Howard Fineman, political correspondent, television commentator and D.C. insider, died Tuesday at the age of 75. Fineman, who had pancreatic cancer, died at home, according to his wife, Amy Nathan, who posted a statement on social media platform X.
“I am heartbroken to share [that] my brilliant and extraordinary husband passed away late last night surrounded by those he loved most, his family,” Nathan posted on Fineman’s account. “He valiantly battled pancreatic cancer for two years. He couldn’t have been adored more. The world was a better place because he lived in it and wrote about it.”
This is Howard’s wife, Amy Nathan. I am heartbroken to share my brilliant and extraordinary husband passed away late last night surrounded by those he loved most, his family. He valiantly battled pancreatic cancer for 2 years. He couldn’t have been adored more. The world was a… pic.twitter.com/nHgDiybsK0June 12, 2024
Fineman worked as chief political correspondent and deputy Washington bureau chief at Newsweek for 30 years, starting in 1980. He also appeared as a political analyst on NBC and MSNBC, serving as a frequent commentator on Hardball With Chris Matthews. He also was a regular on PBS’s Washington Week in Review and CNN’s Capital Gang Sunday. He also appeared on such programs as Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, CBS’s Face the Nation, PBS’s Charlie Rose, and CNN’s Larry King Live.
He left Newsweek in 2010, when weekly news magazines were no longer widely read, and entered the world of digital journalism, serving first as senior politics editor and later global editorial director at the Huffington Post, now called HuffPost.
“It really wasn’t a difficult decision at all once I really began to think about it because this is where the action is,” Fineman told The New York Times at the time. “The chance to dive headlong into the future is one that I don’t think anyone could pass up.”
He departed HuffPost in 2017, but continued to freelance for the NBC and MSNBC websites among others.
Throughout his long career, he covered nine presidential campaigns and interviewed every president from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama. He also covered President Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, the 9/11 attacks and much more, winning several National Magazine Awards along the way. He is partly credited with the downfall of Sen. Gary Hart’s presidential campaign in 1988, when he hinted about marital infidelity in a piece for Newsweek. That tipped off other journalists who ultimately reported that Hart had been having an affair with Donna Rice, although neither party ever confirmed it.
He also wrote a book, published in 2009, titled The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Define and Inspire Our Country.
Fineman was born on November 17, 1948, in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, where in 2018, a shooter would kill 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue. Fineman later wrote an essay for The New York Times about how the event affected him.
He attended Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, where he was editor-in-chief of the campus weekly newspaper, The Colgate Maroon, and received a bachelor’s degree in English in 1970. In 1973, he earned his master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University in New York City.
His first professional journalism job was at the Louisville Courier-Journal in Kentucky. While there, he completed his law degree at the University of Louisville. He moved to the paper’s Washington, D.C., bureau, where perhaps he was always meant to be, in 1977.
Fineman is survived by his wife of 40 years, Amy Nathan, who worked as an attorney at the Federal Communications Commission for 23 years. Fineman is also survived by a sister, his son Nick and wife Summer, and his daughter Meredith.
