Nicholas von Hoffman

Nicholas von Hoffman is an American journalist and author of German extraction. He became famous as a columnist for the Washington Post and later well-known to TV audiences as a "Point-Counterpoint" commentator for CBS's 60 Minutes.

Related Topics:
American - Journalist - Washington Post - CBS - 60 Minutes

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Von Hoffman never went to college; he worked in the Chicago stockyards and later served as a political organizer for the community activist Saul Alinsky; Ben Bradlee, then the editor of the Post, hired him from the Chicago Daily News.

Related Topics:
Ben Bradlee - Chicago Daily News

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He was said to have been a brilliant reporter, and wrote an incendiary column for the paper's Style section. In her memoirs, Katharine Graham, then the newspaper's publisher, wrote of him: ?My life would have been a lot simpler had Nicholas von Hoffman not appeared in the paper.? She added, however, that ?I firmly believed that he belonged at the Post.? http://www.cjr.org/issues/2002/5/wash-stability.asp

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Hoffman is the author of more than a dozen books, notably: Capitalist Fools: Tales of American Business, from Carnegie to Forbes to the Milken Gang (1992) and Citizen Cohen (1998), a biography of the late Roy Cohn, which was made into an HBO movie. His most recent title is Hoax: Why Americans Are Suckered by White House Lies (2004).

Related Topics:
Roy Cohn - HBO

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Hoffman also wrote a libretto, Nicholas and Alexandra for the Los Angeles Opera which was performed in 2003 season under the direction of Plácido Domingo and Citizen Cohn, a biography of the late Roy Cohn.

Related Topics:
Los Angeles Opera - Plácido Domingo - Roy Cohn

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Currently he is a columnist for the New York Observer.

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