Nina Easton

Journalism

Nina Easton started her career in journalism in 1981 as a writer for Ralph Nader, for whom she co-authored a book on the Reagan Administration. In 1984 she became a staff reporter for the Washington D.C.-based Legal Times. She then wrote for The American Banker and Businessweek before joining the Los Angeles Times as a staff writer, a position she held from 1988 to 1998. Easton's writing for the Los Angeles Times earned her a National Headliner Award in 1994 for best magazine writing and a Sunday Magazine Editors Award for investigative reporting.

In 2003, Easton joined The Boston Globe as the deputy bureau chief at the paper's Washington bureau. From 2006 until 2016, she was a senior editor covering politics and economics for Fortune Magazine. In 2014, her Fortune column was honored with a National Headliner Award for magazine commentary. Easton also serves as chair of Fortune Magazine's Most Powerful Women International, which hosts events in the United States as well as internationally. She is co-chair of the Fortune Global Forum, which in 2016 brought CEOs to the Vatican to meet Pope Francis and discuss a private-sector compact on creating a more inclusive global economy.

For more than a decade, from 2005 through 2016, Easton was a regular panelist on Fox News Sunday and Special Report with Bret Baier, among other Fox news shows. She has also contributed commentary to NBC's Meet the Press, CBS's Face the Nation, ABC's This Week and PBS programs including The Charlie Rose Show. During the 2004 elections she was an analyst on CNN and during the 2008 campaign she provided primetime election commentary for Fox News.

Recognition and Harvard fellowships

In 1991, Easton was named a "rising star" by the British-American Project, a collaborative project between the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. In 1995 she co-chaired the organization's annual conference in England.

Easton's 2002 book, Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Ascendancy, which chronicles the rise of post-Reagan conservatism, now ranks on the Vox list of "books to read to understand the world."

In spring 2012, Easton was named a Goldsmith Fellow at Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. Easton's announced research project focused on the increasing income inequality in the United States and its impact on Americans' views of the wealthy. Also in 2012, she was named a fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics where her responsibilities include leading a study group for the Harvard community focusing on role the economy plays in the election cycle.

Publications

Easton is the author of several books. In 1982, Easton co-authored Reagan's Ruling Class: Portraits of the President's Top 100 Officials with Ronald Brownstein. The book, whose preface was written by Nader, profiled individuals involved in Ronald Reagan's presidency and included interviews with most of the administration's top officials.

Easton's Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Ascendancy was published in 2002, examining the rise of modern conservatism and what Easton called the "hidden history" of the baby-boom generation. Gang of Five profiled five leaders of the conservative movement in America: William Kristol, Grover Norquist, David M. McIntosh, Clint Bolick and Ralph Reed.

While working for The Boston Globe, Easton co-authored John F. Kerry: A Complete Biography by The Boston Globe Reporters Who Know Him Best, with fellow Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Brian Mooney. The book was published in 2004.

Personal life

Easton grew up in California and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley. On November 27, 2004 she married Russell Schriefer, a Republican political strategist who was the senior advisor to the 2012 presidential campaign of Mitt Romney. In May 2007, Washington Monthly named Easton and Schriefer to its list of Washington "power couples". They live in Chevy Chase, Maryland.