KAISER, Robert G(reeley) 1943-

PERSONAL: Born April 7, 1943, in Washington, DC; son of Philip Mayer (a government official and diplomat) and Hannah (Greeley) Kaiser; married Hannah Jopling (a translator), July 14, 1965; children: Charlotte Jerome, Emily Eli. Education: Yale University, B.A., 1964; London School of Economics and Political Science, M.Sc., 1967; postgraduate study at Columbia University, 1970-71.

ADDRESSES: Office—Washington Post, 1150 15th St. N.W., Washington, DC 20071. Agent—John Hawkins, 71 West 23rd St., New York, NY 10010.

CAREER: Journalist and educator. Washington Post, Washington, DC, reporter, beginning 1963, correspondent in Saigon, 1969-70, bureau chief in Moscow, 1971-74, national correspondent, 1975-82, associate editor and columnist, 1982-85, assistant managing editor for national news, 1985-90, department managing editor, 1990-91, managing editor, 1991-98, associate editor and senior correspondent, 1998—. Duke University, Durham, NC, visiting professor, 1974-75, adjunct professor, beginning 1980.

MEMBER: Council on Foreign Relations, Elihu Club.

AWARDS, HONORS: Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild Front Page award, 1973; Overseas Press Club award for best foreign correspondence, 1974.

WRITINGS:

(With Dan Morgan) The Soviet Union and EasternEurope: New Paths, Old Ruts, Foreign Policy Association (New York, NY), 1973.

Cold Winter, Cold War, Stein & Day (New York, NY), 1974.

Russia: The People and the Power, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1976, revised edition, Washington Square Press, 1984, abridged edition, Penguin, 1977.

(With Jon Lowell) Great American Dreams: A Portrait of the Way We Are, Harper (New York, NY), 1979.

(Author of text) Russia from the Inside, compiled and edited by wife, Hannah Jopling Kaiser, Dutton (New York, NY), 1980.

Why Gorbachev Happened: His Triumphs and HisFailure, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1991.

(With Leonard Downie, Jr.) News about the News:American Journalism in Peril, A. A. Knopf (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor of articles to periodicals, including Esquire, Foreign Affairs, New York, and the London Observer.

SIDELIGHTS: A former Moscow bureau chief for the Washington Post, Robert G. Kaiser has parlayed his knowledge of the former Soviet Union into several books on its people. Russia: The People and the Power, for example, "is a perfectly fascinating tour d'horizon of the Soviet Union," according to Erwin Canham in the Christian Science Monitor. "Not a page is dull. It is crammed with first-hand precise reporting: episodes, anecdotes, events, observations.... Kaiser's account of the dead hand of bureaucratic mediocrity, bearing down on nearly everything, is persuasive." New York Times Book Review contributor Phillip Knightley similarly observed that Kaiser's book "tell[s] us how the Russians feel about [life]....Forthe first time, I now know something about today's Russians as a people." Russia, which Lance Morrow in Time called a "superb exercise . . . in political-travel journalism, give[s] Russia what it has always lacked for Americans: a complicated human reality."

Likewise, "Robert and Hannah Kaiser's Russia from the Inside is a real Russian book about the gritty Soviet reality that a casual tourist could never see," David Lapeza summarized in the Washington Post Book World. A compilation of photographs taken mostly by native Soviets, Russia from the Inside is "an exceptionally detailed and insightful look at modern Russian life," Lapeza continued. Kaiser's commentary, in particular, provides "a quick and deft course in the Soviet Union," noted Christian Science Monitor contributor Charlotte Saikowski, "touching on such aspects as schooling, marriage, religion, village life, and the country's political system." "The text is not supplemental, as it often is with coffee table books" concluded Lapeza; "it is essential to an understanding of the photographs."

News about the News: American Journalism in Peril is not chock-full of good news. Kaiser and co-author Leonard Downie, Jr. studied network, local, and cable news, as well as leading U.S. newspapers, and concluded that the news is in dire need of change. In this collection of essays, they concentrate on how technology and large corporations, in their concern for winning the television ratings game, have changed the face of the news. They demonstrate that the news media has focused on sensationalism, celebrities, entertainment, and other nonessential stories for much of the last two decades of the twentieth century instead of reporting hard news. Kaiser and Downie offer hope for a return to serious journalism in the wake of September 11, 2001, writing: "good journalism holds communities together in times of crisis providing the information and the images that constitute shared experience." A Publishers Weekly reviewer concluded that News about the News "is an important, up-to-date study that should be required reading for journalism students and serious consumers of the news."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Taft, William H., Encyclopedia of Twentieth-CenturyJournalists, Garland Publishing (New York, NY), 1986.

PERIODICALS

American Journalism Review, April, 2002, review of News about the News: American Journalism in Peril, p. 63.

Antioch Review, fall, 1991, Leo Gruliow, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 607.

Austin-American Statesman (Austin, TX), March 7, 2002, Sharyn Wizda Vane, review of News about the News, p. E1.

Booklist, May 15, 1991, review of Why GorbachevHappened, p. 1776; March 1, 2002, Vanessa Bush, review of News about the News, p. 86.

Buffalo News (Buffalo, NY), March 17, 2002, Stephen W. Bell, review of News about the News, p. E7.

Business Week, June 29, 1992, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 15.

Christian Science Monitor, February 10, 1976; September 8, 1980.

Commonweal, December 6, 1991, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 723.

Foreign Affairs, April, 1991, review of Why GorbachevHappened, p. 24; fall, 1991, John C. Campbell, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 179.

Guardian, May 19, 1991, review of Why GorbachevHappened, p. 19; September 20, 1992, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 179.

Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 1991, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 518.

Library Journal, May 15, 1991, Zachary T. Irwin, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 96.

Los Angeles Times, April 21, 2002, David Shaw, review of News about the News, p. R13.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, May 19, 1991, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 4.

Mother Jones, January-February, 2002, Eric Bates, review of News about the News, p. 73.

National Review, April 8, 2002, James Bowman, review of News about the News, p. 46.

New Leader, August 12, 1991, Robert V. Daniels, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 18.

Newsweek, January 19, 1976; July 29, 1991, Peter McGrath, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 51.

New York Review of Books, November 7, 1992, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 53.

New York Times, February 8, 1976; February 9, 1976.

New York Times Book Review, January 25, 1976; May 12, 1991, Marshall I. Goldman, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 9; June 9, 1991, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 24; August 23, 1992, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 24; March 10, 2002, review of News about the News.

Publishers Weekly, March 22, 1991, review of WhyGorbachev Happened, p. 64; February 18, 1992, review of News about the News, p. 86; April 6, 1992, review of Why Gorbachev Happened; February 18, 2002, review of News about the News, p. 86.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 3, 2002, Harry Levins, review of News about the News, p. F11.

Time, May 10, 1976.

Times Literary Supplement, August 30, 1991, Archie Brown, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 5.

Washington Post Book World, August 3, 1980; April 28, 1991, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 1; August 9, 1992, review of Why Gorbachev Happened, p. 12.*