Chris Matthews hosts "The Chris Matthews Show," a syndicated weekly news program produced by NBC News and distributed by NBC Universal Television Distribution, which is seen Sundays at 8:30 PM. Matthews is a regular commentator on NBC's "Today show.
Matthews also hosts Hardball with Chris Matthews, seen weekdays on MSNBC.
A television news anchor with remarkable depth of experience, Matthews has distinguished himself as a broadcast journalist, newspaper bureau chief, Presidential speechwriter, and best-selling author. 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 digging in the National Archives produced a series of San Francisco Examiner scoops on the Nixon presidential tapes. Matthews has covered American presidential election campaigns since 1988, including the five-week recount of 2000. In 2005 Matthews covered the funeral of Pope John Paul II.
In March 2004, he received the David Brinkley Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism. He has also been awarded The Abraham Lincoln Award from the Union League of Philadelphia and in 2005 he received the Gold Medal Award from the Pennsylvania Society.
Matthews worked for 15 years as a print journalist, 13 of them as Washington Bureau Chief for The San Francisco Examiner (1987 - 2000), and two years as a national columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle, which was syndicated to 200 newspapers by United Media.
Prior to that, Matthews spent 15 years in politics and government, working in the White House for four years under President Jimmy Carter as a Presidential speechwriter and on the President’s Reorganization Project, in the U.S. Senate for five years on the staffs of Senator Frank Moss (Utah) and Senator Edmund Muskie (Maine), and as the top aide to Speaker of the House Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, Jr. for six years.
Matthews is the author of four best-selling books, including American: Beyond Our Grandest Notions (2002), a New York Times best seller. His first book, Hardball (1988) is required reading in many college-level political science courses. Kennedy & Nixon (1996) was named by The Readers Digest "Today's Best Non-fiction" and served as the basis of a documentary on the History Channel. Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think (2001) was another New York Times best-seller.
A graduate of Holy Cross College, Matthews did graduate work in economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Matthews also worked for two years as a trade development advisor with the U.S. Peace Corps in the southern African nation of Swaziland.
Matthews was a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Institute of Politics. He holds 16 honorary Ph.D.s.
Matthews is married to Kathleen Matthews, award-winning news anchor for the ABC affiliate WJLA in Washington, D.C. They have three children: Michael, Thomas and Caroline. |