Background
The son of Ann Fischer and television news anchor David Brinkley, Joel Brinkley was born in Washington, District of Columbia in 1952.
The son of Ann Fischer and television news anchor David Brinkley, Joel Brinkley was born in Washington, District of Columbia in 1952.
He taught in the journalism program at Stanford University from 2006 until 2013, after a 23-year career with The New York Times. In 1975 he received a Bachelor of Arts in English and journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Brinkley"s career began when he worked at the Associated Press in Charlotte, North Carolina.
In 1975, Brinkley moved to the The Richmond News Leader in Virginia where he covered local and regional government.
He also covered a series of stories about the Ku Klux Klan and its leader David Duke. He moved to the Louisville Courier Journal in 1978, where he served as a reporter, special-projects writer, editor and Washington correspondent.
In 1983, he took a position in the Washington bureau of the New York Times, where he worked until 2006 as a reporter, White House correspondent, foreign correspondent, editor and bureau chief "He was a director of the Fund for Investigative Journalism from 2001 to 2006." In 2006, he joined Stanford University as the Hearst Visiting Professional in Residence in the Department of Communication.
He taught there until December 2013, leaving to become an adviser for the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction.
Brinkley wrote a weekly op-ed column on foreign policy syndicated by Tribune Media Services. He received "more than a dozen national reporting and writing awards". Brinkley died at a Washington, District of Columbia hospital on March 11, 2014, of pneumonia resulting from leukemia.
He was 61.
