WASHINGTON WEEK: REPORTERS

Dan Balz: National Political Correspondent, The Washington Post

Dan Balz is national political correspondent at The Washington Post. He joined the paper in 1978 and has been involved in the paper’s political coverage as a reporter or editor for the past 20 years. Balz has served as national editor, political editor, White House correspondent and as the paper’s Texas-based southwest correspondent. He is co-author, with Ronald Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times, of the 1996 book Storming the Gates: Protest Politics and the Republican Revival.

In 1999, he received the American Political Science Association award for his coverage of politics. Before working for the Post, he worked as a reporter and deputy editor for National Journal and as a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

He was born in Freeport, Illinois, and graduated from the University of Illinois. He is married to Nancy Johnson Balz, and they have one son.

Richard L. Berke:The New York Times

Richard L. Berke is the national political correspondent for The New York Times, responsible for guiding coverage of the 2000 presidential election as well as the paper’s overall political coverage. He joined the Washington bureau of the Times in 1986 and has covered Congress, the White House, domestic policy and politics, and finance. Berke was also an editor in the bureau. He has covered every presidential campaign for the Times since 1988.

Berke also is a senior writer for the Times and has been its chief political reporter since 1993. Before working for the Times, Berke was a reporter for five years for the Baltimore Evening Sun, where his beats included Washington, D.C., as well as City Hall. He has also worked for the Minneapolis Tribune and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.

Berke graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor of arts degree in political science in 1980 and received a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1981. In November 1999, Brill’s Content magazine named him one of the most influential figures in American media. Berke is a member of the Senior Advisory Board of the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government at HarvardUniversity. He was a fellow at the institute in 1997, where he taught a weekly seminar on the press and American politics.

Berke is a native of, and currently lives in, Washington, D.C.

JEFFREY BIRNBAUM:Washington Bureau Chief, Fortune Magazine

Jeffrey Birnbaum is a four-time author and chief of the Washington, D.C. bureau of Fortune Magazine. He specializes in covering the intersection of government and business, with an emphasis on the White House, lobbying and national politics. As Fortune’s senior writer in D.C., he organizes and authors the magazine’s well-regarded Power 25 survey that assesses which interest groups have the most clout in the nation’s capital. Birnbaum joined Fortune in January 1997 after two years as a senior political correspondent for Fortune’s sister publication Time magazine and, before that, 16 years with The Wall Street Journal.

He published an important book about campaign fundraising called The Money Men in June 2000. Birnbaum’s other books include Showdown at Gucci Gulch, with Alan S. Murray, as well as The Lobbyists and Madhouse, for which he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

A native of Scranton, Pennsylvania, Birnbaum graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He currently lives outside Washington with his wife and three children.

JOAN BISKUPIC: Legal Affairs Correspondent, USA TODAY

Joan Biskupic has covered the Supreme Court since 1989. Before joining USA TODAY in June 2000, she was the Supreme Court reporter for The Washington Post (1992-2000) and legal affairs writer for Congressional Quarterly (1989-1992). Prior to that, she covered government and politics for newspapers in Wisconsin and Oklahoma.

Biskupic holds a law degree from GeorgetownUniversity, a master’s in English from the University of Oklahoma and a bachelor’s in journalism from MarquetteUniversity. She is the author of several reference books, including Congressional Quarterly’s two-volume encyclopedia on the Supreme Court (3rd Ed., 1997, with co-author Elder Witt).

Biskupic is married and has a young daughter.

GLORIA BORGER: Contributing Editor, U.S. News & World Report and CBS News

Gloria Borger joined U.S. News & World Report in 1986 as a political reporter and now as contributing editor writes the magazine’s “On Politics” column. She is also a special correspondent for CBS News, contributing regularly to “CBS Evening News with Dan Rather,” “60 Minutes II” and to CBS News special events coverage. She appears weekly as a panelist on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Borger began her career at the Washington bureau of Newsweek magazine where she worked as a general assignment reporter covering a variety of stories ranging from the Three-MileIsland nuclear accident to presidential campaigns. Politics soon became her permanent beat, and she was named Newsweek’s chief congressional correspondent.

Borger first entered journalism as a reporter at the now defunct Washington Star, where she won a series of Front Page awards. While there, she co-authored Federal Triangle, a spoof about political life in Washington.

Borger is a graduate of ColgateUniversity in Hamilton, New York, and is now a member of the board of trustees. She was the recipient of an IBM-sponsored Watson Traveling Fellowship to study the British press.Borger lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, Lance Morgan, and their two sons.

DAVID S. BRODER:National Political Correspondent, The Washington Post

David S. Broder, a national political correspondent reporting on the political scene for The Washington Post, writes a twice-weekly column that covers an even broader aspect of American political life. The column, syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group, is carried by more than 300 newspapers around the globe. Broder is also a commentator on CNN’s “Inside Politics,” and makes regular appearances on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Before joining the Post in 1966, Broder covered national politics for The New York Times (1965-66), The Washington Star (1960-65) and Congressional Quarterly (1955-60). He began his newspaper career at the Bloomington (Illinois) Pantagraph after serving two years in the U.S. Army. Broder has covered every national campaign and convention since 1960, traveling up to 100,000 miles a year to interview voters and report on the candidates.

He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for distinguished commentary and has been named “Best Newspaper Political Reporter” by Washington Journalism Review, among many other industry accolades.

Broder received a bachelor’s degree and a master of arts in political science from the University of Chicago. Broder and his wife, the former Ann Creighton Collar, have four grown sons and make their home in Arlington, Virginia.

CECI CONNOLLY: National Staff Writer, The Washington Post

Ceci Connolly has been a national staff writer at The Washington Post since 1997. She is currently writing about health care in America. Her articles cover a wide range of subjects, including Medicare and Medicaid reform, bioterrorism, the uninsured, the pharmaceutical industry and the debate over embryonic stem cell research.

In 1997, she produced a three-part, behind-the-scenes look at the tobacco wars and, in 1998, she was the lead House reporter on the midterm congressional elections. She has written extensively about two House speakers - Newt Gingrich and Dennis Hastert - and Vice President Gore.

Prior to joining the Post, Connolly was a Washington correspondent for the St. Petersburg Times, where she covered Congress from the early days of the Republican revolution in 1994 through the 1995 budget debate. Aside from politics, she focused much of her coverage on issues of importance to Florida such as the environment, Medicare and Social Security.

In 1996, Connolly was assigned to the Bob Dole presidential campaign, chronicling his legislative career, his near-fatal war wounds and his style on the campaign trail. She traveled to more than 30 states with the campaign. Prior to the St. Petersburg Times, Connolly worked for Congressional Quarterly. At the weekly magazine, she wrote about politics and health care. She also worked for the Associated Press and two New England dailies.

A native of Pennsylvania, Connolly is a graduate of BostonCollege and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. She and her husband live in Washington, D.C.

JEANNE CUMMINGS: White House Correspondent, Wall Street Journal

Jeanne Cummings joined the Wall Street Journal Washington bureau in 1997 as a political reporter and moved to the White House beat a year later. In 2000, she won the Aldo Beckman Memorial Award, the highest honor for daily White House correspondents, for her coverage of the Clinton Administration.

Prior to working for the Wall Street Journal, Cummings worked for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, first in Atlanta covering politics and the governor’s office and then in its Washington bureau, where she tracked the career of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. In 1997, she won a National Press Club award for groundbreaking coverage of Gingrich’s complex financial and political support network and the House ethics investigation of it.

During her career, Cummings has covered every level of government, from city councils to the White House. She has reported on numerous statewide races, congressional contests and three presidential campaigns.

Cummings is a native of Maryland. She graduated cum laude from the University of Maryland in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a minor in political science.

MICHAEL DUFFY:Washington Bureau Chief, Time

Michael Duffy is Time magazine’s Washington bureau chief and has been at the center of the magazine’s coverage of politics and presidents for 10 years. Duffy joined Time in 1985 as a Pentagon correspondent and was assigned to cover Congress a year later. He spent six years covering both the George H.W. Bush and Clinton White House for Time and has won numerous awards for his reporting.

Since 1997, Duffy has overseen 20 correspondents at the newsmagazine’s largest news bureau. He is the co-author, with Time’s Dan Goodgame, of Marching in Place: The Status Quo Presidency of George Bush.

A native of Columbus, Ohio, Duffy graduated from OberlinCollege in 1980 and lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with his wife and three sons.

JULIET EILPERIN:Reporter, Capitol Hill, Washington Post

Juliet Eilperin graduated magna cum laude from PrincetonUniversity in 1992, where she received a bachelor’s degree in Politics with a certificate in Latin American Studies.

In the fall of 1992, she went to Seoul, South Korea on a Luce Scholarship, which allowed her to cover politics and economics for an English-language magazine. Returning to Washington, Eilperin wrote for Louisiana and Florida papers at States News Service and then joined Roll Call newspaper after the Republicans seized Congress in 1994.

In March 1998, she joined The Washington Post as its House reporter, where she has covered impeachment, lobbying, legislation, and two national congressional campaigns. During her first year at the Post, Eilperin was the most prolific writer on the news staff, writing more than 200 stories.

THOMAS FRIEDMAN:Foreign Affairs Columnist, The New York Times

Thomas Friedman is a foreign affairs columnist at The New York Times, a post he has held since 1995. He first joined the Times in 1981 as a general assignment financial reporter, where he specialized in OPEC and oil-related news, and has since traveled hundreds of thousands of miles around the world acting as a bureau chief for the Times in several middle-eastern countries.

Friedman has published several books, including From Beirut to Jerusalem, which has been published in 10 different languages; The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization; as well as text to accompany Micha Bar-Am’s photographs for the book Israel: A Photobiography.

For his coverage of the Middle East, Friedman was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in 1983 and 1988.

Friedman graduated summa cum laude from BrandeisUniversity with a degree in Mediterranean studies. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife, Ann, and his daughters, Orly and Natalie.

TOM GJELTEN:National Security Correspondent, National Public Radio

Tom Gjelten reports on national security issues from Washington, D.C., for National Public Radio’s (NPR) award-winning newsmagazines, “All Things Considered,” “Morning Edition,” and “Weekend Edition.”

Gjelten returned to Washington in 1994 after eight years of overseas assignments. From September 1990 to December 1993, Gjelten was based in Berlin as NPR’s correspondent for Eastern and Central Europe. He reported such major stories as the reunification of Germany and the transition from communism to democracy and market economics. With other NPR correspondents, Gjelten also covered the war in the Persian Gulf and the breakup of the Soviet Union.

From 1991 to 1994, Gjelten’s major assignment was in the former Yugoslavia, where he covered the Serb-Croat conflict in Croatia and the war in Bosnia. His book Sarajevo Daily: A City and Its Newspaper Under Siege (Harper-Collins), is based on his reporting from Sarajevo.

From 1986 to 1989, Gjelten was NPR’s Latin American correspondent, based in Mexico City. During that period he covered the Central American conflicts, the crisis in Panama, the drug wars in Columbia, and politics and social issues in Mexico, Argentina, and other Latin American countries.

Since joining NPR in 1983 as labor and education reporter, Gjelten has won numerous awards for his work. Most recently, his coverage of the Yugoslav conflict earned Gjelten a Lowell Thomas Award from the Overseas Press Club, a George Polk Award for Radio Reporting and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.

Gjelten is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and the AntiochGraduateSchool in Keene, New Hampshire. In 1989-90, he was a William Benton Fellow at the University of Chicago.

LINDA GREENHOUSE:Supreme Court Correspondent, The New York Times

Linda Greenhouse began covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times in 1978. With the exception of two years during the mid-1980s, during which she covered Congress, she has been the paper’s Supreme Court correspondent. Previously, she covered local and state government and politics for the Times in New York and was chief of the newspaper’s legislative bureau in Albany. She has appeared as a “Washington Week” panelist since 1980.

She is a graduate of RadcliffeCollege, where she currently serves on the advisory committee to the Schlesinger Library on the History of American Women. She earned a Master of Studies in Law degree from YaleLawSchool and has several honorary degrees. For her coverage of the Court, she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Journalism (beat reporting) in 1998.

She lives in Bethesda, MD, with her husband, Eugene Fidell, and daughter, Hannah.

JOHN HARRIS:Guest Scholar, Governmental Studies, The Brookings Institution

John Harris is currently on leave from The Washington Post to write a history of the Clinton, administration. He is serving as a guest scholar at the Brookings Insitution - focusing on the presidency and national politics - while completing his book.

Harris joined the Post in 1985 as a summer intern and worked his way up through a succession of local and national beats, including the emerging outer suburbs of Northern Virginia, Virginia state government and politics, the Pentagon - including the U.S. military intervention in Haiti - and the White House.

A native of Rochester, New York, Harris graduated from CarletonCollege in Northfield, Minnesota, where he studied American history. He lives with his wife, Ann O’Hanlon, in Alexandria, Virginia.

JOHN HARWOOD:National Political Editor, The Wall Street Journal

John Harwood was born in Louisville, Kentucky and grew up in the Maryland suburbs outside of the nation’s capital. While still in high school, he began his journalism career as a copy boy at the now-defunct Washington Star. He studied history and economics at DukeUniversity and graduated magna cum laude in 1978.

Following graduation, Harwood joined the St. Petersburg Times, reporting on police, investigative projects, local government and politics. Later he became state capital correspondent, Washington correspondent and political editor. His assignments ranged from presidential campaigns to unrest against the apartheid regime in South Africa, which he visited three times during the 1980s.

In 1989, Harwood was named a Nieman Fellow at HarvardUniversity, where he spent the 1989-90 academic year. He joined The Wall Street Journal in 1991 as White House correspondent. He subsequently covered Congress and national politics, and became National Political Editor in 1997. He has reported on each of the last five American presidential elections.

Harwood lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with his wife, Frankie Blackburn, and their three daughters.

JANET HOOK:Congressional Correspondent,Los Angeles Times