Journalist and author, Jodi Kantor (UF Class of 1998), spoke in a thoughtful but casual way with a group of current Urban Fellows and alumni at a breakfast session on December 7th at the law offices of Jenner & Block in Midtown Manhattan. The main topic was her acclaimed new book, “The Obamas,” published in 2012.
Jodi became the Arts & Leisure Editor of the New York Times in 2002 when she was only 27, but moved to covering politics for the Times starting in 2007. The book is a narrative of her years covering the President and the First Lady, and includes details provided in numerous interviews with White House insiders. In addition to covering the 2008 election, Jodi interviewed the first couple in the Oval Office for a 2009 article for the Times Magazine. She also wrote some of the earliest articles about Michelle Obama.
During her time with the alumni. Jodi shared some inside baseball – or rather some inside-the-White-House – observations as she responded to questions.
Jodi confided that Barack Obama hates politics, and that intense dislike is a thread that is weaved throughout his life and, interestingly, his political career. As Editor in Chief of the Harvard Law Review, Obama was regarded as the “the healer” among the factions that naturally arise in an environment like that. But in the negotiations with Congress over the past four years “he has to play his side of the net.” She added, however, “he has improved” in that regard.
As for the political ambitions of Michelle Obama, Jodi commented that she “would eat my own book if Michele Obama entered politics.”
She also said that the President had a great deal of difficulty hiding his disdain for Mitt Romney, and the TV coverage of the debates betrayed that.
Overall, Jodi felt that because the Obamas were from Chicago, and not from inside the Washington beltway, they were “very real people” and an “interesting couple.”
Jodi was asked what impact the Urban Fellow program had on her life. She shared that it was through the Urban Fellows program that she met her husband, but added that “working for city government is valuable.”
Jodi graduated from Columbia and was an Urban Fellow in the Mayor’s Office of Operations. She attended Harvard Law School but left to write for the online magazine Slate in 1998, and four years later, the New York Times. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.
“The Obamas” has been well-received. A review in the Chicago Tribune said that her book was “insightful and evocative, rich with detail.” The New Yorker said “Kantor nails her story.”
NYC Urban Fellows Alumni Association 