News with Charles Gibson from 2006 to 2009....
, the twenty-first, and ultimately final,
Democratic Party presidential debateThe 2008 Democratic Presidential Debates were political debates prior to and during the 2008 Democratic Primaries. The debates began on April 26, 2007, in Orangeburg, South Carolina.-Election 2008:...
between
IllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
Senator Obama and New York Senator
Hillary Rodham ClintonHillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...
for the 2008 election cycle. While the debate received record ratings, the co-moderators were heavily criticized for focusing most of the first hour of the debate on controversies that occurred during the campaign rather than issues such as the economy and the
Iraq War. Stephanopoulos acknowledged the legitimacy of the concerns over the order of the questions, but said they were issues in the campaign that had not been covered in previous debates.
Good Morning America co-host
In December 2009, the
ABC News president offered Stephanopoulos Sawyer's job on
GMA after Sawyer was named anchor of
World News. Stephanopoulos accepted the new position and started on December 14, 2009. Stephanopoulos announced on January 10, 2010, that that would be his last broadcast as the permanent host of
This Week. He is now the co-host of
Good Morning America.
World News Tonight
Stephanopoulos substitutes for Sawyer on nights when she is away on assignment or unavailable.
On May 1, 2011, Stephanopoulos broke into regular programming at approximately 10:15 p.m. to provide coverage of a special U.S. presidential address, which ended up being that
Osama Bin LadenOsama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
had been killed. He hosted coverage along with
Christiane AmanpourChristiane Amanpour, CBE is anchor of ABC News's This Week and formerly chief international correspondent at CNN, where she worked for 27 years. She is a Board Member at the IWMF .-Early years:...
,
David MuirDavid Muir is an American journalist and anchor for ABC News, the news division of the ABC broadcast-television network based in New York City, New York.-Early life and education:...
and
Brian RossBrian Elliot Ross is an American investigative correspondent for ABC News. He has been with ABC News since July 1994. From 1974 until 1994, Ross was a correspondent for NBC News.-Major scoops:...
through 1:00 a.m.
Criticism
Stephanopoulos was quoted in a January 27, 2009, article "Power, Politics, Gossip on a Daily Call" by
John F. HarrisJohn F. Harris is an American political journalist and the editor in chief for Politico, an Arlington, Virginia based political news organization. With Politico executive editor, Jim VandeHei, Harris founded Politico for its launch on January 23, 2007...
in
The PoliticoThe Politico is an American political journalism organization based in Arlington, Virginia, that distributes its content via television, the Internet, newspaper, and radio. Its coverage of Washington, D.C., includes the U.S. Congress, lobbying, media and the Presidency...
. The article was about a daily call Stephanopoulos participates in with his friends Carville,
Rahm EmanuelRahm Israel Emanuel is an American politician and the 55th and current Mayor of Chicago. He was formerly White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama...
, and
Paul BegalaPaul Edward Begala is an American political consultant and political commentator. He was an adviser to President Bill Clinton. Begala was a chief strategist for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, which carried 33 states and made Clinton the first Democrat to win the White House in sixteen years...
. Harris describes the call as " a street-corner bull session between four old friends who suddenly find themselves standing once more at the busiest intersection of politics and media in Washington."
In the article, Stephanopoulos says he does not surrender his reputation as an independent journalist during the daily information-sharing calls. "We are all good friends," Stephanopoulos is quoted as saying. "We just like talking to each other, and I learn a lot from it ... and that's why we have been doing it for so long."
After the article ran, conservative media critic
Brent BozellLeo Brent Bozell III is an American conservative writer and activist. Bozell is the founder and president of the Media Research Center, the Conservative Communications Center, and the Cybercast News Service. Bozell served as president of the Parents Television Council from 1995 to 2006, after...
and some conservative bloggers launched a campaign against Stephanopoulos: "Will Stephanopoulos be critical of the White House’s plans when he spends every morning helping to craft them? Not likely. He must from this point forward recuse himself from any reporting involving the Obama administration," Bozell said in a press release. Conservatives deluged ABC with emails and calls on the topic.
The Politico's
Ben SmithBen Smith is an American political journalist and blogger for the news outlet Politico, which was frequently cited during the 2008 presidential election. He formerly wrote for the Wall Street Journal Europe, the New York Sun, the New York Observer and wrote a political column for the New York Daily...
reported: "I don't think they have the story quite right, nor does its author, John Harris, who emails: 'The calls are certainly a fascinating Washington ritual, but by no means do I think George Stephanopoulos is participating in strategy sessions. To my mind, he established his journalistic bona fides more than a decade ago, even as the Clinton administration was still underway, when he showed his willingness to report aggressively on Democrats as well as Republicans.'"
Online
During the 2008 presidential election campaign, Stephanopoulos launched a blog
George's Bottom Line on the website of ABC News. Stephanopoulos blogs about political news and analysis from Washington.
In October 2008, Stephanopoulos began posting updates to Twitter, a social-networking website. He also launched a public profile page on Facebook, another social-networking website.
In popular culture
Stephanopoulos was the inspiration for the character of Henry Burton in
Joe KleinJoe Klein is a longtime Washington, D.C. and New York journalist and columnist, known for his novel Primary Colors, an anonymously written roman à clef portraying Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign. Klein is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a former Guggenheim...
's novel
Primary Colors (1996). Burton was subsequently portrayed by
Adrian Lester-Personal life:Lester was born in Birmingham, England, the son of Jamaican immigrants Monica, a medical secretary, and Reginald, a manager for a contract cleaning company. He sang as a boy treble in the choir of St. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham...
in
1998 film adaptation.
Michael J. FoxMichael J. Fox, OC is a Canadian American actor, author, producer, activist and voice-over artist. With a film and television career spanning from the late 1970s, Fox's roles have included Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy ; Alex P...
's character, Lewis Rothschild, in the film
The American PresidentThe American President is a 1995 romantic comedy film directed by Rob Reiner and written by Aaron Sorkin. It stars Michael Douglas, Annette Bening, Martin Sheen, Michael J. Fox and Richard Dreyfuss...
(1995), written by
Aaron SorkinAaron Benjamin Sorkin is an Academy and Emmy award winning American screenwriter, producer, and playwright, whose works include A Few Good Men, The American President, The West Wing, Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Social Network, and Moneyball.After graduating from Syracuse...
was modeled after Stephanopoulos. He was also used by Sorkin as the model for
Rob LoweRobert Hepler "Rob" Lowe is an American actor. Lowe came to prominence after appearing in films such as The Outsiders, Oxford Blues, About Last Night..., St. Elmo's Fire, and Wayne's World. On television, Lowe is known for his role as Sam Seaborn on The West Wing and his role as Senator Robert...
's character,
Sam SeabornSamuel Norman "Sam" Seaborn is a fictional character portrayed by Rob Lowe on the television serial drama The West Wing. He is best known for being Deputy White House Communications Director in the Josiah Bartlet administration throughout the first four seasons of the series.-Creation and...
, on the television drama series
The West WingThe West Wing is an American television serial drama created by Aaron Sorkin that was originally broadcast on NBC from September 22, 1999 to May 14, 2006...
. Fox based his portrayal on Stephanopoulos as well. According to Stephanopoulos, his role in the Clinton administration was more like
Bradley WhitfordBradley Whitford is an American film and television actor. He is best known for his roles as Deputy White House Chief of Staff Josh Lyman on the NBC television drama The West Wing, as Danny Tripp on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, as Dan Stark in the Fox police buddy-comedy The Good Guys, as...
's character
Josh LymanJoshua "Josh" Lyman is a fictional character played by Bradley Whitford on the television drama The West Wing. For the majority of the series, he was White House Deputy Chief of Staff in the Josiah Bartlet administration...
than Seaborn or Rothschild.
In an episode of the first season of the TV series
FriendsFriends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
titled
The One With George Stephanopoulos, the characters of
Monica GellerMonica E. Geller Bing is a fictional character on the popular US television sitcom Friends, portrayed by Courteney Cox. Monica is known as the "Mother Hen" of the group and her Greenwich Village apartment was one of the group's main gathering places. She was also known for her obsessive personality...
,
Rachel GreenRachel Karen Green is a fictional character on the popular U.S. television sitcom Friends, portrayed by Jennifer Aniston. Aniston received an Emmy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Golden Globe for her performances.-Background:...
and
Phoebe BuffayPhoebe Buffay-Hannigan is a fictional character on the U.S. television sitcom Friends , portrayed by Lisa Kudrow...
realize that Stephanopoulos is staying in an apartment across the street from theirs and, being attracted to him, they proceed to spy on him throughout most of the night.
Stephanopoulos appeared in the
Pawn StarsPawn Stars is an American reality television series on the History Channel, produced in Manhattan by Leftfield Pictures. The series is filmed in Las Vegas, Nevada, where it chronicles the daily activities at the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, a 24-hour family business operated by patriarch Richard...
episode "Buy the Book", where he bought a first edition of
Ernest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
's
For Whom the Bell TollsFor Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to a republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As an expert in the use of explosives, he is assigned to blow up a...
for $675, after haggling with owner Rick Harrison.
Awards
Stephanopoulos returned to his
alma mater, Columbia University, in 2003, serving as the keynote speaker at Columbia College's Class Day.
In May 2007, he received an
Honorary Doctor of LawsAn honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
from St. John's University in New York City.
Personal life
He is married to
Alexandra WentworthAlexandra Wentworth is an American comedienne, actress and author who starred in Head Case on Starz.-Early life:...
, an actress, comedian and writer. The couple have two daughters – Elliott Anastasia Stephanopoulos and Harper Andrea Stephanopoulos; the family lives in New York City.
In 1995, after a collision with a parked vehicle as he was pulling out of a parking space in front of a restaurant in the
GeorgetownGeorgetown is a neighborhood located in northwest Washington, D.C., situated along the Potomac River. Founded in 1751, the port of Georgetown predated the establishment of the federal district and the City of Washington by 40 years...
neighborhood of Washington, D.C, Stephanopoulos was arrested and charged with leaving the scene of an accident and driving with an expired license and license plates. Only the charge of leaving the scene of an accident was subsequently dropped.
Along with a number of other notable Greek Americans, he is a founding member of
The Next Generation InitiativeThe Next Generation Initiative is an independent non-profit educational foundation focused on helping students gain real-world skills and experience that will advance their education, and serve them as future leaders in their communities and in the broader public arena.The Initiative works with...
, a leadership program aimed at getting students involved in public affairs.
See also
External links
- abcnews.com/thisweek, This Week with George Stephanopoulos
This Week is ABC's Sunday morning political affairs program.The Sunday morning talk show has aired on Sunday mornings on ABC since 1981; the program is initially aired at 9:00 AM ET, although many stations air the program later, especially those in other time zones...
official website
- blogs.abcnews.com/george, George's Bottom Line, an ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
blog by Stephanopoulos