David Shuster

David Shuster
Born	Bloomington, Indiana
Nationality	American

David Martin Shuster (born 1967) is an American journalist for NBC News and MSNBC. Although currently temporarily suspended from his on-air duties, he is a correspondent for Hardball with Chris Matthews and other MSNBC programs. He is based in Washington, D.C. Shuster was married on May 27, 2007 to journalist Julianna Lee Goldman, at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue, in Washington, D.C. They live in Washington, D.C.

Personal Life

Shuster is the son of Arnold Shuster of Bloomington, Indiana and Susan Klein of Nashville, Tennessee, and stepson of Robert Agranoff and Rose Mahern-Shuster. He graduated in 1985, from Bloomington High School South.

Early career

A native of Bloomington, Indiana, Shuster graduated with honors from the University of Michigan, and started his journalism career at CNN's Washington, D.C. bureau. He was an assignment editor and field producer from 1990 to 1994, covering both the Persian Gulf War and the 1992 presidential election campaign. Shuster left CNN in 1994 to become a political reporter for the ABC affiliate KATV in Little Rock, Arkansas, covering the Whitewater controversy. At KATV, he won a regional Emmy Award for investigative journalism for his reporting on a manufactured housing scandal.

Tenure at Fox News

From 1996 - 2002, Shuster was a Washington, D.C. based correspondent for the Fox News Channel. He was at the Pentagon at the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks and led Fox’s coverage of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. During the Bill Clinton administration, Shuster led Fox’s coverage of the Clinton investigations including Whitewater, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Starr Report and the Senate impeachment trial.

Shuster was also a member of Fox’s “You Decide 2000” political team. He spent four months on John McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” bus and was Fox’s lead correspondent for McCain’s presidential campaign.

Corresponding for MSNBC and controversial statements

Shuster left Fox News for MSNBC/NBC in 2002. In early 2003, he traveled to Qatar, where he provided coverage from the United States Central Command during Operation Iraqi Freedom for hourly live reports in prime time. Later, he was in California for two months for MSNBC's television program Hardball with Chris Matthews as lead correspondent on the 2003 California recall election, in which Governor Gray Davis was recalled and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected. In 2004 he led the show's coverage of the 2004 presidential campaign, including leading the "ad watch team," which analyzed 150 campaign ads.

Occasionally, Shuster fills in for Chris Matthews on Hardball with Chris Matthews. Recently, he interviewed former President Jimmy Carter on the show. During the trial relating to the Plame affair, Shuster blogged for Hardball with Chris Matthews on Hardblogger about the Lewis Libby trial and about other political matters.

In August 2005, Shuster reported from the eye of Hurricane Katrina as it made landfall in Biloxi, Mississippi, Shuster’s reports aired in MSNBC and NBC Nightly News. Shuster also spent several weeks reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina from New Orleans.

On September 24, 2007, Shuster interviewed Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn while filling in on Tucker Carlson's show.[1]. When Shuster asked about her outrage behind the MoveOn.org Petraeus ad campaign, he followed up by then asking her what the name was of the last soldier from her congressional district who had been killed in Iraq, and she was not able to name the soldier. Shuster mentioned that it was 18-year-old Jeremy Bohannon, and asked Blackburn why she was not able to recall the name. A further investigation alleged that Bohannon was not actually from Rep. Blackburn's congressional district, but was from the congressional district of Rep. John Tanner. Subsequently, Shuster apologized on air to Rep. Blackburn. However, while Bohannon did grow up in Tanner's district, his legal residence for the year prior to his enlistment was in Blackburn's district.

That incident was not the first time Shuster has sparked controversy. Shuster has been criticized and is very controversial due to his habit of inserting political commentary into his coverage of news stories. The most well-know incident occurred on May 8, 2006, where he proclaimed, "And I am convinced that Karl Rove will, in fact, be indicted" in relation to the Plame affair. A month later, it was announced that Rove would not be indicted.

Shuster is especially known for strong opposition to the administration of President George W. Bush. During an August 24, 2006 report for Hardball, Shuster labeled the Bush administration as full of "ineptitude."Nearly a year later, while reporting in August of 2007, Shuster declared the Bush Administration "an incompetent administration divorced from reality."

On February 7, 2008, while hosting an MSNBC program, Shuster complained about Chelsea Clinton campaigning for her mother, Hillary Clinton. When his guest, Bill Press, pointed out that the President Bush's daughters did the same for their father, Shuster responded:

"There's just something a little bit unseemly to me that Chelsea's out there calling up celebrities, saying support my mom ... doesn't it seem like Chelsea's sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?"

The Clinton campaign demanded an apology and stated that Senator Clinton might not participate in any further debates on MSNBC. Shuster was temporarily suspended from all future NBC News and MSNBC appearances for his comments, other than to issue an apology.

Awards

Shuster is a winner of an Emmy Award as well as a Bugle Award awarded in August 2006 by the Disabled American Veterans for his coverage of the 2005 National Disabled Veterans Sports Clinic and the hour-long special that accompanied it on MSNBC.

Miscellaneous

• Shuster is in the process of completing an MA in International Affairs at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

References

External links

• Hardball with Chris Matthews
• Hardblogger - MSNBC political blog