PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: journalism
American writer
Mark Twain was an American humorist, journalist, lecturer, and novelist who acquired international fame for his travel narratives, especially The Innocents Abroad (1869), Roughing It (1872), and Life on...
English author
Samuel Johnson was an English critic, biographer, essayist, poet, and lexicographer, regarded as one of the greatest figures of 18th-century life and letters. Johnson once characterized literary biographies...
political philosopher, economic theorist, and revolutionary
Karl Marx was a revolutionary, sociologist, historian, and economist. He published (with Friedrich Engels) Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (1848), commonly known as The Communist Manifesto, the most...
prime minister of United Kingdom
Boris Johnson is an American-born British journalist and Conservative Party politician who became prime minister of the United Kingdom in July 2019. He left office in September 2022 after being forced...
prime minister of France
Georges Clemenceau was a statesman and journalist who was a dominant figure in the French Third Republic and, as premier (1917–20), a major contributor to the Allied victory in World War I and a framer...
Anglo-Irish author and clergyman
Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish author, who was the foremost prose satirist in the English language. Besides the celebrated novel Gulliver’s Travels (1726), he wrote such shorter works as A Tale of a...
American literary critic
Paul de Man was a Belgian-born literary critic and theorist, along with Jacques Derrida one of the two major proponents of deconstruction, a controversial form of philosophical and literary analysis that...
Irish author
James Joyce was an Irish novelist noted for his experimental use of language and exploration of new literary methods in such large works of fiction as Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939). Joyce is...
prime minister of Armenia
Nikol Pashinyan is an Armenian journalist and politician who serves as prime minister of Armenia (2018– ). He rose to power in 2018 on a wave of popular discontent against the ruling party, an event that...
English author
Daniel Defoe was an English novelist, pamphleteer, and journalist, known as the author of Robinson Crusoe (1719–22) and Moll Flanders (1722). Defoe’s father, James Foe, was a hard-working and fairly prosperous...
Hungarian political leader
Lajos Kossuth was a political reformer who inspired and led Hungary’s struggle for independence from Austria. His brief period of power in the revolutionary years of 1848 and 1849, however, was ended by...
British journalist and politician
John Wilkes was an outspoken 18th-century journalist and popular London politician who came to be regarded as a victim of persecution and as a champion of liberty because he was repeatedly expelled from...
English author
Joseph Addison was an English essayist, poet, and dramatist, who, with Richard Steele, was a leading contributor to and guiding spirit of the periodicals The Tatler and The Spectator. His writing skill...
Korean American author and journalist
For her writing, Korean American author and journalist Min Jin Lee has pretended to apply to Harvard Business School, taken a millinery class at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and played poker with...
American commentator
Tucker Carlson is an American conservative political pundit who from 2016 to 2023 was the host of Tucker Carlson Tonight on the Fox News Channel. At its zenith, the show was watched by more than four million...
French philosopher
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French libertarian socialist and journalist whose doctrines became the basis for later radical and anarchist theory. Proudhon was born into poverty as the son of a feckless...
British explorer
Henry Morton Stanley was a British American explorer of central Africa, famous for his rescue of the Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone and for his discoveries in and development of the...
American journalist
Janet Malcolm forged a piercingly analytical brand of American journalism in a career that spanned more than five decades and produced numerous nonfiction books, several of which originated as reported...
British author and politician
Sir Richard Steele was an English essayist, dramatist, journalist, and politician, best known as principal author (with Joseph Addison) of the periodicals The Tatler and The Spectator. Steele’s father,...
French author
Albert Camus was a French novelist, essayist, and playwright, best known for such novels as L’Étranger (1942; The Stranger), La Peste (1947; The Plague), and La Chute (1956; The Fall) and for his work...
president of Colombia
Iván Duque is a Colombian centre-right politician, lawyer, and author who became president of Colombia in 2018. He succeeded Juan Manuel Santos, his first political patron, as president but was an acolyte...
American journalist and novelist
From 1985 to 2021 Carl Hiaasen wrote a popular syndicated opinion column for The Miami Herald. Hiaasen’s acerbic, often humorous columns tackled both Florida-specific and national issues. A lifelong Florida...
British politician
Henry Saint John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke was a prominent Tory politician in the reign of Queen Anne of England and, later, a major political propagandist in opposition to the Whig Party led by Sir Robert...
British journalist
William Cobbett was an English popular journalist who played an important political role as a champion of traditional rural England against the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution. His father...
American author
Isabel Wilkerson is known for chronicling the lives of unsung African Americans and exposing deeply embedded systems of social injustice in her reporting for The New York Times and in her celebrated works...
president of El Salvador
Mauricio Funes was a Salvadoran television journalist who served as president of El Salvador (2009–14). Funes was educated in Roman Catholic elementary and secondary schools before majoring in communications...
American journalist and political activist
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an American journalist and political activist who was sentenced to death and then to life in prison for the 1981 murder of a police officer, Daniel Faulkner, in Philadelphia. Wesley...
Brazilian architect and industrial designer
Lina Bo Bardi was an Italian-born Brazilian Modernist architect, industrial designer, historic preservationist, journalist, and activist whose work defied conventional categorization. She designed daring...
journalist and professor
Nikole Hannah-Jones is a long-form narrative journalist for The New York Times Magazine and a professor at Howard University. Hannah-Jones created The 1619 Project for The New York Times Magazine as an...
Muslim journalist and politician
Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī was a Muslim politician, political agitator, and journalist whose belief in the potency of a revived Islamic civilization in the face of European domination significantly influenced...
French politician, physician, and journalist
Jean-Paul Marat was a French politician, physician, and journalist, a leader of the radical Montagnard faction during the French Revolution. He was assassinated in his bath by Charlotte Corday, a young...
prime minister of Israel
Yair Lapid is an Israeli journalist, television personality, and politician who served briefly as prime minister (July–December 2022). He also served as minister of finance (2013–14) and minister of foreign...
American journalist and government official
Samantha Power is an American journalist, human rights scholar, and government official who served on the National Security Council (2008–13) and as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (2013–17)...
British economist and journalist
Walter Bagehot was an economist, political analyst, and editor of The Economist who was one of the most influential journalists of the mid-Victorian period. His father’s family had been general merchants...
Palestinian American journalist
Shireen Abu Akleh was a Palestinian American journalist for the Al Jazeera news network who was known throughout the Arab world for her 25-year coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She was killed...
Colombian author
Gabriel García Márquez was a Colombian novelist and one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, mostly for his masterpiece Cien años de soledad...
American journalist and television personality
Megyn Kelly is an American attorney, journalist, and television personality who is known for her pointed interviews and commentary on the Fox News Channel. Kelly was raised in Syracuse and Delmar, New...
American editor, writer, and abolitionist
William Lloyd Garrison was an American journalistic crusader who published a newspaper, The Liberator (1831–65), and helped lead the successful abolitionist campaign against slavery in the United States....
American journalist, author and lawyer
Glenn Greenwald is an American journalist, author, and lawyer who throughout 2013 published news stories based on a trove of documents obtained by intelligence contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden....
American journalist
Walter Cronkite was an American journalist and pioneer of television news programming who became known as “the most trusted man in America.” He was the longtime anchor of the CBS Evening News with Walter...
Trinidadian activist and journalist
Claudia Jones was a Trinidadian social and political activist and journalist who advocated for Black individuals, women, and workers in both the United States and England. Her early experience of racism...
Mexican American journalist, teacher, and activist
Jovita Idár was a Mexican American journalist, teacher, and activist who devoted her life to fighting the racism and discrimination that she witnessed during her life in Texas. She was also a staunch advocate...
American journalist
Dorothy Kilgallen was an American journalist and TV personality whose work ranged from covering high-profile murder cases to appearing on television quiz shows. She was investigating the assassination...
American editor and activist
Charlotta Spears Bass was an American editor, the first Black woman to run for vice president of the United States, and a civil rights activist whose long career was devoted to aggressively publicizing...
American journalist
Whittaker Chambers was an American journalist, Communist Party member, Soviet agent, and a principal figure in the Alger Hiss case, one of the most publicized espionage incidents of the Cold War. Chambers...
British poet and journalist
James Fenton is an English poet and journalist who was remarked upon for his facility with a wide variety of verse styles and for the liberal political views threading his oeuvre. Fenton was born to an...
American author
Ta-Nehisi Coates gained a large following for his essays and journalism exploring contemporary race relations in the United States, most notably in his book Between the World and Me (2015), which won the...
Scottish-born journalist and politician
Michael Gove is a Scottish-born journalist and politician who served as education secretary (2010–14) and lord chancellor and secretary of state for justice (2015–16) in the administration of Prime Minister...
American humorist and author
Dave Barry is an American humorist and author best known for a popular humor column he wrote for The Miami Herald from 1983 to 2005. Barry’s column was syndicated to more than 500 newspapers in the United...
German political journalist
Friedrich Gentz was a German political journalist, famous for his writings against the principles of the French Revolution and Napoleon and as a confidential adviser of Metternich. Though a commoner, he...
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