Alexander Cockburn - Career

Career

After studying at Glenalmond College, an independent boys' boarding school in Perthshire, Scotland, and at Keble College, University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire, Cockburn worked in London as a reporter and commentator.

After moving to the United States, Cockburn wrote for many publications, including The New York Review of Books, Esquire, and Harper's. From 1973 to 1983 he was a writer with The Village Voice, originating its longstanding "Press Clips" column, but he was suspended, the Voice stated, "for accepting a $10,000 grant from an Arab studies organization in 1982". His defenders charge that his criticism of Israeli government policies was behind the firing. Cockburn said he left the Voice following the offer of a regular column in The Nation called "Beat the Devil" (after the title of a novel by his father). After leaving the Voice, he wrote columns for the Wall Street Journal, New York Press, and the New Statesman. Cockburn was also a regular contributor to the Anderson Valley Advertiser.

Cockburn originally chose Irish citizenship (over UK citizenship), but in 2009 he became a citizen of the United States. He became a permanent resident of the United States in 1973. On 16 March 2009 Cockburn officially became a new columnist for the paleoconservative Chronicles magazine.