Alan Friedman

Alan Friedman (/ˈfriːdmən/; born April 30, 1956) is an American journalist, author and former media and public relations executive.

For other people named Alan Friedman, see Alan Friedman (disambiguation).
Alan Friedman
Friedman at the presentation of his book "Ammazziamo il gattopardo".
Born (1956-04-30) April 30, 1956
New York City, New York, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Alma materNew York University
OccupationJournalist, writer
Years active1983–present
Known forBusiness relationship with Paul Manafort, Investigative report on Iraqgate and Berlusconi Cabinet's fall in 2011
Political partyDemocratic (former)

Education

Friedman was educated at New York University (NYU) (B.A. Politics and History), the London School of Economics (International Relations) and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (M.A. International Economics and Law).

Career

Friedman worked in the administration of President Jimmy Carter in the role of Presidential Management Intern. He began his professional career working for the staff of Hon. Bella Abzug (D-NY) and of Hon. Donald Fraser (D-MN).

From 1979 to 1993 he worked for the Financial Times of London, as a columnist on bonds, a banking correspondent and a foreign correspondent in Italy and the United States. His professional relationship with the International Herald Tribune and RAI made way, in 1999, to a joint venture for the co-production of the weekly programmes World Business/Pianeta Economia (Planet Economy), produced by FBC.[1]

He was recognized as the journalist who led the report on the Iraqgate scandal in 1991 that connected the CIA with the supply of non-U.S. origin weapons to Saddam Hussein.

Friedman's television career began in the early 1980s with regular appearances on BBC Newsnight. In 1991 he participated, with Ted Koppel of the ABC Nightline programme, in the production of a series of broadcasts by ABC/Financial Times on the scandal of the weapons sale to Iraq.[1]

He hosted the Alan Friedman Show, a peak talk show on the Sky TG24 news channel in Italy. It was dedicated to national and international economics and politics. From 1994 to 2003 Friedman was global economics correspondent of the IHT.[2]

From 2003 to 2005 he was global economy columnist for The Wall Street Journal Europe.[3] He was executive editor of World Business, a weekly global business programme produced by FBC Media and broadcast on CNBC.[4] Friedman founded and was chairman of FBC.[2] The programme was cancelled in August 2011 after it was revealed that FBC acted as a public relations firm for the government of Malaysia and carried puff pieces in the shows it produced.[5][6] FBC Media went into administration on 24 October 2011.[7]

From 2011 to 2013 with liaison to Viktor Yanukovych's chief of staff Serhiy Lyovochkin, Alan Friedman, Eckart Sager, who was a one time CNN producer, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, and Manafort's senior aide Konstantin Kilimnik devised a strategy to discredit Yulia Tymoshenko along with Hillary Clinton.[8] This effort supported the pro-Russia administration of then President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych.[8] In September 2018, Manafort pleaded guilty to witness tampering for his efforts to coach Friedman and Sager on what to say about their work for him and Yanukovych.[9] In Manafort's statement of the offense, Friedman is identified as "Person D1".[10][11]

In February 2014, his new book Ammazziamo il Gattopardo (Let's Murder the Leopard) was serialised with an excerpt in The Financial Times of London.[12]

He received the America Award of the Italy-USA Foundation in 2014 and, on September 6, 2014, he was awarded the Premio Cesare Pavese, an Italian literary award, for his book Ammazziamo il Gattopardo.[13]

On December 2, Friedman received the Premio Pannunzio 2014, an Italian journalism award, with this motivation read on behalf of the Jury: “He represents a fine example of journalism in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, a journalism where facts are separated from opinions, with independent judgement in describing Italian politics, and this is very much to his credit. Friedman succeeds in putting the present into historical perspective, with objectivity and impartiality”.[14]

In June 2015 it was announced in the Italian media that Friedman would write the first authorized biography of the former Italian Prime Minister and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi. In a video message in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica Berlusconi explained that for many years journalists had asked him to write his biography but he had always declined. He finally decided to work with Friedman because he trusts him. Berlusconi also added: "As Steve Jobs said to his biographer: I will tell you my story. You will write what you like".[15]

Friedman's biography of Berlusconi is being published in 19 languages and in 32 countries in the United States, Europe and Asia. First publication was in October 2015 in the United States by Hachette Books (Berlusconi: The Epic Story of the Billionaire Who Took Over Italy), in the UK (My Way: Berlusconi in his own words) and in Italy by Rizzoli (My Way: BERLUSCONI si racconta a FRIEDMAN), in France by Michel-Lafon (Berlusconi se raconte a Friedman), in the Netherlands (BERLUSCONI) and subsequently in Finland, Portugal, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Spain, China, Russia, Azerbaijan, Sweden, Turkey, and other countries.

In February 2017 Friedman published a book called This Is Not America (Biteback Publishing in UK and Newton Compton in Italy) that was harshly critical of Donald Trump and examined the divisions in American society.[16] The book was a bestseller in Italy for several months in 2017.[17]

In January 2018, Friedman published a new book on the Italian economy (Newton Compton Editori) entitled “Dieci cose da sapere sull’economia italiana prima che sia troppo tardi” [18] (Ten Things To Know About The Italian Economy Before It Is Too Late) which was a Top Ten best-seller in Italy for 17 weeks.

In March 2018 Friedman gave his first TEDxTalk at Oxford University in the UK to an audience of 1,800 people. In his talk Friedman repeatedly criticized Donald Trump for damaging the social fabric of the United States, sowing hatred and division and leading a populist wave of demagogy that threatened America's traditions of strength through cultural diversity. Friedman also warned that Trump was attacking several pillars of American democracy with his repeated attacks on law enforcement, the Justice Department, the rule of law, the free press and the rights of women, gays and minorities.[19]

In a June 2018 article, The New York Times named Friedman as a former associate of Paul Manafort who had contacted Special Counsel Robert Mueller to inform the counsel of Manafort's attempt at witness tampering.[20] The article described how Friedman had helped to arrange and gave advice on writing op-eds that favored Viktor Yanukovich of Ukraine during his short tenure as president at the behest of Manafort and that Friedman "helped lead a project to which prosecutors say Mr. Manafort funneled more than $2 million."

He is currently a columnist for the Italian newspaper La Stampa[21] and frequently makes appearances as an economic and political commentator in the broadcast media[22].

Books
  • Tutto in famiglia, (Longanesi, 1988) ISBN 88-304-0834-4.
  • Ce la farà il capitalismo italiano?, (Longanesi, 1989) ISBN 88-304-0916-2.
  • AGNELLI and the Network of Italian Power (Harrap, New American Library, Longanesi and Planeta, 1988). ISBN 0-453-00690-6.
  • La madre di tutti gli affari, in collaboration with Emanuela Minnai (Longanesi, 1993). ISBN 88-304-1167-1.
  • Spider’s Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq (Bantam, Longanesi, Faber and Faber, 1993). ISBN 0-553-09650-8.
  • Il bivio. L'Italia a metà strada tra crisi e transizione, (Longanesi, 1996). ISBN 88-304-1346-1.
  • Ammazziamo il gattopardo (Rizzoli, 2014). ISBN 88-170-7216-8.
  • Berlusconi: The Epic Story of the Billionaire Who Took Over Italy (Hachette Books, 2015). ISBN 978-0316301992.
  • This is Not America (Biteback Publishing, 2017). ISBN 978-1785902352.
  • Dieci cose da sapere sull'economia italiana, prima che sia troppo tardi (Newton Compton, 2018). ISBN 978-8822714190.
  • Questa non è l'Italia. Storie segrete e verità shock dietro il nuovo volto del nostro Paese (Newton Compton, 2019). ISBN 978-8822733801.
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See also
  • Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (January–June 2018)
  • Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (July–December 2018)

References
  1. Authors, About Alan Friedman Archived 2011-06-13 at the Wayback Machine Radiotelevisione Italiana.
  2. Senior Management Team, fbcmedia.com
  3. Friedman column Archived 2011-06-16 at the Wayback Machine, pressgazette.co.uk, 27 June 2003.
  4. "Alan Friedman". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved 7 August 2011.
  5. "CNBC drops 'World Business'". Politico. 3 August 2011. Retrieved 5 August 2011.
  6. Teoh, Shannon (11 October 2011). "Putrajaya paid RM94m to FBC Media for global airtime". The Malaysian Insider. Archived from the original on 12 October 2011. Retrieved 11 October 2011.
  7. Burrell, Ian (28 October 2011). "Ian Burrell: Surely viewers deserve better than this?". The Independent. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
  8. Harding, Luke (April 5, 2018). "Former Trump aide approved 'black ops' to help Ukraine president: Paul Manafort authorised secret media operation that sought to discredit key opponent of then Ukrainian president". The Guardian. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  9. Hsu, Spence S.; Barrett, Hsu; Jouvenal, Justin; Helderman, Rosalind S.; Jackman, Tom; Rucker, Philip; Weiner, Rachel (September 14, 2018). "Manafort will cooperate with Mueller as part of guilty plea, prosecutor says". The Washington Post. Retrieved September 14, 2018.
  10. Mueller III, Robert S.; Weissmann, Andrew; Rhee, Jeanie S.; Andres, Greg D.; Freeny, Kyle R. (September 14, 2018). "United States of America v. Paul Manafort, Jr. – Statement of the offense and other acts" (PDF). p. 3. Retrieved September 14, 2018 – via Wikimedia Commons.
  11. Sheth, Sonam (June 13, 2018). "Mueller has revealed the names of the 2 witnesses Paul Manafort is accused of trying to tamper with". Business Insider. Retrieved September 14, 2018.
  12. Friedman, Alan (10 February 2014). “Italy: Monti’s secret summer”. The Financial Times. Retrieved 28 Juin 2014.
  13. Borgogno, Cristina (4 September 2014). “Premio Pavese, dialogo in Langa fra i quattro vincitori”. La Stampa. Retrieved 6 November 2014.
  14. Premio Pannunzio 2014 a Friedman delegazione Ponente Ligure. Retrieved 23 December 2014.
  15. Alan Friedman scriverà la prima biografia autorizzata di Berlusconi. Retrieved 16 June 2015.
  16. This Is Not America. Retrieved 15 June 2018.
  17. Alan Friedman conquista il primo posto, segue Chiara Gamberale. Retrieved 15 June 2018.
  18. Con Friedman per capire il Belpaese. Retrieved 15 June 2018.
  19. This Is Not America | Alan Friedman | TEDxOxford. Retrieved 15 June 2018.
  20. Vogel, Kenneth P.; LaFraniere, Sharon; Horowitz, Jason (June 7, 2018). "With Mueller Closing In, Manafort's Allies Abandon Him". The New York Times. Retrieved September 14, 2018.
  21. "L'Italia senza crescita rischia a causa dei mercati volatili". LaStampa.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2019-03-28.
  22. Friedman: 'Attenzione a chi vuole una democrazia illiberale per un'Europa incattivita' (in Italian), retrieved 2019-03-28
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