Collection:LPB

Genre: Interview

Place Covered: New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana

Copyright Holder: Louisiana Educational Television Authority

Date Issued: 1998-04-5

Duration: 00:25:01

Subjects: ISAACSON, WALTER | Journalists | Authors | Biographers | Time Magazine | Reagan, Ronald | United States presidential election, 1980 | Writing | Kissinger, Henry, 1923- | Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-1994 | Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790

Contributors:

• Weill, Gus Host
• Fowler, Ken Producer
• Isaacson, Walter Interviewee

This episode of the series “Louisiana Legends” from April 5, 1998, features an interview with Walter Isaacson conducted by Gus Weill. Isaacson, a native of New Orleans, is a journalist and biographer. He served as the managing editor of Time Magazine from 1996-2001 and has written biographies of Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Henry Kissinger. He discusses: his education at Harvard University and Oxford University; his entry into journalism; writing for the “New Orleans States-Item” newspaper; how he began writing for Time Magazine; his coverage of Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election; his impressions of Reagan; writing as storytelling; the responsibility of being managing editor at Time Magazine; his biography of Kissinger; his impressions of Kissinger; the dynamic between Kissinger and President Richard Nixon; his next book on Benjamin Franklin; and his hometown of New Orleans.