Veteran political correspondent Howard Fineman, who spent three decades covering the corridors of power in Washington for Newsweek before becoming an analyst for MSNBC and other outlets, died after a two-year battle with pancreatic cancer, his wife announced Tuesday.
Fineman, who was 75, died Monday at his home in Washington.
“I am heartbroken to share my brilliant and extraordinary husband passed away late last night surrounded by those he loved most, his family,” Amy Nathan posted on her husband’s account on X (formerly Twitter). “He couldn’t have been adored more. The world was a better place because he lived in it and wrote about it.”
From his perch at what was then one of the most widely read newsweeklies in the U.S., Fineman covered presidents and political players and gave his readers a look behind the scenes on Capitol Hill where the decisions that affect their lives were being made.
Fineman left Newsweek in 2010 for The Huffington Post (now HuffPost), where he became senior politics editor and later global editorial director.
In addition, Fineman became an analyst for MSNBC and a frequent guest on “Hardball With Chris Matthews,” “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” as well as “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
Fineman also became a familiar face to the several generations of television viewers who tuned in to to watch other political news shows like PBS’s “Washington Week in Review” and CNN’s “Capital Gang Sunday.”
A pundit par excellence, Fineman was known his wit and his encyclopedic knowledge of politics from having covered the administrations of seven different presidents during his career.
Tributes to Fineman quickly began pouring in as word of his death spread.
MSNBC’s Chris Jansing became emotional Wednesday as she recalled being a rookie political reporter when she first met Fineman.
“I was in awe of him, ” Jansing said, her voice cracking. “My admiration for him as a person and a journalist is limitless.”
Noting that Fineman’s son, Nick, is a senior producer on her program, Jansing added, “We send our love and condolences to the entire family. This is a tremendous loss and we love you all.”
Raised in a Jewish family in a Pittsburgh neighborhood called Squirrel Hill, Fineman had his bar mitzvah at the Tree of Life synagogue where in 2018 a gunman barged into the sanctuary and killed 11 people — perhaps the most heinous antisemitic attack in U.S. history.
After earning a bachelors degree from Colgate University and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, Fineman started off his newspaper career covering the coal mining and local politics for the Louisville Courier-Journal.
By 1978, Fineman was in the newspaper’s Washington Bureau and two years later he signed on with Newsweek.
Fineman married Amy Nathan, a tech lawyer, in 1981. In addition to his son, Fineman is survived by their daughter, Meredith Fineman, and his sister, Beth Fineman Schroeter.
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