Mara Liasson (; born June 13, 1955) is an American journalist and political pundit. She is the national political correspondent for

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

Biography
at National Public Radio's website and also a contributor at

Fox News Channel The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is ...

.Biography
at Fox News' website

Early life

Liasson was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

to a Jewish family. She grew up in

Scarsdale, New York Scarsdale is a town and village in Westchester County, New York, United States. The Town of Scarsdale is coextensive with the Village of Scarsdale, but the community has opted to operate solely with a village government, one of several village ...

and graduated from Scarsdale High School in 1973. Additionally, when she was studying at Scarsdale High School, she was one of a few students to form the Scarsdale Alternative School, an experimental democratic community that still exists today. She is a graduate of

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

(class of 1977) with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

degree in

American history The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Numerous indigenous cultures formed, and many saw transformations in the 16th century away from more densel ...

Career

Liasson was a freelance radio and television reporter in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

and worked at Berkeley's

KPFA KPFA (94.1 FM) is an American listener-funded talk radio and music radio station located in Berkeley, California, broadcasting to the San Francisco Bay Area. KPFA airs public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming. The station sig ...

before joining NPR in 1985. She was awarded a Knight-Bagehot

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

ship in Economics and Business JournalismProfile
at Jewish Ann Arbor to study at

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City. Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism ...

for a year; she took leave to do that in 1988–89, then became NPR's congressional correspondent. She was NPR's White House correspondent from 1992 to 2001, receiving the

White House Correspondents' Association The White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) is an organization of journalists who cover the White House and the president of the United States. The WHCA was founded on February 25, 1914, by journalists in response to an unfounded rumor t ...

's Merriman Smith Award for daily news coverage for 1994, 1995 and 1997. She is now NPR's national political correspondent. She joined Fox News in 1997. She is a regular contributor to '' Special Report with Bret Baier'' and a panelist on ''

FOX News Sunday ''Fox News Sunday'' is a Sunday morning talk show that has aired on the broadcast Fox network since 1996, as a presentation of Fox News Channel. It is the only regularly scheduled Fox News program carried on the main Fox broadcast network. Ho ...

''. She has also worked as a panelist for the

WETA-TV WETA-TV (channel 26) is the primary PBS member television station in Washington, D.C. Owned by the Greater Washington Educational Telecommunications Association, it is a sister station to NPR member WETA (90.9 FM). The two outlets share stud ...

weekend news program ''

Washington Week ''Washington Week''—previously ''Washington Week in Review''—is an American public affairs television program, which has aired on PBS and its predecessor, National Educational Television, since 1967. Unlike other panel discussion shows whic ...

'', which is aired on many PBS member stations.

Personal life

She is married to Jonathan Cuneo, a partner in the law firm of Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca in Washington, D.C. They have three children and at least one grandchild. Liasson is a member of the

Sixth & I The Sixth & I Historic Synagogue is a non-denominational, non-membership, non-traditional Jewish synagogue located at the corner of Sixth Street and I Street, NW in the Chinatown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It is one of the oldest synagogue ...

historic synagogue in Washington, D.C.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Liasson, Mara 1955 births Jewish American writers Brown University alumni Living people NPR personalities American television reporters and correspondents American television news anchors People from Scarsdale, New York American women television journalists Fox News people Scarsdale High School alumni 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American women