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Jonathan Capehart

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Jonathan Capehart
Capehart in 2021
Born (1967-07-02) July 2, 1967 (age 57)[1][2]
Alma materCarleton College (BA)
OccupationJournalist
EmployerThe Washington Post
SpouseNick Schmit (m. 2017)
Awards

Jonathan T. Capehart (born July 2, 1967) is an American journalist and liberal television commentator.[3][4] He writes for The Washington Post's PostPartisan blog and is host of The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC.[5][6][7]

Background

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Capehart grew up in Hazlet, New Jersey, the third of four children born to Margaret Capehart.[8] His father died when he was young.[8] At the age of 16, his family moved to nearby Newark, New Jersey, after his mother remarried;[9] and he attended Saint Benedict's Preparatory School.[10][11] He received a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) academic degree majoring in political science from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, an institution founded 1866 by the Congregationalist Church (today merged into the United Church of Christ since 1957).[12][13][14]

Career

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Capehart speaks with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in 2021
Capehart pictured with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Ambassador Karen Pierce in 2022

Before his work with The Washington Post and MSNBC, Capehart was a researcher for NBC's The Today Show.[11][15] He worked for the New York Daily News, serving as a member of its editorial board from 1993 to 2000. At the time of his hiring, Capehart was the youngest-ever member of the newspaper's editorial board.[11] He left the Daily News in 2000 to work at Bloomberg News. Capehart advised and wrote speeches for Michael Bloomberg during his 2001 run for New York City mayor.[16][17][18] He returned to the New York Daily News in 2002, serving as deputy editor of the editorial page until 2004.[16] Capehart joined the global public relations company Hill & Knowlton in December 2004 as a Senior Vice President and senior counselor of public affairs.[11]

Capehart joined the staff of The Washington Post as a journalist and member of its editorial board in 2007. He continues in that capacity and is a contributing commentator for MSNBC.[14] He also hosts the Cape Up podcast, in which he talks to newsmakers about race, religion, age, gender, and cultural identity in politics.[19]

Capehart began guest hosting the WNYC radio show Midday on WNYC (formerly The Leonard Lopate Show) in 2018.

He hosted the premiere episode of The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC on December 13, 2020. He is also the fill-in host of The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on Friday edition.

Capehart replaced Mark Shields in the Friday political commentary segment on the PBS NewsHour starting in January 2021.[20] On March 30, 2022, Capehart became an associate editor of The Washington Post.[21]

In February 2023, Capehart's The Sunday Show was expanded to Saturday as well, becoming The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart, beginning on February 18, 2023.[22]

Capehart has analyzed how, in concurrence with the work of Jonathan Metzl, white identity affects state-based policy making in the US, such as gun rights in Missouri and health care in Tennessee.[23]

False allegation about Bernie Sanders

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In February 2016, Capehart published a false allegation about Senator Bernie Sanders, who was well known for his activism in civil rights causes. Capehart alleged that Sanders and his campaign had been misrepresenting a photograph[24] that shows Sanders speaking at a civil rights sit-in at the University of Chicago in 1962. Capehart wrote that the Sanders campaign should "stop physically placing him where he existed only in spirit," arguing that the photo showed an activist named Rappaport, rather than Sanders, and implying that Sanders was not even at the event.[25] That claim was refuted by the photographer/documentarian of the event, Danny Lyon, who called Capehart's claim "outrageous." Lyon provided additional photos from the event confirming that Sanders was a participant and was indeed the man in the photo, a fact later confirmed by the University of Chicago.[26] Rather than recanting his allegation, Capehart wrote a follow-up article titled, "Bernie Sanders and the Clash of Memory," in which Capehart acknowledged Lyon's photographic evidence but said that a friend of Rappaport and a woman who was married to Rappaport for 5 years had both identified the man in the photo as Rappaport.[27]

Personal life

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In May 2016, Capehart became engaged to his boyfriend of over five years, Nick Schmit, who was the assistant chief of protocol at the State Department.[28] Capehart and Schmit were married by former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder on January 7, 2017.[8]

Capehart was a key contributor to a New York Daily News staff entry that received the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing in 1999. The series of editorials condemned the financial mismanagement of Harlem's Apollo Theater.[11][15]

References

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  1. ^ "Happy Birthday Mr. Capehart". MSNBC. July 4, 2014. Retrieved August 10, 2019.
  2. ^ "Carleton College". Media Relations.
  3. ^ Grynbaum, Michael M. (November 1, 2024). "Hugh Hewitt, Conservative Columnist, Quits The Washington Post". The New York Times. Retrieved November 2, 2024.
  4. ^ "Brooks and Capehart on if Democrats will save Johnson's speakership". PBS Newshour. April 21, 2024.
  5. ^ "Jonathan Capehart: Opinion Writer". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
  6. ^ "MSNBC gives weekend shows to Tiffany Cross and Jonathan Capehart - The Washington Post". The Washington Post.
  7. ^ "Jonathan Capehart on His Second MSNBC Program and Reimagining the Political Talk Show Format - Washingtonian". February 15, 2023.
  8. ^ a b c Bernstein, Jacob (January 13, 2017). "Jonathan Capehart and Nick Schmit: One Transition Speeds Another". The New York Times. Retrieved January 27, 2017.
  9. ^ Conan, Neil (March 19, 2012). "Op-Ed: Shooting Of Black Teen Reveals 'Blindness'". NPR. It happened after we left the sort of sheltered environment of Hazlet, New Jersey, in sort of central New Jersey, and moved back up to Newark when my mom remarried. And the conversation that we had was just a series of rules for my own safety. At the time, I was 16.
  10. ^ Seiden, Jane. "Jonathan Capehart Will Speak at the Newark Public Library", Newark Patch, January 22, 2016. Retrieved February 8, 2016. "Mr. Capehart, a Washington Post editorial board member, PostPartisan blogger, and MSNBC contributor, was born and raised in Newark and graduated from St. Benedict's Preparatory School."
  11. ^ a b c d e "Profile: H&K's Capehart climbs ladder with help from friends". PR Week. July 18, 2005. Archived from the original on May 11, 2013. Retrieved April 25, 2012 – via HighBeam Research.
  12. ^ "Jonathan Capehart". The Washington Post. June 19, 2020.
  13. ^ "Alumni Pages:Capehart, Jonathan. Class of 1990". Carleton College. Archived from the original on April 15, 2012. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
  14. ^ a b "Click:Jonathan Capehart". Politico. 2012. Retrieved April 25, 2012.
  15. ^ a b "Jonathan Capehart". David Patrick Columbia's New York Social Diary. Retrieved April 5, 2012.
  16. ^ a b Bugg, Sean (November 4, 2010). "Man in the Middle:Jonathan Capehart charts his own course as one of Washington's leading opinion-makers". Metro Weekly. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
  17. ^ Gordon, Meryl (November 19, 2001). "The Winner's Circle". New York. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
  18. ^ "Jonathan Capehart". Center for American Progress. June 2010. Archived from the original on July 17, 2012. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
  19. ^ "Cape Up with Jonathon Capehart". Stitcher. June 19, 2019.
  20. ^ Johnson, Ted (January 4, 2021). "Jonathan Capehart To Join 'PBS NewsHour' In Regular Segments With David Brooks".
  21. ^ "Jonathan Capehart named Associate Editor at". The Washington Post. March 30, 2022. Retrieved June 11, 2022.
  22. ^ @weekendcapehart (February 12, 2023). "Starting next weekend, our show is expanding" (Tweet) – via Twitter. [user-generated source]
  23. ^ Jonathan Capehart (January 28, 2020). "How white identity permeates policymaking outside of Washington". The Washington Post. Jonathan Metzl chillingly shows how white identity permeates present-day policymaking making outside of Washington.
  24. ^ [url=https://photoarchive.lib.uchicago.edu/db.xqy?one=apf4-01698.xml]
  25. ^ Capehart, Jonathan (February 11, 2016). "Stop sending around this photo of 'Bernie Sanders'". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 23, 2016.
  26. ^ [url=https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sanders-civil-rights-photos/]
  27. ^ Capehart, Jonathan (February 13, 2016). "Bernie Sanders and the clash of memory". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 23, 2016.
  28. ^ Allen, Mike; Lippmann, Daniel (May 23, 2016). "PROGRESSIVES LOSING PATIENCE with Bernie – ET TU, LINDSEY? Graham caves, backs Trump – TRUMP PASSES CLINTON in Real Clear average – MICHELLE FIELDS' new gig – JONATHAN CAPEHART engaged – NEIL IRWIN married". Politico. Retrieved January 14, 2017.
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