Michael Weiss | |
---|---|
Born | New York City, U.S. |
Nationality | American |
Education | Townsend Harris High School |
Alma mater | Dartmouth College (BA) |
Occupation(s) | Journalist, analyst, investigative reporter, author, podcaster |
Employer(s) | The Insider Yahoo News New Lines Magazine Free Russia Foundation |
Known for | Author, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror Security analyst, CNN Senior editor, The Daily Beast Editor-in chief, interpreter (online magazine) |
Website | michaelweissjournalist |
Michael D. Weiss is an American journalist, author, and media commentator. He specializes in international affairs, in particular the Middle East and Russia. [1] [2] He is a contributing editor at New Lines magazine, [3] a senior correspondent for Yahoo News, [4] and editor of The Insider . [5] He is a regular network guest on several CNN shows. [2] He is also director of special investigations at the Free Russia Foundation.
Weiss rose to prominence in 2015 with the publication of the New York Times bestseller ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, [6] [7] co-written with Hassan Hassan. He is a former investigative reporter at CNN, [1] and has also written for numerous other publications including The Daily Telegraph , Foreign Affairs , The Wall Street Journal , The Guardian , Slate, The Weekly Standard , and The New Republic , among others. [8] He was a columnist for Foreign Policy magazine, The Daily Beast and NOW Lebanon. [9]
Weiss was born to a Jewish family [10] and educated at Townsend Harris High School, a public magnet high school in Flushing, Queens in New York City, from which he graduated in 1998, [11] followed by Dartmouth College in 2002 with a B.A. in History. [12]
Weiss spent his early career as a war reporter covering the Syrian revolution for news publications including The Daily Telegraph , Foreign Affairs , and Foreign Policy . He was on the ground in Aleppo in 2012, just days after the city fell to the rebels. [2]
In 2013, Weiss launched The Interpreter, an online magazine that translates and analyzes Russian media. [13] [14] He has been its editor-in chief since launch. [15]
Weiss worked as a contributing editor at The Daily Beast until 2017, where he focused on world affairs and culture. [16] [2] [1]
He started contributing to CNN in 2015, and joined the network full time in April 2017 as an investigative reporter for international affairs. [1]
Weiss was part of the team that launched New Lines Magazine, an international affairs magazine, in October 2020. [3] He is a contributing editor for the magazine.
Weiss currently serves as the editor-in-chief of the English edition of The Insider , [5] [17] which specializes in Russia related investigative journalism, fact-checking and political analytics. A 2024 investigation into Havana Syndrome, conducted by The Insider in collaboration with the U.S. network CBS and the German news magazine Der Spiegel , led to senators calling for the case to be reopened in a joint letter to U.S. President Joe Biden. [18] [19]
He is a senior correspondent for Yahoo News . [4] He has also written for a number of other publications, including The Wall Street Journal , The Guardian , Slate, The Weekly Standard , The New Republic and The Atlantic , among others. [8] [20]
Weiss is a regular guest on network TV, including on Wolf Blitzer’s The Situation Room, Anderson Cooper 360°, and CNN Tonight with Don Lemon. [2] He has also appeared on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Morning Joe, Way Too Early, and Ronan Farrow Daily on MSNBC; Newsday on BBC World News; and Kennedy, America’s Newshour, and The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News, as well as on Charlie Rose and Real Time with Bill Maher. [21] [22] [23]
He also used to write regular columns with Foreign Policy , The Daily Beast and Beirut-based Lebanese news website NOW Lebanon . [9]
In 2010, in a commentary piece for the Weekly Standard, Weiss criticized British Prime Minister David Cameron after Cameron, during a speech delivered in Ankara, referred to Gaza as a "prison camp". Weiss wrote that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan "is the man whom David Cameron was out to please ... Brutal occupation of Cyprus, subjugation of a Kurdish minority in everything from politics to linguistics, and ongoing denial of the Armenian genocide are evidently Maastricht-compatible initiatives to the new British prime minister". [24]
In March 2015, in a commentary piece cowritten with U.S. army intelligence officer Michael Pregent for the international affairs journal Foreign Policy, Weiss accused Iran-backed Iraqi Shia militias of committing extensive atrocities against Sunni civilians in the course of their war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. According to these reports, Weiss wrote, the militias were "burning people alive in their houses, playing soccer with severed human heads, and ethnically cleansing and razing whole villages to the ground." [25] [26] [27]
In 2016, Weiss interviewed Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė for The Daily Beast, about her claim that Russia was a terrorist state. The interview focused on Russia’s involvement in the Baltic, and allegations of corruption. [28]
In 2012, Weiss served as co-chair of the Russia Studies Centre at the trans-Atlantic foreign policy think tank Henry Jackson Society. [29]
In 2016, he was a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. [2]
Weiss is a director of special investigations at the Free Russia Foundation, where he oversees a project called the Lubyanka Files, intended to translate KGB training manuals still being used to train Russian spies. [30] [31] [3]
In December 2015, Weiss gave evidence to the U.S. Congress following the Islamist attacks on Paris on 13 November 2015. His testimony sought to address the question of whether the attacks signalled a change in strategy by ISIS. [32]
In 2015, Weiss co-wrote a book with Hassan Hassan on the rise of the militant group ISIS, titled ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror . [33] The book was chosen by The Wall Street Journal as one of 10 must-read works on the evolution of terrorism in the Middle East, [34] one of the London Times ' Best Books of 2015, [6] and The New York Times Editors' Choice in April 2015. [35] The book was reviewed favorably twice in The New York Times, [36] [37] The Guardian , [38] and The Wall Street Journal. [39] The Times' chief book critic, Michiko Kakutani, said the book gave readers "a fine-grained look at the organization’s evolution through assorted incarnations." [37] It has been translated into over a dozen languages. [40]
Weiss is reportedly writing a book about the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. [3] [21]
In 2013, Weiss launched online magazine The Interpreter, under the auspices of the Institute of Modern Russia and the Herzen Foundation. [13] The magazine describes itself as “a daily translation and analysis journal covering the actions and policies of the Russian government in both foreign and domestic spheres.” [15]
Weiss is editor-in-chief of the magazine. [14] He has also authored several reports under its name. [2]
One special report, published in 2014 with co-author Peter Pomerantsev, was titled “The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money.” [41] [42] [9] The report accused Russia of waging "propaganda and disinformation" campaigns, and was cited as evidence in a BBC News investigation on the matter. [43] It included recommendations on how to confront Russian propaganda which included creating an "internationally recognized ratings system for disinformation." The recommendations were criticized in an article written by James Carden – executive director of the lobbying organization [44] [45] [46] American Committee for East–West Accord – in The Nation as a "censorship campaign." [47]
Another report, published in 2015, was titled “An Invasion by Any Other Name: The Kremlin’s Dirty War in Ukraine.” [48] [49] It was co-authored with James Miller, Pierre Vaux, and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. The report confirmed Russia’s presence on the ground in eastern Ukraine. It was commended by former U.S. diplomat John E. Herbst, who authored the foreword. [48]
Weiss hosts Foreign Office with Michael Weiss, a podcast on intelligence and international security. [4] [50]
Weiss was nominated for an investigative reporting award at the European Press Prize in 2020, along with a number of collaborators. The nomination was for "Master and Chef," a report that proved Russia’s involvement in the Libyan civil war. [51] [52]
He was described in 2017 by a CNN executive editor as having “deep knowledge and an extensive source network in two key areas of focus right now: The Middle East and Russia.” [1]
He is married to Amy Thirjung. [53]
Peter Alexander Beinart is an American liberal columnist, journalist, and political commentator. A former editor of The New Republic, he has also written for Time, The New York Times, and The New York Review of Books among other periodicals. He is also the author of three books.
Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev is a Russian politician, security officer and former intelligence officer who served as the secretary of the Security Council of Russia from 2008 to 2024. He previously served as the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) from 1999 to 2008. Belonging to the siloviki faction of president Vladimir Putin's inner circle, Patrushev is believed to be one of the closest advisors to Putin and a leading figure behind Russia's national security affairs. He played a key role in the decisions to seize and then annex Crimea in 2014 and to invade Ukraine in 2022.
John Phillips Avlon is an American journalist and political commentator running for U.S. House representative of New York's 1st congressional district. As the Democratic nominee, he is challenging Republican incumbent Nick LaLota in the district's 2024 general election.
Husain Haqqani is a Pakistani journalist, academic, political activist, and former ambassador of Pakistan to Sri Lanka and the United States.
RT is a Russian state-controlled international news television network funded by the Russian government. It operates pay television and free-to-air channels directed to audiences outside of Russia, as well as providing Internet content in Russian, English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Portuguese and Serbian.
Peter Lampert Bergen is an American journalist, author, and producer who is CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America, a professor at Arizona State University, and the host of the Audible podcast In the Room with Peter Bergen.
Jeffrey Mark Goldberg is an American journalist and editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine. During his nine years at The Atlantic prior to becoming editor, Goldberg became known for his coverage of foreign affairs. Goldberg became moderator of the PBS program Washington Week in August 2023, while continuing as The Atlantic's editor.
Andrei Alekseyevich Soldatov is a Russian investigative journalist and Russian security services expert. Together with fellow journalist Irina Borogan he is co-founder and editor of the Agentura.Ru website.
The Daily Beast is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. Founded in 2008, the website is owned by IAC Inc.
Terrorism in Russia has a long history starting from the time of the Russian Empire. Terrorism, in the modern sense, means violence against civilians to achieve political or ideological objectives by creating extreme fear.
Spencer Ackerman is an American journalist and writer. Focusing primarily on national security, he began his career at The New Republic in 2002 before writing for Wired, The Guardian and The Daily Beast.
The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and by their Arabic acronym Daesh, are a transnational Salafi jihadist group. Their origins were in the Jaish al-Ta'ifa al-Mansurah organization founded by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in 2004. The organization affiliated itself with Al-Qaeda, so IS was originally a branch of Al-Qaeda and fought alongside them during the Iraqi insurgency. IS eventually split, and gained global prominence in 2014, when their militants successfully captured large territories in northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria, taking advantage of the ongoing Syrian civil war. Notorious for their perpetration of war crimes and extensive human rights violations, IS have engaged in the persecution of Christians, Mandaeans, Shia Muslims, and Sufi Sunnis, and published videos of beheadings and executions of journalists and aid workers. By the end of 2015, they ruled an area with an estimated population of 12 million people, where they enforced their extremist interpretation of Islamic law, managed an annual budget exceeding US$1 billion, and commanded more than 30,000 fighters.
Russian web brigades, also called Russian trolls, Russian bots, Kremlinbots, or Kremlin trolls are state-sponsored anonymous Internet political commentators and trolls linked to the Russian government. Participants report that they are organized into teams and groups of commentators that participate in Russian and international political blogs and Internet forums using sockpuppets, social bots, and large-scale orchestrated trolling and disinformation campaigns to promote pro-Putin and pro-Russian propaganda.
Victoria Penelope Jane Ward is a British-born American author, investigative journalist, editor-at-large, and television commentator. She was a Senior Reporter at CNN and a former magazine and newspaper editor who has featured in The New York Times Best Seller list.
Jessica Eve Stern is an American scholar and academic on terrorism. Stern serves as a research professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. Earlier she had been a lecturer at Harvard University. She serves on the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law. In 2001, she was featured in Time magazine's series on Innovators. In 2009, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work on trauma and violence. Her book ISIS: The State of Terror (2015), was co-authored with J.M. Berger.
Hassan Hassan is an American author and journalist of Syrian origin. He co-wrote the 2015 New York Times bestseller ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror with Michael Weiss. He has written on Islamist groups in the Middle East. He frequently appeared on The O'Reilly Factor, Amanpour and The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, and has written for The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Financial Times, and The Daily Beast, among others. Hassan is the founder and editor-in-chief of New Lines Magazine, a global affairs magazine.
This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.
Clint Watts is a senior fellow at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University and a Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow. He previously was an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was the Executive Officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at United States Military Academy at West Point (CTC). He became a Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation where he served on the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). He has consulted for the FBI Counterterrorism Division (CTD) and FBI National Security Branch (NSB).
Natalia Vladimirovna Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer. Her clients include Pyotr Katsyv, an official in the state-owned Russian Railways, and his son Denis Katsyv, whom she defended against a money laundering charge in New York. On 8 January 2019, Veselnitskaya was indicted in the United States with obstruction of justice charges for allegedly having attempted to thwart the Justice Department investigation into the money laundering charges against Katsyv.
Coda Media is a nonprofit news organization that produces journalism about the roots of major global crises. It was founded in 2016 by Natalia Antelava, a former BBC correspondent, and Ilan Greenberg, a magazine and newspaper writer who served as a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)In addition to grassroots support, we even had our own lobbying organization in Washington, the American Committee on East-West Accord, whose board included corporate CEOs, political figures, prominent academics and statesmen of the stature of George Kennan.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)