Walter Shapiro was an American journalist, novelist, columnist, and writer who passed away on July 21, 2024. He wrote speeches for President Jimmy Carter in addition to serving as the press secretary for the US Secretary of Labor. He wrote staff pieces for The New Republic as well.
Early Life
Shapiro attended Brien McMahon High School in 1965 after graduating from college. He was born in New York City and raised in Norwalk, Connecticut. Shapiro received his B.A. in history in 1970 while working as an editor of The Michigan Daily while he was a student at the University of Michigan. In addition, Shapiro enrolled in Michigan’s master’s program in European history.
While still a graduate student, he made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. House of Representatives, coming in second in a six-candidate Democratic primary. From 1969 to 1970, Shapiro worked as a Washington reporter for Congressional Quarterly, where he started his journalism career.
Since then, he had contributed to numerous magazines and newspapers, such as USA Today (where he began as a twice-weekly columnist for “Hype & Glory”), The Washington Post, Time (where he worked as a senior writer covering Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign from 1987 to 1993), Newsweek (where he was a political writer from 1983 to 1987), Esquire (where he wrote a monthly column for Esquire called “Our Man in the White House”), the Washington Monthly (where he served as editor from 1972 to 1976), Salon.com, and Politics Daily.
Work Life
Shapiro was a columnist for Yahoo News and Roll Call in addition to The American Prospect. Shapiro’s article “The Societal Costs of Our Shrill, Hyperactive and Partisan Media Culture,” which appeared in Politics Daily, earned him the 2010 Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists in the area of Online Column Writing (Independent).
From 1977 to 1978, Shapiro served as U.S. Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall’s press secretary. In 1979, he wrote speeches for President Jimmy Carter. He covered nine presidential elections in the US. Shapiro did a fellowship with the Japan Society in Japan and has been a member of the Gihon Foundation’s Council on Ideas since 1992.
Shapiro taught political science at Yale University and served as a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. Shapiro is the author of Hustling Hitler: How a Jewish Vaudevillian Fooled the Fuhrer (Blue Rider Press, 2016) and One-Car Caravan: On the Road with the 2004 Democrats Before America Tunes In (Public Affairs, 2003). For many years, Shapiro entertained audiences with stand-up comedy.
The Times of London named him “one of Manhattan’s leading political satirists” in 1998. He has also featured satire in his columns. Walter Shapiro was an American journalist, novelist, columnist, and writer who passed away on July 21, 2024. He wrote speeches for President Jimmy Carter in addition to serving as the press secretary for the US Secretary of Labor. He wrote staff pieces for The New Republic as well.
