December 5: Announcing Our Fourth Honoree, Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal Columnist and Best-Selling Author

For eleven years Peggy Noonan has been a highly regarded and widely read political columnist for The Wall Street Journal. Her column, "Declarations", was given this year's Columnist of the Year award by The Week magazine, which called her weekly op-eds "lucid, original and funny."  "In an era of rigid polarization, she embraces the nearly lost art of open-mindedness." Her column has been lauded in the National Journal as "among the best newspaper commentary out there, a reliable source of fresh, canny insight."  Forbes magazine has called her column "perceptive, persuasive, principled and patriotic." 
 
Noonan is the best-selling author of eight books on American politics, history and culture, ranging from her first, the political classic "What I Saw at the Revolution," which was called "A love letter to the American political process," to her most recent, "Patriotic Grace."
 
She is a frequent guest on political talk shows. Noonan has also been nominated for Emmy Awards for her part in the writing of a post-9/11 network television tribute, and for her contributions to the television drama "The West Wing." 
 
Recognizing Peggy's achievements as a brilliant writer, a best-selling author and her contributions to politics and literature, we are thrilled to name her a 2012 Matrix Award Honoree. 
 
In 1996, Noonan was one of ten historians and writers who contributed essays on the American presidency for the book, "Character Above All." She also wrote and hosted a PBS series on the debate over American values, in 1995.
 
From 1984 to 1986, she was a special assistant and speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan; during her time in the White House she worked with the President on his address marking the 40th anniversary of the Invasion of Normandy, his speech to the nation following the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, and his farewell address.
 
Before entering the Reagan White House, Noonan was a producer at CBS News in New York, where she wrote and produced news broadcasts, including Dan Rather's daily radio commentary.  As editorial and public affairs director at WEEI-AM, the CBS owned station in Boston; she won the Tom Phillips Award for broadcast commentary.  In 1978 and 1979 she was an adjunct professor of journalism at New York University. 
 
She holds honorary doctorates from seven universities including her alma mater, Fairleigh Dickinson University, from which she graduated in 1974 with a major in English literature.
 
In 2010, Noonan was unanimously given the Award for Media Excellence by the living recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. She has been a fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics, and has taught at Yale University. 
 
She was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up there, in Massapequa Park, Long Island, and Rutherford, New Jersey.  She lives in New York City.