The Foundation > About Maureen Orth
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About Maureen Orth
Maureen Orth served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia in the sixties where she first helped build Escuela Marina Orth. An experienced journalist, the third woman writer of Newsweek; she has been a Special Correspondent for Vanity Fair since 1993. She started writing for the magazine in 1988. Among the heads of state she has interviewed are Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Argentine President Carlos Menem, and Irish President Mary Robinson.
She has also profiled controversial figures such Gerry Adams, Madonna, Mohammed Fayed, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Marc Rich, as well as fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld and Tina Turner Tina Turner. |
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Orth’s investigative story highlighting the role of Afghanistan’s illegal opium trade in funding terrorism written shortly after 9/11, has been lauded by the Office of Drug Control Policy. Her profile on murder suspect Andrew Cunanan for the September 1997 issue was the first in-depth report on the man who killed Versace. The article served as the basis for her best selling book, Vulgar Favors (Delacorte Press, 1999). Orth has also written investigative pieces regarding the allegations of sexual abuse by Michael Jackson and child abuse by Woody Allen, and has chronicled the zig zagging career of Arianna Huffington. |
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Prior to joining Vanity Fair, Orth was contributing editor at Vogue and a network correspondent for NBC News. She was also a senior editor for New York and New West magazines. Orth worked for Newsweek from 1973 to 1978, where she was the entertainment editor and the lifestyle editor, and wrote seven cover stories. While at Newsweek she took a leave of absence to be Italian director Lina Wertmuller’s assistant on the film Seven Beauties. Orth has written for such publications as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Oprah Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Esquire. She was nominated for a National Magazine Award in reporting for her article on Michael and Arianna Huffington, which appeared in the November 1994 issue of Vanity Fair. While at Newsweek, Orth won a National Magazine Award for group coverage of the arts. Ms. Orth served with the Peace Corps in Medellin, Colombia before beginning her journalistic career.
She has helped begin an intergenerational residence for homeless mothers in New York City and has served on the Executive Committee of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, 2000-2006, and the boards of the National Council of Peace Corps Volunteers and the International Women's Democracy Center.
Maureen Orth lives in Washington, D.C., Her late husband was Tim Russert, the Washington bureau chief of NBC News and moderator of Meet the Press. Their son, Luke Russert, recently graduated from Boston College and is an NBC News correspondant. |
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