David Shuster

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David Shuster
Born	Bloomington, Indiana
Nationality	American

David Martin Shuster (born 1967) is an Emmy award winning American journalist for NBC News and MSNBC. Shuster is a correspondent for Hardball with Chris Matthews and other MSNBC programs. He was married on May 27, 2007 to journalist Julianna Lee Goldman, at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue, in Washington, D.C., which is where the couple live and where Shuster's work is based.

Contents 1 Personal life 2 Early career 3 Tenure at Fox News 4 Corresponding for MSNBC and controversial statements 4.1 Chelsea Clinton remark and suspension 5 Awards 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Personal life

A native of Bloomington, Shuster is the son of Arnold Shuster of Bloomington, Indiana and Susan Klein of Nashville, Indiana and stepson of Robert Agranoff and Rose Mahern-Shuster; he has one brother, Jonathan. He graduated in 1985 from Bloomington High School South, and with honors from the University of Michigan. He is in the process of completing an MA in International Affairs at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

[edit] Early career

Shuster started his journalism career at CNN's Washington, D.C. bureau. He was an assignment editor and field producer from 1990 to 1994, covering both the Persian Gulf War and the 1992 presidential election campaign. Shuster left CNN in 1994 to become a political reporter for the ABC affiliate KATV in Little Rock, Arkansas, covering the Whitewater scandal. During this period, Shuster led KATV's coverage of the indictment, trial, conviction, and resignation of Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker. At KATV, Shuster won a regional Emmy Award for investigative journalism for his reporting on a manufactured housing scandal.

[edit] Tenure at Fox News

From 1996 to 2002, Shuster was a Washington, D.C.-based correspondent for the Fox News Channel. He was at the Pentagon at the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks and led Fox's coverage of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. During the Bill Clinton administration, Shuster led Fox's coverage of the Clinton investigations including Whitewater, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Starr Report and the Senate impeachment trial.

Shuster was also a member of Fox's "You Decide 2000" political team. He spent four months on John McCain's "Straight Talk Express" bus and was Fox's lead correspondent for McCain's presidential campaign.

[edit] Corresponding for MSNBC and controversial statements

Shuster left Fox News for MSNBC/NBC in 2002. In early 2003, he traveled to Qatar, where he provided coverage from the United States Central Command during Operation Iraqi Freedom for hourly live reports in prime time. Later, he was in California for two months for MSNBC's television program Hardball with Chris Matthews as lead correspondent on the 2003 California recall election, in which Governor Gray Davis was recalled and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected. In 2004 he led the show's coverage of the presidential campaign, including leading the "ad watch team," which analyzed 150 campaign ads.

Occasionally, Shuster fills in for Chris Matthews on Hardball. Recently, he interviewed former President Jimmy Carter on the show. During the trial relating to the Plame affair, Shuster blogged for Hardball on Hardblogger about the Lewis Libby trial and about other political matters.

In August 2005, Shuster reported from the eye of Hurricane Katrina as it made landfall in Biloxi, Mississippi, Shuster’s reports aired in MSNBC and NBC Nightly News. Shuster also spent several weeks reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina from New Orleans.

On September 24, 2007, Shuster interviewed Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn while filling in on Tucker Carlson's show.^[1] When Shuster asked about her response to the MoveOn.org ad campaign concerning General David Petraeus's Iraq war testimony, he followed up by then asking her the name of the last soldier from her congressional district who had been killed in Iraq; she was not able to name the soldier. Shuster mentioned that it was 18-year-old Jeremy Bohannon, and asked Blackburn why she was not able to recall the name. Blackburn's office soon claimed that Bohannon was not actually from Blackburn's congressional district, but was from the congressional district of Rep. John Tanner. However, while Bohannon did grow up in Tanner's district, his legal residence for the year prior to his enlistment was in Blackburn's district.

That interview was not the first time Shuster has sparked controversy. Shuster has been criticized for inserting political commentary into his coverage of news stories. One incident occurred on May 8, 2006, when he cited attorneys familiar with the CIA leak investigation and proclaimed, "I am convinced that Karl Rove will, in fact, be indicted"^[2] in relation to the Plame affair. A month later, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who had always indicted grand jury figures referred to as "person A," announced that Rove would not be indicted.

Shuster is especially known for strong opposition to the administration of President George W. Bush. During an August 24, 2006 report for Hardball, Shuster labeled the Bush administration as full of "ineptitude".^[3] Nearly a year later, while reporting in August 2007, Shuster declared the Bush Administration "an incompetent administration divorced from reality".^[4]

[edit] Chelsea Clinton remark and suspension

On February 7, 2008, while hosting an MSNBC program, Shuster discussed Chelsea Clinton's campaigning for her mother, her efforts to twist the arms of superdelegates, and her refusal to answer any questions by the media. Hillary. When his guest, Bill Press, pointed out that Bush's daughters campaigned for their father, Shuster noted the different access rules in each case and responded:

"There's just something a little bit unseemly to me that Chelsea's out there calling up celebrities, saying support my mom ... doesn't it seem like Chelsea's sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?"

The Clinton campaign demanded an apology and stated that Clinton might not participate in any further debates on MSNBC.^[5] Shuster was temporarily suspended from all NBC News and MSNBC appearances for his comments, other than to issue an apology.^[6] Before the suspension Shuster had engaged in a heated e-mail exchange with a Clinton staffer in which he defended his remarks.^[7] Shuster's two-week suspension^[8] from on-air duties ended on February 22, 2008. On February 9, 2008, a blogger posted that Phil Griffin, senior vice president at the network, threatened to fire Shuster for not having apologized; Meet the Press host Tim Russert intervened with Griffin on Shuster's behalf.^[9]

[edit] Awards

Shuster is a winner of an Emmy Award as well as a Bugle Award awarded in August 2006 by the Disabled American Veterans for his coverage of the 2005 National Disabled Veterans Sports Clinic and the hour-long special that accompanied it on MSNBC.

[edit] References