John Hockenberry

Last updated

John Hockenberry
John Hockenberry at New America NYC (Dis)Honesty - The Truth About Lies (19962005979) (cropped).jpg
John Hockenberry in 2015
Born
John Charles Hockenberry

(1956-06-04) June 4, 1956 (age 67)
Dayton, Ohio, United States
EducationStudied math at University of Chicago
Studied music at University of Oregon
Occupation(s)Radio and television journalist, author
Years active1980–present
Notable credit(s) HEAT with John Hockenberry , Talk of the Nation , ABC News, Dateline NBC , The Infinite Mind , Edgewise , Hockenberry , The Takeaway
Spouse(s)Chris Todd (19??–1984)
Alison Craiglow (1995–2017)
Children5

John Charles Hockenberry (born June 4, 1956) is an American journalist and author. He has reported from all over the world, on a wide variety of stories in several mediums for more than three decades. He has written dozens of magazine and newspaper articles, a play, and two books, including the bestselling memoir Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs, and Declarations of Independence, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the novel A River Out Of Eden. [1] He has written for The New York Times , The New Yorker , Wired , The Columbia Journalism Review , Metropolis , The Washington Post , and Harper's Magazine .

Contents

Hockenberry has appeared as a presenter or moderator at many design and idea conferences around the world including the TED conference, the World Science Festival in New York and in Brisbane, the Mayo Clinic's Transform Symposium, and the Aspen Comedy Festival. He has been a Distinguished Fellow at the MIT Media Lab and serves on the White House Fellows Committee.

He is a prominent figure in the disability rights movement; Hockenberry sustained a spinal cord injury in a car crash at age 19, which left him with paraplegia from the chest down.

In late 2017, several colleagues accused Hockenberry of harassment, unwanted touching and bullying. [2] [3] [4]

Biography

Early life

Hockenberry was born in Dayton, Ohio, [5] and grew up in Vestal, New York and Michigan. He graduated in 1974 from East Grand Rapids High School in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. [6] In 1976, he was paralyzed while hitchhiking on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. [7] The driver of the car fell asleep and crashed, killing herself. Hockenberry's spinal cord was damaged, and he remains paralyzed without sensation or voluntary movement from the mid-chest down. At the time he was a mathematics major at the University of Chicago, [8] but after his spinal cord injury, he transferred to the University of Oregon in 1980 and studied harpsichord and piano. [9]

Journalism career

Hockenberry started his career as a volunteer for the National Public Radio affiliate KLCC in Eugene, Oregon. [10] In 1981, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he was a newscaster. [11] From 1989 to 1990 he hosted a two-hour nightly news show called HEAT with John Hockenberry . During his 15 years with NPR, he covered many areas of the world, including an assignment as a Middle East correspondent, reporting on the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and 1992. Beginning in November 1991 he served as the first host of NPR's Talk of the Nation . [12]

After leaving NPR in 1992, [13] Hockenberry also worked for ABC News series Day One from 1993 to 1995, covering the civil war in Somalia and the early days of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, before joining Dateline NBC as a correspondent in 1996.

Hockenberry in 2012 John Hockenberry (cropped).jpg
Hockenberry in 2012
External videos
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg Booknotes interview with Hockenberry on Moving Violations, July 30, 1995, C-SPAN

In 1995, Hockenberry published his memoir Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs and Declarations of Independence. In 1996 he appeared off-Broadway in his one-man autobiographical play, Spoke Man. [14] From 1996 to 1997 he hosted Edgewise , an eclectic news magazine program that aired on MSNBC. [15]

In 1999, he hosted Hockenberry , a show which aired on MSNBC for six months. [16] He reported on the Kosovo War in 1999. His weekly radio commentaries aired on the nationally broadcast public radio program The Infinite Mind from 1998 to 2008. He also served as host on The DNA Files for the series airing in 1998, 2001, and 2007. He began developing The Takeaway in 2007 and hosted the show from its 2008 premiere until August 2017. [17]

Hockenberry has narrated several nonfiction projects on healthcare, including Nova series Survivor M.D.: Hearts & Minds,Who Cares: Chronic Illness in America, [18] Remaking American Medicine. [19] He also narrated the eugenics documentary, War Against the Weak.[ citation needed ]

He has written for The New York Times , The New Yorker , I.D. , Wired , [20] The Columbia Journalism Review , Details , and The Washington Post . He published his first novel, A River Out of Eden, in 2002, and he has written about "The Blogs of War" in Wired magazine. In May 2006, he began writing his own blog, "The Blogenberry". [21]

On April 2, 2008, he hosted the premiere of the series Nanotechnology: The Power of Small, discussing the impact of nanotechnology as concerns the general public. [22]

Hockenberry has appeared as presenter and moderator at numerous design and idea conferences around the nation including the Aspen Design Summit, The TED conference, the World Science Festival, and the Aspen Comedy Festival. He also regularly speaks on media, journalism, and disability issues. He was one of the founding inductees to the Spinal Cord Injury Hall of Fame in 2005.[ citation needed ]

In a New York Magazine exposé, published December 1, 2017, journalist Suki Kim accused Hockenberry of sexually harassing her and other women he had worked with on The Takeaway. [23]

Media criticism

In 2005 he wrote a scathing review of the Academy Award-winning film Million Dollar Baby called "And the Loser Is..." [24] The review was submitted to a disability website with the title "Million Dollar Bigot" as an exclusive feature. The essay was discussed in news articles globally, and Hockenberry was interviewed about it on FAIR's weekly news show Counterspin . [25] A short documentary film was made, also called Million Dollar Bigot, completed on July 13, 2005, featuring Hockenberry as well as many other disability activists. [26]

Hockenberry wrote in the January 2008 Technology Review magazine that on the Sunday after the September 11 attacks he was pitching stories on the origins of al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism. [27] He wrote that then-NBC programming chief Jeff Zucker, who came into a meeting Hockenberry was having with Dateline executive producer David Corvo, said Dateline should instead focus on the firefighters and perhaps ride along with them à la COPS , a Fox reality series. According to Hockenberry, Zucker said "that he had no time for any subtitled interviews with jihadists raging about Palestine." Hockenberry has further claimed that General Electric, NBC's parent company, discouraged him from talking to the Bin Laden family about their estranged family member. Hockenberry says that he asked GE, which does business with the Bin Laden family company, to help him get in contact with them. Instead, a PR executive called Hockenberry's hotel room in Saudi Arabia and read him a statement about how GE didn't see its "valuable business relationship" with the Bin Laden Group as having anything to do with Dateline. In another instance, Hockenberry claimed a story he did about a Weather Underground member would not appear on the Sunday edition of Dateline unless the 1960s family drama American Dreams , which followed Dateline in the schedule at the time, did a show about "protesters or something." [28]

Personal life

Hockenberry is divorced from Alison Craiglow, whom he married in 1995. [29] They have five children, including two sets of twins: Zoe, Olivia, Regan, Zachary, and Ajax.

Hockenberry was previously married to Chris Todd. The couple had no children, and divorced in 1984. [30]

Sexual harassment allegations

In December 2017, author Suki Kim accused Hockenberry of sexual harassment, stating that he had sent suggestive emails and made unwanted sexual advances to her and other women. [31] He had left New York Public Radio the previous August, but NYPR president and chief executive Laura Ruth Walker said, "[H]e was not terminated for sexual misconduct.” [32] In a lengthy essay titled "Exile" that was published in the October 2018 issue of Harper's , Hockenberry discussed his "personal and public shame" regarding the episode. [33]

Works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Ailes</span> American TV executive and consultant (1940–2017)

Roger Eugene Ailes was an American television executive and media consultant. He was the chairman and CEO of Fox News, Fox Television Stations and 20th Television. Ailes was a media consultant for US Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, and for Rudy Giuliani's 1989 New York City mayoral election. In July 2016, he was forced out of Fox News after sexually harassing many female Fox employees, including on-air hosts Gretchen Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and Andrea Tantaros.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NBC News</span> News division of NBCUniversal

NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations report to the president of NBC News, Rebecca Blumenstein. The NBCUniversal News Group also comprises MSNBC, the network's 24-hour general news channel, business and consumer news channels CNBC and CNBC World, the Spanish language Noticias Telemundo and United Kingdom–based Sky News.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Matthews</span> American news anchor (born 1945)

Christopher John Matthews is an American political commentator, retired talk show host, and author. Matthews hosted his weeknight hour-long talk show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, on America's Talking and later on MSNBC, from 1997 until March 2, 2020. He announced on his final episode that he was retiring, following an accusation that he had made inappropriate comments to a Hardball guest four years earlier. On that occasion, he stated: "The younger generation's out there ready to take the reins. We see them in politics, in media, in fighting for their causes. They're improving the workplace."

Alison Stewart is an American journalist and author. Stewart first gained widespread visibility as a political correspondent for MTV News in the 1990s. She is the host of WNYC's midday show, All of It with Alison Stewart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matt Lauer</span> Former American journalist

Matthew Todd Lauer is an American former television news personality, best known for his work with NBC News. After serving as a local news personality in New York City on WNBC, his first national exposure was as the news anchor for The Today Show from 1994 to 1997. In 1997, he was moved from the news desk to the host's chair, and served as the co-host of NBC's Today show from 1997 to 2017. He was also a frequent contributor for the evening news magazine Dateline NBC. With NBC, Lauer hosted the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and co-hosted the opening ceremonies of several Olympic Games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kate Snow</span> American television journalist (born 1969)

Kate Snow is an American television journalist for NBC News, serving as Senior National Correspondent to various NBC platforms, including Today, NBC Nightly News, Dateline NBC, and MSNBC. Snow also anchors the Sunday edition of NBC Nightly News, and frequently substitutes for the weekday and Saturday broadcast. Snow also previously hosted MSNBC Live.

<i>Imus in the Morning</i> US radio program (1968-2018)

Imus in the Morning was a long-running radio show hosted by Don Imus. The show originated on June 2, 1968, on various stations in the Western United States and Cleveland, Ohio, before settling on WNBC radio in New York City in 1971. In October 1988, the show moved to WFAN when that station took over WNBC's dial position following an ownership change. It was later syndicated to 60 other stations across the country by Westwood One, a division of CBS Radio, airing weekdays from 5:30 to 10 am Eastern time. Beginning September 3, 1996, the 6 to 9 am portion was simulcast on the cable television network MSNBC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Halperin</span> American journalist

Mark Evan Halperin is an American journalist, television cable host, and commentator for the conservative Newsmax TV. Halperin previously had worked as the political director for ABC News, where he also served as the editor of the Washington, D.C., newsletter The Note. In 2010, Halperin joined MSNBC, becoming the senior political analyst and a contributor. Along with John Heilemann, Halperin served as co-managing editor of Bloomberg Politics. Halperin and Heilemann co-wrote Game Change and Double Down: Game Change 2012, were co-hosts of MSNBC and Bloomberg's With All Due Respect, and produced and co-starred with Mark McKinnon in Showtime's The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth, which followed the presidential candidates behind the scenes of their campaigns in the 2016 United States Presidential Election.

Adaora Udoji is an American journalist and producer. She has worked in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and artificial intelligence (AI). She is an adviser to VR-AR Association-NYC Chapter, an adjunct professor at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program at the Tisch School of the Arts, and an occasional investor.

<i>The Takeaway</i> Morning radio news program

The Takeaway was a weekday radio news program co-created and co-produced by Public Radio International and WNYC. Its editorial partner was GBH; at launch the BBC World Service and The New York Times were also editorial partners. In addition to co-producing the program, PRX also distributed the program nationwide to its affiliated stations. The program debuted on WNYC in New York, WGBH in Boston, and WEAA in Baltimore. At time of its last broadcast, the program had approximately 241 carrying stations across the country, including markets in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Miami, Portland, Boston, and more.

<i>To Catch a Predator</i> American reality television series

To Catch a Predator is an American reality television series in the television news magazine program Dateline NBC featuring confrontations of host Chris Hansen, partly filmed with a hidden camera, with adult men arriving at a sting house to have sex with a minor and typically being arrested as a result. The minors are adults impersonating underage persons in online chats.

New Mobility, launched in 1989, is a United States-based magazine for active wheelchair users. This monthly publication covers health, disability rights, adaptive technology and lifestyle topics such as recreation, travel, the arts, relationships, sexuality, parenting, employment and home modification. It also profiles successful wheelchair users, including John Hockenberry, Christopher Voelker, Brooke Ellison, Chantal Petitclerc and the late Christopher Reeve. New Mobility, received an Utne Independent Press Award for Lifestyle Coverage in 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suki Kim</span> Korean American journalist and writer

Suki Kim is a Korean American journalist and writer. She is the author of two books: the award-winning novel The Interpreter and a book of investigative journalism, Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's Elite. Kim is the only writer ever to have lived undercover in North Korea to conduct immersive journalism. Kim is currently a contributing editor at The New Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NPR</span> American nonprofit media organization

National Public Radio is an American non-profit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national syndicator to a network of over 1,000 public radio stations in the United States. It differs from other non-profit membership media organizations, such as the Associated Press, in that it was established by an act of Congress.

Hockenberry is an American television talk show-style current affairs program that aired on MSNBC in 1998 and 1999. It was hosted by and named after journalist John Hockenberry and aired each weeknight.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celeste Headlee</span> American journalist (born 1969)

Celeste Headlee is an American radio journalist, author, public speaker, and co-host of the weekly series Retro Report on PBS. In her 20-year career in public radio, Headlee has served as the host of the Georgia Public Broadcasting program "On Second Thought" and co-host of the national morning news show The Takeaway. Before 2009, she was the Midwest Correspondent for NPR's Day to Day and the host of a weekly show on Detroit Public Radio. Headlee is the author of We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter.

Michael Oreskes is an American journalist who worked at the New York Daily News and for 20 years at The New York Times. Oreskes later became the vice president and senior managing editor at the Associated Press before joining NPR as senior vice president of news and editorial director in 2015. Oreskes was ousted in 2017 amid allegations of sexual harassment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Lack (executive)</span>

Andrew Lack is a businessman, film executive and television executive. He was the chairman of NBC News and MSNBC from 2015 to 2020.

The Weinstein effect is a global trend in which allegations of sexual misconduct by famous or powerful figures are disclosed. The first of a worldwide wave of allegations were made in the United States in October 2017, when media outlets reported on the allegations made against film producer Harvey Weinstein. They were described as a "tipping point" or "watershed moment" and precipitated an "international reckoning" against sexual harassment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tanzina Vega</span> American journalist

Tanzina Vega is an American journalist whose positions have ranged from weekday host of The Takeaway, a public radio show, to CNNMoney national reporter for race and inequality in America, to staff reporter at The New York Times, where she created and covered a beat on race and ethnicity for the national desk, as well as reporting for the metro section and business desk.

References

  1. ↑ Richards, Linda L. (June 2001). Interview: John Hockenberry. January Magazine
  2. ↑ "#MeToo Hits Home: John Hockenberry Accused of Harassment, Bullying". WNYC . Retrieved December 5, 2017.
  3. ↑ Chokshi, Niraj (December 4, 2017). "John Hockenberry, Former WNYC Radio Host, Is Accused of Sexual Harassment". The New York Times . Retrieved December 5, 2017.
  4. ↑ Udoji, Adaora (December 6, 2017). "I was a co-host with John Hockenberry on WNYC. The experience was scarring". The Guardian .
  5. ↑ Hockenberry, John (April 18, 2007). Lessons from Jack Hockenberry. Metropolis
  6. ↑ Martinez, Shandra (November 07, 2010). East Grand Rapids High graduate and award-winning journalist John Hockenberry speaks at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum. mlive.com
  7. ↑ Price, Nelson (September 14, 1995). John Hockenberry's jobs with NPR have allowed him to see the world on wheels. Indianapolis Star
  8. ↑ Cawley, Janet (February 28, 1993). Globetrotting in a wheelchair: No challenge can stop ABC's Hockenberry. Chicago Tribune
  9. ↑ Lipton, Michael A. (June 6, 1994). Man in the Driver's Seat. People
  10. ↑ Roberts, Roxanne (July 23, 1992). Correspondent on Wheels; NPR's John Hockenberry, Moving to ABC. Washington Post
  11. ↑ Murray, Michael D. (1999). Encyclopedia of Television News, pp. 98-99. Greenwood Publishing Group; ISBN   978-1-57356-108-2
  12. ↑ Cooke, Anne Marie; Reisner, Neil H. (December 1991). The Last Minority. American Journalism Review
  13. ↑ Cox, Ana Marie (May 1999). John Hockenberry. Mother Jones , pp. 40-43.
  14. ↑ Mandell, Jonathan (March 3, 1996). ON A ROLL?/It may be hip to be 'crip' on stage and film, but try getting a wheel in the door, Newsday ; accessed January 2, 2018.
  15. ↑ Heffernan, Virginia (August 1997). Anatomy of a cancellation: how MSNBC's Edgewise went over the edge Archived 2005-06-22 at the Wayback Machine , Salon.com; accessed January 2, 2018.
  16. ↑ Kurtz, Howard (July 8, 1999). MSNBC Drops 'Hockenberry' Talk Show; Award-Winning Journalist to Return to 'Dateline NBC' Full Time After Only Six Months Archived November 5, 2012, at the Wayback Machine , Washington Post ; accessed January 2, 2018.
  17. ↑ Simon, Clea (October 11, 2007). The Takeaway host will step-down from his show-hosting duties at weeks end in August 2017 (8/7/17)."Public radio's new morning show set to go", Boston Globe ; accessed January 2, 2018.
  18. ↑ Who Cares: Chronic Illness in America via PBS
  19. ↑ "RAM Host - John Hockenberry". www.RAMCampaign.org. Retrieved December 5, 2017.
  20. ↑ Hockenberry, John (August 2001.) The Next Brainiacs. Wired
  21. ↑ Van Til, Reinder; Olson Gordon L. (2007). Thin ice: coming of age in Grand Rapids. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing; ISBN   978-0-8028-2478-3
  22. ↑ Press release (March 10, 2008). New Nanotechnology Television Series Does "Sweat the Small Stuff", Nanotechnology Now (via powerofsmall.org; accessed January 2, 2018.
  23. ↑ "Ex-Radio Host John Hockenberry Accused of Sexual Harassment by Multiple Former Employees". The Hollywood Reporter. December 2, 2017. Retrieved December 5, 2017.
  24. ↑ Hockenberry, John (2005). "And the Loser Is..." MillionDollarBigot.org via Not Dead Yet. .
  25. ↑ Jackson, Janine; Randall, Steve (March 4, 2005). John Hockenberry on Million Dollar Baby, Dahr Jamail on Iraq. Counterspin
  26. ↑ Detweiler, Craig (2008). Into the dark: seeing the sacred in the top films of the 21st century. Baker Academic, ISBN   978-0-8010-3592-0
  27. ↑ Hockenberry, John (January/February 2008). You Don't Understand Our Audience: What I learned about network television at Dateline NBC. Technology Review
  28. ↑ Gough, Paul J. (January 2, 2008). "Former "Dateline" reporter blasts NBC". The Hollywood Reporter .
  29. ↑ Staff report (October 22, 1995). WEDDINGS; Alison Craiglow, John Hockenberry. The New York Times
  30. ↑ Lipton, Michael A. (June 6, 1994). "Man in the Driver's Seat". People (magazine). Archived from the original on December 13, 2017. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  31. ↑ Kim, Suki (December 1, 2017). "Public-Radio Icon John Hockenberry Accused of Harassing Female Colleagues". The Cut. New York Magazine. Retrieved March 29, 2019.
  32. ↑ Hockenberry wasn’t terminated for sex misconduct: NYPR chief, New York Post. 5 December 2017.
  33. ↑ Exile Harpers. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.