Laura Anne Ingraham (born June 19, 1963) is an American conservative television and radio talk show host. Since 2001, she has hosted the nationally syndicated radio show, The Laura Ingraham Show, is the editor-in-chief of LifeZette, and beginning in October 2017, has been the host of The Ingraham Angle on Fox News Channel.
Ingraham worked as a speechwriter in the Reagan administration in the late 1980s, and then worked as a judicial clerk in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York and then for United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. After working as an attorney for the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in New York City, Ingraham began her media career in the late 1990s.
Video Laura Ingraham
Early life and education
Ingraham grew up in Glastonbury, Connecticut, where she was born to Anne Caroline (née Kozak) and James Frederick Ingraham III. Her maternal grandparents were Polish immigrants, and her father was of Irish and English ancestry. She graduated from Glastonbury High School in 1981. Ingraham earned a B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1985 and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1991.
Maps Laura Ingraham
Social and political views
In 2017 Ingraham was described by the New York Times as an "ardent nationalist". She is known for her strong support for Donald Trump. She holds hawkish positions on immigration, and in 2014 Ingraham said that allowing more immigrant workers to come to the United States would be "obscene to the American experience." She opposed the proposed bipartisan 2013 US Senate comprehensive immigration reform plan. Ingraham has said that her influences include Ronald Reagan, Robert Bork and Pat Buchanan.
Views on homosexuality
In her senior year at Dartmouth College, Ingraham was the editor-in-chief of an unofficial conservative college newspaper, The Dartmouth Review, becoming its first female editor.
Ingraham wrote several controversial articles during her tenure. Notably, she sent a reporter undercover to a campus LGBTQ meeting. She then published a transcript of the meeting and included the names of the attendees, describing them as "cheerleaders for latent campus sodomites." She was criticized for forcibly outing the meeting's attendees. At the start of the meeting, an oath of confidentiality was read whereby participants in the meeting were assured that information from the meeting would not be made public. Ingraham claimed confidentiality did not apply, because the meeting had been advertised, and defended the outing of the gay students as a "freedom of the press issue". She also sent the audio tapes to the students' parents.
Jeffrey Hart, the faculty adviser for The Dartmouth Review described Ingraham as having "the most extreme anti-homosexual views imaginable", claiming "she went so far as to avoid a local eatery where she feared the waiters were homosexual."
In 1997, Ingraham wrote an essay in The Washington Post in which she stated that she had changed her views on homosexuality after witnessing "the dignity, fidelity, and courage" with which her gay brother, Curtis, and his partner coped with AIDS. Ingraham has stated that she supports civil unions between same-sex partners, but believes marriage "is between a man and a woman".
Involvement in Republican Party
In January 2017, Ingraham was approached by Republican Party officials and asked to consider running for the United States Senate seat held by Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia. While Ingraham confirmed she was considering running against Kaine, she has not mentioned the possibility since accepting an offer of her own primetime show in Fox News, The Ingraham Angle. The show premiered in October 2017.
Career
In the late 1980s, Ingraham worked as a speechwriter in the Reagan administration for the Domestic Policy Advisor. She also briefly served as editor of The Prospect, the magazine issued by Concerned Alumni of Princeton. After law school, in 1991, she served as a law clerk for Judge Ralph K. Winter, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York and subsequently clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She then worked as an attorney at the New York-based law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. In 1995, she appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in connection with a story about young conservatives.
In 1996, she and Jay P. Lefkowitz organized the first Dark Ages Weekend in response to Renaissance Weekend.
Television show host
Ingraham has had three stints as a cable television host. In the late 1990s, she became a CBS commentator and hosted the MSNBC program Watch It!. Several years later, Ingraham began campaigning for another cable television show on her radio program. She finally got her wish in 2008, when Fox News Channel gave her a three-week trial run for a new show entitled Just In. In October 2017 she became the host of a new Fox News Channel program, The Ingraham Angle.
Radio show host
Ingraham launched The Laura Ingraham Show in April 2001, which is heard on 306 stations and on XM Satellite Radio. It was originally syndicated by Westwood One, but moved to Talk Radio Network in 2004. Ingraham was also the official guest host of The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel and a weekly contributor with her segment, "The Ingraham Angle".
In 2012, Ingraham was rated as the No. 5 radio show in America, by Talkers Magazine. In November 2012, she announced her departure from Talk Radio Network, declining to renew her contract with TRN after nearly a decade of being associated with the network. She said, in jest, that she had decided to "pursue my first loves - modern dance and the xylophone". She was the second major host from TRN's lineup to leave the network that year: TRN's other major program, The Savage Nation, left TRN two months earlier. Her new program, syndicated by Courtside Entertainment Group, began on January 2, 2013.
Ingraham Angle
On October 30, 2017, Fox News inaugurated an hour-long television show hosted by Ingraham, The Ingraham Angle.
LifeZette
Along with businessman Peter Anthony, Ingraham founded and owns Ingraham Media Group, which produces the new media publication LifeZette. Ingraham serves as editor in chief. The website's subsections are PoliZette, FaithZette, PopZette, and HealthZette.
Books
- The Hillary Trap: Looking for Power in All the Wrong Places, first published June 2000, while Ingraham was a talk show host on MSNBC, was updated and reissued in paperback December 25, 2005. It accuses Hillary Clinton of being a faux feminist, whose "liberal feminism has created a culture that rewards dependency, encourages fragmentation, undermines families, and celebrates victimhood."
- Shut Up & Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics, and the UN Are Subverting America, published October 25, 2003, decries liberal elites in politics, the media, academia, arts and entertainment, business, and international organizations, on behalf of disrespected Middle Americans, whom the author praises as "the kind of people who are the lifeblood of healthy democratic societies".
- Power to the People, a New York Times number one best seller, published September 11, 2007, focuses on what Ingraham calls the "pornification" of America and stresses the importance of popular participation in culture, promoting conservative values in family life, education and patriotism.
- The Obama Diaries, a New York Times number one best seller, published July 13, 2010. The book is a fictional collection of diary entries purportedly made by Barack Obama, which Ingraham uses satirically to criticize Obama, his family, and his administration.
- Of Thee I Zing, a New York Times best seller, published July 12, 2011. The book is a collection of humorous anecdotes meant to point out the decline of American culture, from muffin tops to body shots.
- Billionaire at the Barricades, published 2017. The book explains the 2016 election victory of Donald Trump as the continuation of a populist revolution, initiated by Ronald Reagan, with strong working class support.
Controversies
Ingraham has been described as "no stranger to generating controversy" by Variety Magazine, and as a "name-brand provocateur" by Politico. Business Insider has referred to Ingraham's on-air style as "wad[ing] into debates on racism and gun violence".
James and Durant
In February 2018, Ingraham was widely criticized for saying that NBA players LeBron James and Kevin Durant should not opine on politics. Ingraham stated, "It's always unwise to seek political advice from someone who gets paid $100 million a year to bounce a ball" and that the basketball stars should "shut up and dribble."
Boycott
In March 2018, Ingraham's show was boycotted by 27 sponsors after she ridiculed David Hogg, a 17-year old student survivor of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. In response, Hogg posted a list of Ingraham's advertisers and called for a boycott, accusing her of cyberbullying. After several advertisers left the show Ingraham apologized, which Hogg dismissed as insincere. Although Fox News continued to support Ingraham, public perception of her and Fox News declined. Advertising time during the show dropped by as much as 52 percent. After Ingraham returned from a pre-planned vacation following the boycott, her program earned its best ratings ever, spiking 25% in total viewers and saw an increase of 36% in the key 25-54 age group demo.
Personal life
Ingraham has previously dated broadcaster Keith Olbermann and former New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli. In April 2005, she announced her engagement to Chicago businessman James V. Reyes, and that she had undergone breast cancer surgery. In May 2005, Ingraham told listeners that her engagement to Reyes was canceled, citing issues regarding her diagnosis with breast cancer. She has also dated political commentator Dinesh D'Souza.
She is a convert from the Baptist tradition to Roman Catholicism. She has studied the Russian language.
Ingraham, who has never married, is a single parent of three children: a girl from Guatemala whom she adopted in 2008; a boy she adopted at 13 months in 2009; and another boy she adopted in 2011. Both of the boys are from Russia.
See also
- List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
References
External links
- Official website
- Laura Ingraham at Fox Business
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Laura Ingraham on IMDb
- "Laura Ingraham collected news and commentary". The New York Times.
- Fact-checking at PolitiFact
Source of article : Wikipedia
0 Comments