Jane Mayer: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Mayer, 62, is a native New Yorker. Her mother a painter and printmaker, her father a composer, her grandfather was a historian and John D Rockefeller Jr. biographer, and her ancestor Emanuel Lehman was a founder of the Lehman Brothers.

She attended tony New York high schools, was an exchange boarding school student in England and then, graduated magna cum laude from Yale in 1977. While at Yale, she was editor of the Yale Daily News Magazine. Also while studying in New Haven, she began her professional career in journalism as a freelancer for Time magazine.

In 1992, Mayer married fellow journalist William B. Hamilton, then Washington Post national editor, now Washington editor for The New York Times. They have one child, daughter Kate.

Mayer is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press.

And because good journalists pay their dues on the ground covering small communities, Mayer began as a beat reporter for small weeklies in Vermont, then moved on to the daily Rutland (VT) Herald before joining the staff of the now long-closed Washington Star as a metro beat reporter. In 1982, Mayer was hired by The Wall Street Journal. There she soared and was named the first female White House correspondent.

Attribution: heavy.com
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