Katie Halper

Katherine Rose Halper (born July 11, 1980/1981) is an American comedian, writer, filmmaker, podcaster, and political commentator. She is the host of The Katie Halper Show on WBAI and co-host of the Useful Idiots podcast with Matt Taibbi.

Katie Halper
Katie Halper at Netroots Nation 2008, Austin, Texas
Born
Katherine Rose Halper

July 11, 1980/1981 (age 39–40)[1][2]
New York City, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
EducationDalton School
Alma materWesleyan University
Occupation
  • Comedian
  • writer
  • journalist
  • filmmaker
  • podcaster
  • political commentator
  • teacher
Years active2004–present
Known forThe Katie Halper Show
Websitekatiehalper.com

Early life and education

Halper was born and raised in New York City's Upper West Side, on Riverside Drive.[1] She graduated from the Dalton School, and from Wesleyan University in 2003.[3][4] She is Jewish,[5] but considers herself secular.[1] Her father is a psychiatrist and her mother is an English professor and novelist.[1]

Career

After graduating from Wesleyan, Halper worked as development director for the Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV), a nonprofit media education center and documentary production house. She also coordinated living wage and labor campaigns in New York City and Florida.[6] Halper has also taught history at her alma mater, the Dalton School.[7]

Comedy

She began her career performing as a stand-up comedian. She has performed comedy at venues including Symphony Space, The Culture Project in New York, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the D.C. Comedy Festival, and at Netroots Nation. She also performed on the annual Seminar Cruise of The Nation magazine. She has performed with Lizz Winstead, Markos Moulitsas, The Yes Men, Cynthia Nixon, and Jim Hightower.[8]

Film

Her first film as director was entitled La Memoria es Vaga (2005), a documentary about the Valle de los Caídos and historical memory in post-Franco Spain. It was screened in the United States and Spain.[9][6] Halper was co-producer of Tim Robbins and the DCTV film Embedded Live (also 2005), based on Robbins' play of the same name.[10][6] Embedded Live was shown at the Venice Film Festival and Sundance Channel.[11] She was associate producer of Estela Bravo's Free to Fly: The US-Cuba Link (2004), about restrictions on travel between Cuba and the United States.[8][6] Free to Fly was shown at the Havana Film Festival and Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival.[11] Halper directed and produced the film Commie Camp (2013). Commie Camp, originally entitled Another Camp Is Possible, is a documentary about the Jewish summer camp Camp Kinderland, where Halper went and her mother and grandmother worked.[8][12][13][14] She also co-directed Facing Fascism: New Yorkers Remember the Spanish Civil War, a video for an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York.[11]

She was outreach director for Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein's documentary The Take (2004).[8] The documentary is about a workers' movement in Buenos Aires, Argentina and was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, and Film Forum.[11]

Commentator

Articles by Halper have been published in The New York Times, Comedy Central, The Nation, Gawker, The Huffington Post, Alternet, Daily Kos, OpenLeft, The Raw Story, Jacobin, Salon, Vice, The Guardian, and Feministing, where she was a guest columnist.[8][11][15][16]

She has been featured as a commentator on MSNBC,[17] The Young Turks,[18] RT,[19][20] Fox News Channel's The Ingraham Angle,[5] The Hill's Rising with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti,[21][22] The New York Times, New York Magazine, Los Angeles Times, In These Times, Jezebel, Gawker, MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The Sam Seder Show, The Marc Maron Show, Sirius Radio, WBAI, XM Radio's P.O.T.U.S., and The Alan Colmes Show.[8]

Political activism

Halper is a national director of Living Liberally and the co-founder of Laughing Liberally, both of which promote political action through social interaction.[23][10]

Podcasting

Halper was co-host of the podcast Morning Jew with Heather Gold.[24] She hosts The Katie Halper Show, a weekly WBAI radio show and podcast. The show received attention when, during an interview with Halper that was released as a podcast on March 25, 2020, Tara Reade, a former Senate staff assistant of Joe Biden, alleged that Biden sexually assaulted her in a Capitol Hill office building in 1993. Reade alleged that Biden had pushed her against a wall and penetrated her with his fingers.[25][26] A Biden spokesperson has said that the allegation was false.[27]

In 2019, she and Matt Taibbi launched and co-host the podcast Useful Idiots, which is distributed by Rolling Stone.[28] The podcast has since featured interviews with Tulsi Gabbard, Jimmy Dore, Andrew Yang, Bernie Sanders, Mark Crispin Miller, Chris Hedges, Krystal Ball, Nadya Tolokonnikova, Michael Moore, Tim Robbins, Glenn Greenwald, Dennis Kucinich, Ro Khanna, Noam Chomsky, Adam McKay, Rashida Tlaib, Thomas Frank and Roger Waters.[29]

Halper has also appeared as a guest on the podcast The West Wing Thing.[30]

Filmography
  • Free to Fly: The US-Cuba Link (2004) — Associate producer
  • Embedded Live (2005) — Co-producer
  • La Memoria es Vaga (2005) — Director, producer
  • Commie Camp (2013) — Director, producer

See also

References
  1. "making politics laughable". Chelsea News NY. October 27, 2015. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  2. @kthalps (July 10, 2018). "My birthday is 7/11. That's July 11" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  3. Bahrampour, Tara (November 7, 1999). "URBAN TACTICS; They Do Everything But Take the Test for You". The New York Times. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  4. "Briefs". The Middletown Press. April 15, 2005. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  5. "WATCH: Jewish American Podcast Host Katie Halper Battles Laura Ingraham Over Right-Wing Anti-Sentimism". Common Dreams. February 13, 2019. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  6. "Katie Halper". Experimental Television Center. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  7. "Katie Halper". The Nation. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  8. Truitt, Jos (December 8, 2011). "Welcome Katie Halper to the blog!". Feministing. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  9. Halper, Katie (January 20, 2008). "A True Atonement". The New York Times. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  10. "Katie Halper". Feministing. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  11. "Katie Halper Show". WBAI. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  12. Sucharov, Mira (August 29, 2013). "Commie Camp: Indoctrination or True Jewish Values?". Haaretz. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  13. Strauss, Elissa (September 17, 2013). "Q&A with 'Commie Camp' Filmmaker Katie Halper". The Forward. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  14. Fox, Tamar (December 12, 2013). "Everyone Wants to Go to Commie Camp". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  15. "Katie Halper". Jacobin. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  16. Halper, Katie (April 24, 2020). "Tara Reade says Joe Biden sexually assaulted her. She deserves to be heard". The Guardian. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  17. "Katie Halper". Common Dreams. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  18. "Katie Halper". The Young Turks. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  19. "Troy Davis execution outrage". YouTube. RT America. September 21, 2011. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  20. "Katie Halper: Biden Sexy, Ahmadinejad Jewish, Obama Nazi". YouTube. RT. November 10, 2009. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  21. "Journalist Katie Halper on why Tulsi is really running for President". The Hill. August 30, 2019. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  22. "Krystal and Katie Halper dish on the biggest media screwups of 2019". The Hill. December 31, 2019. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  23. Adler, Ben (May 27, 2008). "Live, laugh and drink ... liberally". Politico. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  24. Rubin, Hannah (February 28, 2017). "She sets the Gold standard for comedy in the Bay Area". J. The Jewish News of Northern California. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  25. Marcotte, Amanda (March 31, 2020). "A woman accuses Joe Biden of sexual assault, and all hell breaks loose online. Here's what we know". Salon. Retrieved April 15, 2020.
  26. Halper, Katie (March 31, 2020). "Tara Reade Tells Her Story". Current Affairs. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
  27. Lerer, Lisa; Ember, Sydney (April 12, 2020). "Examining Tara Reade's Sexual Assault Allegation Against Joe Biden". The New York Times. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  28. Taibbi, Matt (August 20, 2019). "Welcome to 'Useful Idiots,' a New Rolling Stone Podcast". Rolling Stone. Retrieved September 15, 2019.
  29. "Useful Idiots with Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved May 14, 2020.
  30. "The West Wing Thing: We Killed Yamamoto w/Special Guest Katie Halper". westwingthing.libsyn.com.
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