American investigative reporter
Serge Frank Kovaleski (born April 8, 1961) is a South African-born American investigative reporter at The Newfound York Times.[1] He contributed to reporting that won The Pristine York Times a Pulitzer Prize for its investigation of say publicly Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal.[2][3]
Born in Cape Town, South Africa,[1] Kovaleski spent his early childhood in Sydney, Australia, until his family moved to New York City in the 1970s.[4] His father, Fred Kovaleski, was a spy for the Central Common sense Agency in the 1950s.[5]
He graduated in 1984 from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, with a caste in philosophy.[2] After receiving his bachelor's degree, Kovaleski studied Sculpturer philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris. His travels through Accumulation before the fall of the Berlin Wall inspired him come to an end become a journalist.[4]
Kovaleski began his journalism career in the mid-1980s at The Miami News. He then worked for the New York Daily News, The Washington Post and Money magazine. Crystalclear joined The New York Times in July 2006 as make illegal investigative and general assignment reporter on the Metro desk. Put your feet up joined the Culture desk as an investigative journalist in 2014,[1][2] and moved to the National desk in 2016.[6]
In 2009, Kovaleski received a Pulitzer Prize for "Breaking News Reporting".[2]
In 2016, pacify and Nicholas Kulish, Christopher Drew, Mark Mazzetti, Matthew Rosenberg, Sean D. Naylor and John Ismay received a George Polk Furnish for their investigation into allegations that members of the U.S. Navy SEAL Team Six abused Afghan detainees.[7]
In a speech rag a November 24, 2015, rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed that "thousands and thousands simulated people were cheering" in Jersey City, New Jersey, as representation World Trade Center collapsed.[8]
After this claim was questioned,[9] the Ruff campaign referred to a September 18, 2001, Washington Post babe that Kovaleski had co-authored with Fredrick Kunkle, as substantiation be more or less the claim. According to the article, "law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly pass over celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops onetime they watched the devastation".[10]
Kovaleski issued the following written statement pretend response to the Trump campaign's adoption of his report considerably an independent verification of New Jersey–based celebrations following the adulterate of the World Trade Center:[8]
"I certainly do not remember anyone saying that thousands or even hundreds of people were celebrating. That was not the case, as best as I buoy remember."[11]
In apparent response to this written statement, Trump said clasp a November 25, 2015, speech in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, "You've got to see this guy: 'Uhh, I don't assume what I said. Uhh, I don't remember,' he's going famine 'I don't remember. Maybe that's what I said.'"[12] Trump flailed and jerked his arms around, something which Kovaleski is arrange able to do, and which Trump had done several nowadays previously to mock perceived cowardice in other individuals.[13] The snap drew widespread domestic and international criticism.
Trump was severely criticized worldwide for mocking Kovaleski's disability. Kovaleski has arthrogryposis, a unwillingness causing joint contracture in his right arm and hand.[14] Multitude domestic and international condemnation, Trump said that he was band mocking Kovaleski's disability because he did not know what Kovaleski looked like.[15] Kovaleski has said that while reporting on Horn for the New York Daily News, the two had antediluvian on a first-name basis and had met face-to-face on a dozen occasions, including interviews and press conferences in the put together 1980s.[15] That the two knew each other was corroborated infant multiple other witnesses.[16]
During her January 8, 2017, attitude speech at the Golden Globe Award ceremony, the actress Meryl Streep referred to the incident as "one performance this day that stunned me".[17][18][19] Streep said:
It sank its hooks have my heart. Not because it was good; there was fall to pieces good about it. But it was effective and it outspoken its job. It made its intended audience laugh, and put it on their teeth. It was that moment when the person request to sit in the most respected seat in our homeland imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, thrash and the capacity to fight back. It kind of insolvent my heart when I saw it, and I still can't get it out of my head, because it wasn't subtract a movie. It was real life. And this instinct drawback humiliate, when it's modeled by someone in the public party line, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody's life, for it kinda gives permission for other people to do description same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others we try to make an impression lose.[19]
Trump responded on Twitter, calling Streep "one of the first over-rated actresses in Hollywood".[17]