Christopher "Chris" Matthews
(born December 17, 1945) is an American news anchor and political commentator, known for his nightly hour-long talk show, Hardball with Chris Matthews,
which is televised on the American cable television channel MSNBC. On weekends he hosts the syndicated NBC News-produced panel discussion program, The Chris Matthews Show.
Matthews makes frequent appearances on many NBC and MSNBC programs. On March 22, 2009, Matthews renewed his contract to do his show on MSNBC through 2012. [1]
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Early life, education, and family
Matthews was born in
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania to
Irish American parents and is a
Roman Catholic. He attended
La Salle College High School.
He is a 1967 graduate of the
College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and did graduate work in
economics at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Matthews served in the
United States Peace Corps in
Swaziland from 1968 to 1970 as a trade development advisor.
Matthews is married to
Kathleen Matthews, who anchored News 7 on
WJLA-TV, the
ABC affiliate in
Washington, D.C, before accepting a position as an Executive Vice President with
J.W. Marriott. The couple has three children: Michael, Thomas and Caroline (currently a student at the University of Pennsylvania). His brother
Jim Matthews, a Republican, is a County Commissioner in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
In 2002, Matthews was hospitalized with
malaria, which he evidently contracted on one of his visits that year to
Africa. He has also had other health problems, including
diabetes and
pneumonia.
[2]
Political career and views
When Matthews first arrived in Washington, D.C., he worked as an armed officer with the
United States Capitol Police.
[3] Subsequently, he served on the staffs of four Democratic members of Congress, including Senators
Frank Moss and
Edmund Muskie. In 1974, he mounted an unsuccessful campaign for the
Pennsylvania's 4th congressional district seat in the
U.S. House of Representatives, in which he received about 24% of the vote in the primary campaign..
[4] Matthews was a
presidential speechwriter during the
Carter administration. Matthews later worked six years as a top aide to long-time
Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O'Neill, playing a direct role in many key political battles with the Reagan administration.
On November 6, 2008, after the election, he stated on the MSNBC television program "Morning Joe," that "I want to do everything I can to make [...] this new Presidency work [...] This is my job".
[5]
After controversy following on-air comments that Matthews and
Keith Olbermann made during the 2008 Republican National Convention, NBC News correspondent
David Gregory replaced them, but Matthews and Olbermann continued as analysts.
[6] On November 4–5, he teamed with
Rachel Maddow,
Eugene Robinson, David Gregory, and Keith Olbermann to cover the
presidential election.
On the April 14, 2008, edition of
The Colbert Report
, Matthews alluded to a possible run for the
United States Senate from Pennsylvania. When directly questioned by
Stephen Colbert about his intentions, he stated that there is a difference between celebrities and those who work for the people, and it's a greater thing to work for the people. He also said that his boyhood dream was to be a senator. Four days later, on April 18, 2008, Matthews told
Bill Maher that he has "made a commitment to covering politics in a liberal way, starting in 1987, and [he is] honoring that commitment, not getting involved in it."
[7] The seat in question would be the one held by Sen.
Arlen Specter, whose current term in the Senate ends in 2010. On November 28, 2008,
Fivethirtyeight.com and
The Politico reported that Matthews has been in contact with senior staffers of Obama's campaign about a possible run.
[8] [9] On January 7, 2009,
The New York Times
reported that Matthews told his staffers that he would not run for the Senate.
[10] On May 25th 2009 Chris Matthews appeared on the
Charlie Rose show where he stated that he was intending to run for Arlen Spector's senate seat in 2010 stating "I could see myself winning the democratic primary and I could see myself going on to face Arlen in the general [election]," but that he felt he had to decide between being a journalist and being a politician once Specter became a national figure by supporting the stimulus.
Author and talk show host
Matthews worked as a print journalist for 15 years, spending 13 years as
Washington, D.C., Bureau Chief for
The San Francisco Examiner
(1987 – 2000), and two years as a nationally syndicated columnist for
The San Francisco Chronicle
. Matthews covered the fall of the
Berlin Wall, the first all-races election in
South Africa and the Good Friday Peace Talks in
Northern Ireland. In 1997 and 1998, his research in the
National Archives produced a series of exclusives on the Nixon presidential tapes. Matthews has covered American presidential election campaigns since 1988.
In 1997, Matthews began his own talk show,
Hardball with Chris Matthews
, which originally aired on
CNBC but is currently on
MSNBC.
Hardball
features
pundits and elected officials as guests.
In 2002,
The Chris Matthews Show
began airing in syndication. The show is formatted as a political roundtable consisting of four journalists and Matthews, who serves as the moderator. He is estimated to earn more than $5 million a year. He also wrote a book called Hardball"
[11]
Bibliography
References
- Senate Notions gone, Matthews Extends Contract at MSNBC
- ''Hardball with Chris Matthews'', MSNBC, August 19, 2008.
- American attitude - Hardball with Chris Matthews
- PA District 04 - D Primary
- Chris Matthews Auditions For Press Secretary, eyeblast.tv, November 6, 2008
- Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann
- [ Bill Maher » Realtime ~ 18/04/08]
- Chris Matthews Staffing Up for Probable Senate Run in 2010
- Chris Matthews Inches Toward Senate Run
- Host of ‘Hardball’ Decides Against Senate Race
- HardBrawl