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Markos Kounalakis on Muck Rack

Markos Kounalakis

California, San Francisco, Stanford
As seen in: Hoover Institution, McClatchy DC, McClatchy Media, Miami Herald, Holistic Women's Health, CNN International, Medium, MSN, MSN Canada, MSN UK, Bloomberg News, Yahoo News, CBS News, Fox News and
Covers:  Foreign affairs
California's 1st "Second Gentleman" & Total Political Spouse @EleniForCA Hoover Institution Fellow - Foreign Affairs Analyst & Journalism Junkie - M/C Ducati

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Markos Kounalakis’s Biography

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Markos Kounalakis, Ph.D. is an author, publisher, journalist, and scholar. He is the foreign affairs columnist for McClatchy and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Dr. Kounalakis worked as a foreign correspondent, covering wars and revolutions for Newsweek and as the NBC-Mutual News Moscow correspondent. He reported on the fall of the Berlin Wall and lived in the Soviet Union during its collapse. His assignments included the overth…

Markos Kounalakis’s Journalist Portfolio

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Five Eyes Become Three Blind Mice

Five Eyes Become Three Blind Mice

Trump is threatening the bond of the Five Eyes national security alliance of the U.S., U.K., Canada, New Zeal…

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H-1B fee kills two birds - and America's golden goose - with one stone

H-1B fee kills two birds - and America's golden goose - with one stone

President Donald Trump found another way to weaponize immigration: a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visa applicant…

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Venezuela's Best Chance for Freedom

Venezuela's Best Chance for Freedom

Trump and the U.S. should keep pressuring Maduro of Venezuela, but not use blunderbuss tactics that will back…

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Markos Kounalakis on WHY IS THE FORTHCOMING US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SO CRITICAL?

Markos Kounalakis on WHY IS THE FORTHCOMING US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SO CRITICAL?

WHY IS THE FORTHCOMING US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SO CRITICAL? • In which ways can the outcome affect Greece a…

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Markos Kounalakis on the Golden State's global impact

Markos Kounalakis on the Golden State's global impact

Markos Kounalakis, a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and California’s “second gen…

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World's largest democratic elections: India

World's largest democratic elections: India

"Inside the Issues" host Amrit Singh is joined by Markos Kounalakis, visiting fellow at The Hoover Institutio…

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Articles

How to Save Independent Journalism from AI

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By Courtney Radsch, Markos Kounalakis, Merrill Goozner Verified
| Washington Monthly Verified
The Washington Monthly has long been a think tank in magazine form. We publish deeply reported content that surfaces promising policy solutions to the country’s greatest problems, but as essays and feature stories, not white papers. There are times, however, when our reporting and policy ideas are best conveyed on a bigger canvas.
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What Mark Twain Could Teach Pete Hegseth About Holy War

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By Markos Kounalakis
| Washington Monthly Verified
The United States has long used religious rhetoric to exhort its soldiers into battle. As the current U.S.-Israeli war against Iran cycles through attacks and ceasefires, the rhetoric is disturbingly familiar. The conflict is being framed not just as a strategic necessity, but a moral imperative—a righteous cause blessed from on high.
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The Price of a Lost Russia: A Correspondent’s Eulogy

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By Markos Kounalakis
| Washington Monthly Verified
The cold was constant, but the silence felt most profound. On Christmas Day, 1991, I stood in Moscow and watched the red hammer-and-sickle flag slither down the Kremlin flagpole for the last time. The Soviet Union was no more. Reporting for NBC Radio and Mutual News, I was a witness to the end of an empire and, we thought, the birth of a new Russia. The air, thin and sharp with winter, was thick with a dizzying mix of exhilaration and dread.
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Interview

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Have you ever used a typewriter?

Yes. Portable red Olivetti Lettera 32 with Swedish keys. Still pull it out on occasion.

How is social media changing news?

In every way. From research to distribution, business model to political influence, as per my latest book: Spin Wars and Spy Games

What does it mean to be a journalist?

It means I am curious about everything. Being a journalist also makes me a better husband, dad, and drinking buddy. I have good stories.

Awards

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National Society of Newspaper Columnists

2018 - General Interest category - over 50,000 circulation

NSNC Awards Dinner comments : When a column teaches you something, you know its creator is worth reading. Kounalakis’s world affairs columns not only offer strong prose and strong opinions, they offer an education. What to do with all the Confederate monuments? Kounalakis suggests doing like former communist countries like Hungary have done. Make a Memento Park—a museum and grounds to display them all. Interesting idea with a history lesson thrown in. His other two entries are just as thought provoking. Why was there no outpouring of world aid after Hurricane Harvey as there was after Katrina? Kounalakis has his theory. And the challenges of devising an election process for Russia’s Putin? Voter apathy is one. For as Kounalakis says “who wants to vote for a guy who’s already won?” Well-done Markos Kounalakis.

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National Society of Newspaper Columnists

2019 - General Interest – Online, Blog and Multimedia Columns — Over 100,000 Monthly Unique Visitors

NSNC Awards Dinner comments : Markos Kounalakis for offering insightful commentary about news that everyone else isn’t writing about.

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Society of Professional Journalists Award

2019 - Commentary & Criticism

Winner of a SPJ Sunshine State Award for 2019 work at the Miami Herald in the general category of commentary and criticism.

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