39 Facts About Richard Stengel

Richard Allen Stengel was born on May 2,1955 and is an American editor, author, and former government official.

Richard Stengel was Time magazine's 16th managing editor from 2006 to 2013.

Richard Stengel was chief executive of the National Constitution Center from 2004 to 2006, and served as President Obama's Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs from 2014 to 2016.

Richard Stengel is an on-air analyst at MSNBC, a strategic advisor at Snap Inc.

Richard Stengel was born in New York City into a Jewish family, and raised in Westchester County.

Richard Stengel attended Princeton University and played on the Princeton Tigers basketball team as part of the 1975 National Invitation Tournament.

Richard Stengel joined Time in 1981 and contributed to the magazine through the early and mid-1980s, including articles on South Africa, which he covered for Rolling Stone magazine.

Richard Stengel became a senior writer and essayist for Time, covering both the 1988 and 1996 presidential campaigns.

Richard Stengel was one of the original on-air contributors for MSNBC.

Richard Stengel left Time in 1999, to become a senior advisor and chief speechwriter for Bill Bradley who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for the 2000 presidential election.

Richard Stengel returned to Time in 2000 and took on the role of managing editor of Time.

Richard Stengel later held several other roles at Time, including a period as national editor of the magazine.

Richard Stengel left his role as national editor of Time in February 2004 to become the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a museum and education center in Philadelphia on March 1,2004.

Richard Stengel succeeded Joe Torsella in the position, with the role of raising the center's profile, adding to its endowment, and increasing the number of visitors.

At the Constitution Center, Richard Stengel was responsible for starting the Peter Jennings Institute, offering constitutional training for journalists; a founding partnership with Constitution High School, a School District of Philadelphia public school for students interested in history and government; summer teacher institutes; and brought the Liberty Medal to the organization.

In 2006, Richard Stengel returned to Time, this time as managing editor of the magazine.

In 2008, Richard Stengel approved the changing of Times emblematic red border for only the second time since its adoption.

Richard Stengel writes editorials for Time, including a 2010 piece explaining their use on Time's cover of a portrait of an 18-year-old Afghan woman whose nose and ears had been cut off by the Taliban as a punishment for running away from her in-laws.

Richard Stengel was listed as number 41 on Newsweeks 2010 "Power 50" list in November 2010.

Richard Stengel regularly appears on CNN and MSNBC news programs.

In November 2012, Richard Stengel conducted an interview with Mohamed Morsi after he became Egypt's president.

In September 2007, Richard Stengel wrote a Time cover story called "The Case For National Service" in which he argued that Americans needed to redouble their efforts to get involved in community service and volunteerism, and that the presidential candidates needed to make the issue a top priority in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Richard Stengel served as co-moderator of the forum, along with PBS journalist Judy Woodruff, and both Senators Barack Obama and John McCain answered questions in front of a live audience at Columbia University about their plans for national service.

On September 12,2008, Richard Stengel was a featured speaker at the ServiceNation Summit in New York, along with Caroline Kennedy, Senator Hillary Clinton, First Lady Laura Bush and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Richard Stengel was awarded Citizen of the Year at the Annual National Conference on Citizenship on September 17,2010.

Richard Stengel has been presented with the 2010 Lifetime of Idealism Award, awarded to him by City Year Washington, DC for "his commitment to promoting and expanding opportunities for Americans to serve".

Richard Stengel led the department's counter-disinformation efforts, which included managing State's counter-ISIS messaging center, The Center for Strategic Counter Terrorism Communications, and started the first counter Russian disinformation hub at the department.

In December 2016, Richard Stengel became the longest serving Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy in American history.

Richard Stengel is currently an on-air analyst for MSNBC and NBC who comments on political news of the day.

Richard Stengel is a strategic adviser at Snap, Inc working primarily on communications.

Richard Stengel is a member of the board of directors of CARE, the global humanitarian and poverty relief organization.

In November 2020, Richard Stengel was named a member of the Joe Biden presidential transition Agency Review Team to support transition efforts related to the US Agency for Global Media.

Richard Stengel has authored several books including January Sun: One Day, Three Lives, A South African Town, a non-fiction work about the lives of three men in rural South Africa, published in 1990 and You're Too Kind: A Brief History of Flattery a popular history of flattery, published in 2000.

In 2012, Richard Stengel edited and wrote the lead essay for the book The Constitution: The Essential User's Guide, which explored the relevance of the US Constitution in modern-day events.

The book that Richard Stengel is best known for is his collaboration with Nelson Mandela on Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom.

Richard Stengel later served as co-producer of the 1996 documentary film Mandela, which was nominated for an Academy Award.

Richard Stengel is married to Mary Pfaff, a native of South Africa.

The couple met while Richard Stengel was in South Africa working on Nelson Mandela's autobiography, and Mandela was godfather to their oldest son, Gabriel.

Richard Stengel delivered the commencement address and received honorary doctorates from Wittenberg University in 2009, Wheaton College in 2011 and Butler University in 2012.