Gretchen Carlson

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Gretchen Carlson
During an interview on Fox and Friends
Born	June 21, 1966 (1966-06-21) (age 41) Anoka, Minnesota
Occupation	Co-host of Fox & Friends (Fox News Channel)
Spouse	Casey Close[1]
Website Biography on FoxNews.com

Gretchen Elizabeth Carlson (born June 21, 1966) is a former Miss America and U.S. television personality.

Contents 1 History 2 Career 3 Personal life 4 Controversies 5 External links 6 References

[edit] History

Carlson was raised in Anoka, Minnesota and graduated from Anoka-Hennepin School District 11's Anoka High School in 1984. Carlson is also a former beauty queen. She won the title Miss Minnesota, and then in 1989^[2] became the third woman from that state to win Miss America. For the talent competition, Carlson played the violin, which she still practices regularly.

Carlson graduated with honors from Stanford University in 1990 with a self-designed degree in Organizational Behavior and later studied at Oxford University.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Career

Carlson was previously the co-anchor, with Russ Mitchell, of the Saturday Early Show on CBS. She joined CBS News as a correspondent in 2000, and began working on the Early Show in 2002. Before her tenure at CBS, Carlson served as a weekend anchor and reporter for KXAS-TV in Dallas, Texas, was an anchor and reporter at WOIO-TV in Cleveland, Ohio, and for WCPO-TV in Cincinnati. She began her television career in Richmond, Virginia as a political reporter for WRIC-TV.^[3]

Carlson was moved to Fox & Friends initially as a weekend substitute host, but on September 25, 2006, a shift of anchors, which included E. D. Hill moving to the 10 A.M. hour of Fox News Live, reportedly to help her raise her family, created a vacancy on Fox & Friends which Carlson filled.

Carlson at one time was the national celebrity spokesperson for the March of Dimes^[3] but is no longer as of 12 March 2007^[4]

[edit] Personal life

Carlson is married to agent Casey Close, whose clientele includes the likes of Ryan Howard, Derek Jeter and Josh Hamilton^[1] Carlson is of Swedish descent.

[edit] Controversies

Progressive media watchdog Media Matters for America criticized Carlson for stating that Barack Obama was Muslim was a rumor, but not stating that the rumor was false.^[5]

On Fox & Friends, during an interview with Dan Bartlett, Counselor to the President, Carlson labeled Democratic US Senator Ted Kennedy a "hostile enemy" against the United States "right here on the home front". Bartlett replied "Well, we don't view Ted Kennedy as a hostile enemy. We do view him to be an open and often critic of the war. He has been from the very outset. I don't think that's anything new."^[6] Keith Olbermann dubbed her "The Worst Person in the World" on that night's broadcast of his show Countdown^[7] while Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post called it "the Fox News exchange of the day" and asked "Doesn't the Constitution allow for dissent?"^[8] Commentators on CNN's Reliable Sources called it "over the line...a stupid thing" and "that's par for the course in kind of right-wing talk radio...You don't necessarily expect that on cable news, even if it is on Fox."^[9]

[edit] External links

• http://www.missamerica.org/our-miss-americas/1980/1989.aspx Biography on the Miss America website]
• Biography on the Fox News Channel website
• Stories on Carlson from Media Matters for America

[edit] References

Preceded by Kaye Lani Rae Rafko

Miss America 1989

Succeeded by Debbye Turner