Ethnicity Turkish Role Columnist Citizenship TurkeyUnited States Spouse Wendy Lang | Awards Shorty Award for News Name Cenk Uygur | |
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Full Name Cenk Kadir Uygur Residence West Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States Occupation Activist, columnist, entrepreneur, and political pundit Children Joy Helena Uygur, Prometheus Maximus Uygur Similar People Ana Kasparian, Ben Mankiewicz, Sam Harris, Reza Aslan, Bernie Sanders Profiles | ||
Who is cenk uygur official webby award honoree best web personality host
Cenk Kadir Uygur (; [ˈdʒɛɲc ˈujɡur]; born March 21, 1970) is a Turkish-American progressive political activist, businessman, columnist, and political commentator. Uygur is the main host and co-founder of The Young Turks (TYT), an American liberal political and social commentary program. Before beginning his career as a political commentator, he worked briefly as an associate attorney in Washington, D.C. and New York City. As a young man, Uygur supported socially conservative views, criticizing abortion, affirmative action, and feminism. He currently identifies as a progressive.
Contents
- Who is cenk uygur official webby award honoree best web personality host
- Sam harris and cenk uygur clear the air on religious violence and islam
- Early life education and career
- Political views
- The Young Turks
- MSNBC
- Wolf PAC
- Justice Democrats
- Personal life
- References
In addition to hosting TYT, Uygur appeared on MSNBC as a political commentator. From January to June 2011, he hosted a weeknight commentary show on the network; Uygur was replaced by Al Sharpton. After leaving MSNBC, he secured another weeknight commentary show on Current TV, which aired from December 5, 2011 to August 15, 2013. From 2012 to 2013, Uygur was the chief news officer at Current TV, succeeding Keith Olbermann.
Sam harris and cenk uygur clear the air on religious violence and islam
Early life, education, and career
Uygur was born in Istanbul, Turkey, and emigrated with his family when he was eight years old. He spent his adolescence in East Brunswick, New Jersey, and graduated from East Brunswick High School. Raised as a Muslim, Uygur became an agnostic later in life. He graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where he majored in management and was on the Student Activities Council representing the Turkish Students Association. He then received a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School and worked as an associate attorney at the law firms of Drinker Biddle & Reath in Washington, D.C. and Hayes & Liebman in New York City.
Uygur first appeared as a talk show host on a weekend radio show on WWRC in Washington, D.C. and on WRKO in Boston. He later wrote for, produced, and appeared on the WAMI-TV news show The Times in Miami, then started The Young Turks on Sirius Satellite Radio.
Political views
In his college and law school years, Uygur espoused socially conservative views. He wrote a column in The Daily Pennsylvanian criticizing Penn's practice of affirmative action. He supported the "pro-life" position on the abortion issue, criticized feminism, and argued that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was treated unjustly during his Senate confirmation hearings, however has since then reversed these positions and is now ardently pro-choice. He also criticized organized religion as based on mythology and as a divisive force between people.
In 1991 Uygur wrote an article on The Daily Pennsylvanian in which he expressed the opinion that the genocide of Armenians during the late stages of the Ottoman Empire did not in fact constitute genocide, a view he repeated in a letter to the editor of Salon in 1999. In a blog post in April 2016, he rescinded the statements. He went on to claim that he does not know enough today to comment on it.
Uygur slowly transitioned away from the Republican Party and he said that the decision to invade Iraq was a "seminal moment" in that transition. He is now a progressive. On national security and civil liberties issues, Uygur has strongly opposed the practices begun under the Bush administration, of indefinite detention, warrantless wiretapping and extraordinary rendition, and believes that waterboarding is an illegal torture technique. Uygur has been a strong critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the right-wing Israeli government and has stated that he is an advocate for a two-state solution in the West Bank and has repeatedly criticized the Israeli government for its failure to materialize. He has also repeatedly criticized former Canadian Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The Young Turks
Uygur created the talk show The Young Turks with the goal of starting a liberal political and entertainment show. It launched on February 14, 2002. It later became a success online, and aired on the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The Young Turks claims to be the first Internet video news show and states that it is now the largest online news show in the world. Collectively it has amassed over one billion views on YouTube, and over three million subscribers. Video of the show is streamed daily on its website and is available as a podcast.
On September 20, 2011, Current TV announced that The Young Turks would launch a weeknight TV edition of the show at 7 p.m. EST (M-F) on the network beginning sometime in the fourth quarter of 2011. According to the show's website, the show was introduced as The Young Turks with Cenk Uygur to differentiate itself from the popular web series. The show on Current TV ended on August 15, 2013 with the end of all live programming on Current.
In July 2017, Uygur debated conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire, at Politicon. The event generated significant media coverage.
MSNBC
On October 21, 2010 MSNBC announced that Uygur had been officially hired as a contributor and substitute anchor for the network. On January 21, 2011, it was announced that Uygur would be hosting the 6 p.m. Eastern slot on MSNBC as the anchor of a new prime time edition of MSNBC Live, after the network parted ways with Keith Olbermann, resulting in a rearrangement of the time slots of MSNBC's other prime time shows. Uygur filled the time slot vacated by Ed Schultz, from late January through June 2011, earning first among people 18–34 in the second quarter. His contract was ended when he did not accept a lower profile weekend slot. An MSNBC spokesperson expressed regret at Uygur's leaving.
Uygur gave his side of the story on Democracy Now!, saying that MSNBC President Phil Griffin had called him into his office in April and told him that he had been talking to people in Washington and that they did not like Uygur's tone. MSNBC denied the claim, saying that "We did have numerous conversations with Cenk about his style, not substance."
Wolf-PAC
In late 2011, after seeing the momentum of Occupy Wall Street, Uygur decided to launch a long term project, a political action committee named Wolf-PAC. Wolf-PAC aims to lobby state legislators to pass resolutions calling for an Convention of the States under Article V of the US Constitution. Its slogan is "A super-PAC to end all super-PACs". The aim of the convention would be to pass an amendment to the United States Constitution that would end corporate personhood and publicly finance all elections in the United States.
Justice Democrats
In January 2017, three days after the inauguration of president Donald Trump, Uygur announced the formation of the Justice Democrats. The group seeks to steer the Democratic Party in the progressive, social democratic direction espoused by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.
Personal life
Uygur was born and raised in a Muslim family, but is now a self-described "fervent agnostic", and has also self-described as an atheist. In 2010, along with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Uygur accepted the "Emperor Has No Clothes Award" from the Freedom From Religion Foundation and later the Humanist Media Award from the American Humanist Association. He is married to Wendy Lang, a marriage and family therapist, and they have two children.