Virginia Heffernan

Virginia Heffernan (born August 8, 1969) is an American journalist. She is best-known as a television critic for The New York Times, and as "The Medium" columnist at The New York Times Magazine.

Background and education

Heffernan was born in Hanover, New Hampshire. She received her B.A. from the University of Virginia in 1991, and an English Literature Master's Degree and Ph.D from Harvard University, in 1993 and 2002, respectively. [ [http://www.dartmouth.edu/~lhc/events/2007/heffernan.html Fannie and Alan Leslie Center for the Humanies at Dartmouth College] ]

Career

Journalism

Heffernan began her career as a fact-checker with The New Yorker magazine. [cite news |url=http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a57.asp |title=So What Do You Do, Virginia Heffernan? |first=Lizzie |last=Skurnick |publisher=Media Bistro |date=2003-04-01 |accessdate=2008-04-16] She served as an editor at Harper's and Talk magazines [ [http://themedium.blogs.nytimes.com/ New York Times Magazine: "About Virginia"] ] , and as TV critic for the online magazine Slate. (Reviewing her work there, online critic Teresa DiFalco called Heffernan a "dazzling talent...Should you at some point get stranded on a Desert Island, make Heffernan your first stop back. [TV] is life, it is increasingly how we communicate with each other, and a quick read of Heffernan will leave you fully prepared for the most daunting cocktail party crowd." [Teresa DiFalco, "Virginia Heffernan, TV Muse," Contemporary Women Writers, August 9, 2002.] )

In June 2002, the Columbia Journalism Review named Heffernan one of its "Ten Young Editors to Watch." [cite news |url=http://cjrarchives.org/issues/2002/6/picks-cox.asp |title=Ten Young Editors To Watch |first=Ana Marie |last=Cox |publisher=Columbia Journalism Review |date=2002-06-01 |accessdate=2008-04-16] . In September of the following year, Heffernan departed "Slate" to join "The New York Times". At the time, media critic Jim Romenesko published an internal email from Slate publisher Cyrus Krohn, complaining "A prominent East Coast newspaper, The New York Times, has been poaching from Slate, taking key writers and editors invaluable to our evolving franchise." [cite news |url=http://www.poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=5589 |title=Slate Publisher's Memo re Losing Staff to NYT |first=James |last=Romenesko |publisher=Poynter Online |date=2003-09-05 |accessdate=2008-04-16]

Books and TV

In 2005, Heffernan (with co-writer Mike Albo) published the comic novel, "The Underminer." The MTV documentary on the murder of Matthew Shepherd, "Matthew's Murder"—for which Heffernan wrote the script— was nominated for an Emmy award. [cite news |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E7D91138F937A25756C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2 |title=It's Not All Dazzle: MTV Has a Conscience, Too |first=Joseph |last=Hooper |publisher=The New York Times |date=2000-05-14 |accessdate=2008-04-16]

Personal

Heffernan is married to the journalist David Samuels.

References

External links

* [http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a57.asp Virginia Heffernan Interview on Media Bistro]
* [http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/virginia_heffernan/index.html Virginia Heffernan Archive, The New York Times]
* [http://cjrarchives.org/issues/2002/6/picks-cox.asp Columbia Journalism Review: "Ten Young Editors To Watch"]
* [http://www.slate.com/default.aspx?submit.x=0&submit.y=0&id=3944&qt=virginia+heffernan Virginia Heffernan Archive, Slate Magazine]