• Tuesday, October 08, 2024

Alan Friedman

Alan Friedman
on Nov 12, 2019
Alan Friedman
Alan Friedman is a journalist, author and documentary maker who has spent the past 30 years as an award-winning correspondent and op-ed columnist with The Financial Times of London, The International Herald Tribune/The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal Europe. He has also been a prominent talk show host on Italian television, developing prime time shows for Rai 2 and Rai 3, Sky and La7.  He is presently an opinion columnist for Italy’s La Stampa newspaper.
He is the author of eight best-selling books including Agnelli and The Network of Italian Power (1988, 10 languages including Agnelli: Das Gesicht der Macht, Heyne Verlag, Agnelli: L’argent e la politique en Italie, Editions Rivages, El Imperio Agnelli: Su Red de Poder en Italia, Planeta), Ce la farà il capitalismo italiano? (1990, Italy only), Spider’s Web: The Secret History of How The White House Illegally Armed Iraq (1993, 3 languages) and Il Bivio (1996, Italy only). His most recent books were also best-sellers, including his biography of Italian billionaire Silvio Berlusconi and his new book This Is Not America, which includes an interview with Donald Trump.  In 2018 his book on the Italian economy Dieci cose da sapere sull’economia italiana prima che sia troppo tardi (Newton Compton) was the biggest selling non-fiction book in Italy.
In Feburary 2014 Rizzoli published Ammazziamo il Gattopardo (Let’s Murder The Leopard!), a bombshell of revelations about the ouster in 2011 of Silvio Berlusconi as prime minister and a contemporary history of Italy, including the rise of the new Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The book sold 160,000 copies in hardback and 15,000 copies in a paperback version. It was on the Top Ten best-seller lists for 22 weeks, and became the Number 2 best-selling work of non-fiction in Italy in 2014. The book was serialized in the Financial Times of London and in the Corriere della Sera, and was made into a 12-part web documentary for corriere.it and in the Summer of 2014 a six-part television series on Italy’s La7 television channel. (See http://bit.ly/1EE4zRC )
The Berlusconi biography, first published in late in 2015 by Hachette Books, Rizzoli and Michel-Lafon, has matched and exceeded these records on the best seller list and, has been translated into 16 languages, with editions published in most of Europe plus China and Russia.   Mr Friedman is also a former contributing editor at Vanity Fair and The New Yorker magazine and worked with Tina Brown between 1989 and 1995
One of Europe’s most respected political and economic commentators, and a well-known TV personality in Italy, Friedman is former anchor of The Alan Friedman Show, a prime time talk show on the Sky TG24 news channel in Italy.  In 2002-2003 Mr. Friedman worked with Rupert Murdoch and his team to design and launch the news channel, Sky TG 24.  Mr. Friedman's editorial and production team produced ten “driver” daily and weekly programmes for the Sky TG24 news channel between 2003 and 2006.   From 1994 to 2003 Mr. Friedman was Global Economics Correspondent of the Paris-based International Herald Tribune/New York Times.  From 2003 to 2005 he was World Economy columnist for The Wall Street Journal Europe.
From 1979 to 1993 Mr. Friedman worked for The Financial Times of London, as a columnist on Eurobonds (1979-1981), as the youngest-ever banking correspondent (1981-1983) and as a foreign correspondent in Italy (1983-1989) and the United States (1989-1993).
In Italy, in 1998 he was a member of the team at RAI that designed and launched the RAINews 24 satellite TV news channel in Italy.  His professional relationship with the International Herald Tribune/New York Times and RAI made way, in 1999, to a joint venture for the co-production of the weekly programmes “World Business / Pianeta Economia” (Planet Economy).
In Spain, Mr. Friedman developed a TV format from the magazine publication Mi cartera and in cooperation with the International Herald Tribune he produced for Telecinco a season of the TV programme Mi cartera: L’economia facil para todo el mundo.   In 1999 The New York Times and The Washington Post (Mrs Katherine Graham and Mr. Arthur Sulzberger Sr.) appointed Mr. Friedman as Chairman of International Herald Tribune TV, a post he held for five years.
In Italy, Alan Friedman had already created and anchored “Mastricht Italia” on RAI 3, a prime time talk show that, in its four seasons (1996-2000) enjoyed an average of 1.5 million viewers each week.  He subsequently created and anchored “Mr. Euro” (RAI3), “I Vostri Soldi” (RAI 2) and other programmes for radio and TV in Italy.
Alan Friedman was awarded the British Press Award (the UK equivalent of the Pulitzer award) four times during his career with the Financial Times.  He was recognized as the journalist who, together with Lionel Barber (currently the Editor of the FT), broke the Iraqgate scandal in 1991 that revealed how the CIA and White House were involved in the illegal sale of weapons to Saddam Hussein.  Before joining The Financial Times, Alan Friedman had worked in the Administration of President Jimmy Carter in the role of Presidential Management Fellow.  He began his professional career working as a Congressional staffer on international affairs in the U.S. Congress for the Hon. Donald Fraser (Chairman of the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the House Foreign Affairs Committee).
His television career began at the beginning of the 1980s with regular appearances on the “BBC Newsnight” broadcast.  In 1991 he persuaded the FT and ABC News executives Roone Arledge and Tom Bettag, and star anchor Ted Koppel of ABC “Nightline,” to form a special investigative unit on the Iraqgate affair and White House’s involvement. The result was the production and broadcast of a series of 12 broadcasts by ABC Television/Financial Times on the scandal of U.S. weapons sales to Iraq that were financed via the U.S. Government and Italy’s BNL.  The series featured Friedman and Lionel Barber.
Alan Friedman is the only American journalist to have received the Medal of Honour (1997) from the Italian Parliament and he has been awarded many other acknowledgements for his work on Italy and the global economy. In 2014 he was awarded the “Non-fiction Book of the Year” prize in the Premio Pavese (September 2014), the Premio Pannunzio for outstanding excellence in journalism (December 2014) and the “America Prize” in the USA-Italy Foundation’s annual award ceremony in the Italian Parliament (October 2014).
Alan Friedman was born in New York City on April 30th, 1956. He was educated at NYU (B.A. Politics and History), the London School of Economics (International Relations) and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (M.A. International Economics and Law). He is married and lives between the United States and Tuscany. His personal website is www.alanfriedman.it

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