MICHAEL WINES

New York Times national correspondent

As a dedicated New York Times journalist, Michael Wines has covered some of the world’s most consequential moments through his 40-year career.

In his home neighborhood of Shively in Louisville, Kentucky, he started his career in journalism when he created an editorial “with an ancient Underwood, typing paper and carbon sheets.” He would then sell his one-page newspapers to neighbors for one penny. Once he began his formal education, he founded another paper; this time, for his elementary school. Continuing the trajectory that defined his youth, his next step was to become the editor of his high school paper at Pleasure Ridge Park High School. And to the surprise of no one, Wines graduated again to being a writer and eventual editor for the University of Kentucky’s student newspaper.

These formative experiences helped him to gain the tools necessary for a career in journalism. After he graduated with his B.A. in Journalism from UK in 1973, he continued his education at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York and completed his degree a year later.

At the Louisville Times, he would also meet the future Pulitzer Prize-winner Sharon LaFraniere, who he would eventually marry.

After moving onto the National Journal in the mid-1980s, he took his career to the next level working as a correspondent at the Washington bureau for the Los Angeles Times. Here, he would break a monumentally important political scandal that clouded Ronald Reagan’s administration: the Iran-Contra affair. Wines in this capacity was instrumental in reporting diligently and clearly this complex scandal that featured many moving parts and players.

For his active role in the investigation and reporting of this scandal, he was offered a job at The New York Times, where he would cover “the Justice Department, the American intelligence community, the White House, the 1992 presidential campaign, Congress, the environment and, for nearly 15 years, news and life in Russia and surrounding states, southern Africa and China.”

To learn more, check out our blog The Life and Times of Reporter Michael Wines.