Elinor Burkett
{{Short description|American journalist, author, film producer, and documentary director}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2013}}
{{Infobox person
| image =
| name = Elinor Burkett
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1946|10|9|mf=y}}
| birth_place = Philadelphia, United States
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| occupation = Journalist, author, biographer
| alma_mater = University of Pittsburgh (PhD, Latin American History, 1975)
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (Master's degree, 1988)
| known_for =
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}}
Elinor Burkett (born October 9, 1946) is an American journalist, author, film producer, and documentary director.
A film produced by her, Music by Prudence, won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) on March 7, 2010.
Education
In 1975, Burkett graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a doctorate in Latin American History.{{Cite web |url=http://www.uwyo.edu/ser/_files/docs/conferences/2014/womens-global.pdf.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=June 8, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304101358/http://www.uwyo.edu/ser/_files/docs/conferences/2014/womens-global.pdf.pdf |archive-date=March 4, 2016 |url-status=dead }}{{cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q_SBtgAACAAJ |title = Early Colonial Peru: The Urban Female Experience|last1 = Burkett|first1 = Elinor C.|year = 1975}} In 1988, Burkett earned a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.{{cite web |url=http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/news/619 |title=Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Prof. Richard Blood has died at 83 |access-date=June 8, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150624033346/http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/news/619 |archive-date=June 24, 2015 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}
Career
Burkett was a history professor at Frostburg State University in Frostburg, Maryland for 13 years. In a dramatic turn, she gave up her tenure to get a Masters at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-12-10-ls-12504-story.html Why Author Considers 'AIDS Industry' Inept Books: Elinor Burkett says too much emphasis is placed on money and not enough on a cure. And, in a nod to critics, she admits the work is venomous. (page 3 of 4)] Los Angeles Times. December 10, 1995 She was a staff writer for the Miami Herald from 1988 to 1992{{cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-11-27-ls-7584-story.html|title=A Howl of Anger : Author Elinor Burkett Says the 'AIDS Industry'--Especially the Feds--Has Botched It|date=November 27, 1995|website=Los Angeles Times}} and she has been published by leading publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone and Harper's Bazaar. She has held Fulbright professorships in both Kyrgyzstan and Zimbabwe and received numerous awards and grants for her work as a historian and writer. She also chaired the Department of Journalism of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks.[http://www.harpercollinscatalogs.com/harper/515_522_313235393537.htm Author (Golda)]{{Dead link|date=October 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} HarperPerennial. Retrieved on June 27, 2010[http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/cs/ContentServer/jrn/1165270052298/JRN_News_C/1212612292610/JRNNewsDetail.htm Academy Awards: Elinor Burkett '88 produces best documentary short] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100623000513/http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/cs/ContentServer/jrn/1165270052298/JRN_News_C/1212612292610/JRNNewsDetail.htm |date=June 23, 2010 }} The Journalism School: University of Columbia. March 8, 2010
She authored her first book in 1993, written with Frank Bruni. In A Gospel of Shame : Children, Sexual abuse and the Catholic Church the pair explored the incidences of Catholic sex abuse cases. Two years later she wrote The Gravest Show on Earth : America in the Age of AIDS. Burkett offered a scorching criticism of the 'AIDS industry' for greed, self-promotion and putting politics over prevention.[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-12-10-ls-12504-story.html Why Author Considers 'AIDS Industry' Inept Books: Elinor Burkett says too much emphasis is placed on money and not enough on a cure. And, in a nod to critics, she admits the work is venomous. (page 4 of 4)] Los Angeles Times. December 10, 1995
In 1997, she again collaborated with Bruni on Consumer Terrorism : How to Get Satisfaction When You're Being Ripped Off. A year later she collaborated with Susan Molinari on Representative Mom: Balancing Budgets, Bill, and Baby in the U.S. Congress.[https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/12/books/family-businesses.html Family Business] New York Times. July 12, 1998 In the same year she challenged her own liberal feminist beliefs by interviewing conservative women for The Right Women : a Journey through the Heart of Conservative America.[https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/04/26/bib/980426.rv101330.html THE RIGHT WOMEN] New York Times.April 26, 1998
In 2000's The Baby Boon : How Family-Friendly America Cheats the Childless, she attacked the US government and industry for pro-family initiatives that leaves the nation's childless paying the price.[http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2000/04/06/baby_boon Nonparent trap?] Salon. April 6, 2000 A year later she released her study of an American high school, Another Planet : a Year in the Life of a Suburban High School.[http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/0066211484.asp ANOTHER PLANET: A Year in the Life of a Suburban High School] Book Reporter. Retrieved on June 27, 2010
In 2004 she wrote So Many Enemies, So Little Time. An American Woman in All the Wrong Places... She related to her time in Kyrgyzstan where she moved in 2001 as a Fulbright Professor teaching journalism at the Kyrgyz-Russo Slavonic University. That same year, in the wake of 9–11, she travelled across all the -stans, as well as Iran, Iraq, Russia, China, Mongolia, and IndoChina.[http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=12388 Bush's Feminist War]{{Dead link|date=October 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} FrontPage. July 1, 2004
In 2004 Burkett also co-directed Is It True What They Say About Ann, a documentary about the right-wing commentator Ann Coulter.[https://web.archive.org/web/20080522213408/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/319374/Is-It-True-What-They-Say-About-Ann-/overview Is It True What They Say About Ann?] New York Times. Retrieved on June 27, 2010
Four years later, she wrote her first biography, about the late Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir. In the book Burkett vindicated Meir for her role in the Yom Kippur War, stressing that far greater responsibility lay with the Israeli Defense Minister, Moshe Dayan.[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/world/middle_east/article4164420.ece How Golda Meir won the Yom Kippur war]{{dead link|date=September 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} The Sunday Times. June 22, 2008
A film that she was involved in the production of, Music by Prudence, won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). She was removed from production of the documentary a year earlier, resulting in a lawsuit and out of court settlement. It caused a media frenzy when, in the midst of the televised Oscar ceremony, the 82nd Academy Awards, she interrupted the acceptance speech of producer and director Roger Ross Williams. It was widely touted as the "Kanye Moment" of that year's Oscars, referring to the Kanye West incident at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.{{cite news| author =Alan Duke| title =Oscar interrupter says she was wronged| newspaper =CNN| date = March 10, 2010| url =http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/09/oscar.speech.interrupted/| access-date = June 8, 2015}}
Personal life
Bibliography
- Golda, (HarperCollins, New York), 2008, {{ISBN|0-06-078665-5}}
- So many enemies, so little time : an American woman in all the wrong places..., (HarperCollins, New York), 2004, {{ISBN|0-06-052442-1}}
- Another planet : a year in the life of a suburban high school, (HarperCollins, New York), 2001, {{ISBN|0-06-621148-4}}
- The baby boon : how family-friendly America cheats the childless, Free Press, New York, 2000, {{ISBN|0-684-86303-0}}
- The right women : a journey through the heart of conservative America, (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York), 1998, {{ISBN|0-684-83308-5}}
- Representative mom : balancing budgets, Bill, and baby in the U.S. Congress, (Doubleday, New York), 1998, {{ISBN|0-385-49220-0}} (Co-authored with Susan Molinari)
- Consumer terrorism : how to get satisfaction when you're being ripped off, (HarperPerennial, New York), 1997, {{ISBN|0-06-095196-6}} (Co-authored with Frank Bruni)
- The gravest show on earth : America in the age of AIDS, (Houghton Mifflin Co, Boston), 1995, {{ISBN|0-395-74537-3}}
- A gospel of shame : children, sexual abuse and the Catholic Church, (Viking, New York), 1993, {{ISBN|0-670-84828-X}} (co-authored with Frank Bruni)
Filmography
=Producer=
- Music by Prudence (2010)
- iThemba (2010)
=Director=
- iThemba (2010)
- Is It True What They Say About Ann (2004)
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{cite news|last1=Burkett|first1=Elinor|title=What Makes a Woman?|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/sunday/what-makes-a-woman.html|access-date=June 7, 2015|work=New York Times|date=June 6, 2015}}
- [http://www.harpercollins.com/cr-100718/elinor-burkett Author profile of Elinor Burkett] at HarperCollins
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Category:21st-century American women
Category:American documentary filmmakers
Category:Film directors from Pennsylvania
Category:American women academics
Category:American women documentary filmmakers
Category:American women journalists
Category:The Atlantic (magazine) people
Category:Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni
Category:Film producers from Pennsylvania
Category:Frostburg State University faculty
Category:Journalists from Pennsylvania
Category:Producers who won the Best Documentary Short Subject Academy Award
Category:University of Pittsburgh alumni