Peter L.W. Osnos (born October 13, 1943) is an American journalist who is the founder of PublicAffairs Books.

Early life

Osnos was born in India to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

refugee family from Warsaw, Poland. He is the son of Joseph Osnos and Marta Osnos, who later settled in New York. Osnos graduated from

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , ...

and the

Columbia 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 s ...

Career

In 1965, Osnos began his journalism career as an editorial assistant to investigative journalist I. F. Stone on his weekly newsletter. From 1966 to 1984, Osnos worked for ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

;'' he was a foreign correspondent in Vietnam, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom, and he also served as foreign editor and national editor. Osnos was a regular commentator for

National Public Radio 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 ...

's ''

Morning Edition ''Morning Edition'' is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings (Monday through Friday) and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 A ...

'' and co-host of ''Communiqué''. In 1984, he joined

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

, where he worked until 1996 as a senior editor, vice president, and associate publisher, and as publisher of the

Times Books Times Books (previously the New York Times Book Company) is a publishing imprint owned by the New York Times Company and licensed to Henry Holt and Company. Times Books began as the New York Times Book Company in 1969, when The New York Times Com ...

division. In 1997, he founded PublicAffairs. He served as Publisher and CEO until 2005 and, then, as Consulting Editor until December 31, 2020. Authors he has published or edited include former

President Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1 ...

Rosalynn Carter Eleanor Rosalynn Carter ( ; née Smith; born August 18, 1927) is an American writer and activist who served as First Lady of the United States from 1977 to 1981 as the wife of President Jimmy Carter. For decades, she has been a leading advocate ...

Sid Caesar Isaac Sidney Caesar (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2014) was an American comic actor, comedian and writer. With a career spanning 60 years, he was best known for two pioneering 1950s live television series: ''Your Show of Shows'' (1950� ...

Clark Clifford Clark McAdams Clifford (December 25, 1906October 10, 1998) was an American lawyer who served as an important political adviser to Democratic presidents Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter. His official gove ...

, former

President Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again f ...

, Leonard Downie, Jr.,

Paul Farmer Paul Edward Farmer (October 26, 1959 – February 21, 2022) was an American medical anthropologist and physician. Farmer held an MD and PhD from Harvard University, where he was a University Professor and the chair of the Department of Glob ...

, Earvin (Magic) Johnson,

Kareem Abdul Jabbar Kareem (alternatively spelled Karim or Kerim) ( ar, کریم) is a common given name and surname of Arabic origin that means "generous", "noble", "honorable". It is also one of the Names of God in Islam in the Quran. Given name Karim * Karim Ab ...

Sam Donaldson Samuel Andrew Donaldson Jr. (born March 11, 1934) is an American former reporter and news anchor, serving with ABC News from 1967 to 2009. He is best known as the network's White House Correspondent (1977–1989 and 1998–99) and as a panelist ...

Kenneth Feinberg Kenneth Roy Feinberg (born October 23, 1945) is an American attorney specializing in mediation and alternative dispute resolution. He served as the Chief of Staff to Senator Ted Kennedy, Special Master of the U.S. government's September 11th ...

, Annette Gordon Reed, Meg Greenfield,

Dorothy Height Dorothy Irene Height (March 24, 1912 – April 20, 2010) was an African American civil rights and women's rights activist. She focused on the issues of African American women, including unemployment, illiteracy, and voter awareness. Height is cr ...

Don Hewitt Donald Shepard Hewitt (December 14, 1922 – August 19, 2009) was an American television news producer and executive, best known for creating the CBS television news magazine ''60 Minutes'' in 1968, which at the time of his death was the longest- ...

Molly Ivins Mary Tyler "Molly" Ivins (August 30, 1944 – January 31, 2007) was an American newspaper columnist, author, political commentator, and humorist. Born in California and raised in Texas, Ivins attended Smith College and the Columbia Univers ...

Vernon Jordan Vernon Eulion Jordan Jr. (August 15, 1935 – March 1, 2021) was an American business executive and civil rights attorney who worked for various civil rights movement organizations before becoming a close advisor to President Bill Clinton. Jor ...

, Murray Kempton,

Wendy Kopp Wendy is a given name now generally given to girls in English-speaking countries. In Britain, Wendy appeared as a masculine name in a parish record in 1615. It was also used as a surname in Britain from at least the 17th century. Its popularity ...

Charles Krauthammer Charles Krauthammer (; March 13, 1950 – June 21, 2018) was an American political columnist. A moderate liberal who turned independent conservative as a political pundit, Krauthammer won the Pulitzer Prize for his columns in ''The Washingt ...

Brian Lamb Brian Patrick Lamb (; born October 9, 1941) is an American journalist. He is the founder, executive chairman, and the now-retired CEO of C-SPAN, an American cable network that provides coverage of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Sen ...

Jim Lehrer James Charles Lehrer (; May 19, 1934 – January 23, 2020) was an American journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and playwright. Lehrer was the executive editor and a news anchor for the ''PBS NewsHour'' on PBS and was known for his role as a de ...

Scott McClellan Scott McClellan (born February 14, 1968) is the former White House Press Secretary (2003–06) for President George W. Bush, he was the 24th person to hold this post. He was also the author of a controversial No. 1 ''New York Times'' bestseller ...

Robert McNamara Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He remains the ...

, Charles Morris,

Peggy Noonan Margaret Ellen Noonan (born 1950), known as Peggy Noonan, is a weekly columnist for ''The Wall Street Journal'', and contributor to NBC News and ABC News. She was a primary speechwriter and Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan from 1984 t ...

William Novak William Novak (born 1948) is a Canadian–American author who has co-written or ghostwritten numerous celebrity memoirs for people including Lee Iacocca, Nancy Reagan, and Magic Johnson. He is also the editor, with Moshe Waldoks, of ''The Big ...

, former

President Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

, former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, Nancy Reagan,

Andy Rooney Andrew Aitken Rooney (January 14, 1919 – November 4, 2011) was an American radio and television writer who was best known for his weekly broadcast "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney", a part of the CBS News program '' 60 Minutes'' from 1978 to 201 ...

Morley Safer Morley Safer (November 8, 1931 – May 19, 2016) was a Canadian-American broadcast journalist, reporter, and correspondent for CBS News. He was best known for his long tenure on the news magazine ''60 Minutes'', whose cast he joined in 1970 af ...

Natan Sharansky Natan Sharansky ( he, נתן שרנסקי; russian: Ната́н Щара́нский; uk, Натан Щаранський, born Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky on 20 January 1948); uk, Анатолій Борисович Щаранський, ...

George Soros George Soros ( name written in eastern order), (born György Schwartz, August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist. , he had a net worth of US$8.6 billion, Note that this site is updated daily. having donated mo ...

, Susan Swain, former President Donald Trump,

Paul Volcker Paul Adolph Volcker Jr. (September 5, 1927 – December 8, 2019) was an American economist who served as the 12th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987. During his tenure as chairman, Volcker was widely credited with having ended th ...

Juan Williams Juan Antonio Williams (born April 10, 1954) is a Panamanian-born American journalist and political analyst for Fox News Channel. He writes for several newspapers, including ''The Washington Post'', ''The New York Times'', and ''The Wall Street ...

James Wolfensohn Sir James David Wolfensohn (1 December 193325 November 2020) was an Australian-American lawyer, investment banker, and economist who served as the ninth president of the World Bank Group (1995–2005). During his tenure at the World Bank, he is ...

, former Russian President

Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...

, and Nobel Peace Prize winner

Muhammad Yunus Muhammad Yunus (born 28 June 1940) is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance ...

. From 2006 to 2014, he wrote the Platform column for the

Century Foundation The Century Foundation (established first as The Cooperative League and then the Twentieth Century Fund) is a progressive think tank headquartered in New York City with an office in Washington, D.C. It was founded as a nonprofit public policy ...

, which was published by ''

The Daily Beast ''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008. It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...

'' and ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

''. Since 2017, his Platform column has been published on Medium. In January 2022,
Peter Osnos Platform
' was launched on Substack. His memoi
''An Especially Good View: Watching History Happen''
was published in 2021. He is the editor of a book of biographical essays calle
''George Soros: A Life in Full''
coming in March 2022. He has served on the board of directors of

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

, and, from 2005 to 2009, he was executive director of The Caravan Project, a non-profit organization that supported the simultaneous publishing of books in audio, digital, and print formats. He was Vice-Chairman of the

Columbia Journalism Review The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its contents include news and media industry trends, an ...

from 2007 to 2012. In 2020, he and his wife Susan co-founded Platform Books LLC.

Personal

Osnos lives in New York City with his wife Susan Sherer Osnos, who is chair of the board of the Center for Civilians in Conflict. She is a daughter of diplomat Albert W. Sherer Jr. He has two children: Katherine Osnos Sanford and journalist Evan Osnos; and five grandchildren.

Works

* ''An Especially Good View: Watching History Happen'', Platform Books, 2021. ISBN 9781735996806

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Osnos, Peter Living people American male journalists American people of Polish-Jewish descent Jewish American journalists 1944 births Brandeis University alumni Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni Columbia University alumni