Michael Moran

Michael E. Moran (born May 1962 in Kearny, New Jersey) is an American author and analyst of international affairs, a digital documentarian who has held senior positions at a host of media, financial services, and consulting organizations. A foreign policy journalist and former partner at the global consultancy Control Risks, he is author of The Reckoning: Debt, Democracy and the Future of American Power, published in 2012 by Palgrave Macmillan. He is co-author of 'The Fastest Billion: The Story Behind Africa's Economic Revolution'. Moran served as Editor-in-Chief at the investment bank Renaissance Capital and has been a collaborator of renowned economist Nouriel Roubini as well commentator for Slate, the BBC and NBC News. He is also an adjunct professor of journalism at Bard College, a Visiting Fellow in Peace and Security at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and conceived of and served as executive producer of the award-winning Crisis Guides documentary series for the Council on Foreign Relations.

Moran's career has included periods at major media outlets: Senior correspondent, MSNBC.com (2003–05); senior producer, International News and Special Reports, MSNBC.com (1996–2003); U.S. affairs analyst, BBC World Service (1993–96); senior editor, Radio Free Europe (1990–93), former reporter for Associated Press, St. Petersburg Times, Sarasota Herald-Tribune (1985–88).

Moran also served as Hearst New Media Fellow at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and was a longtime board member of the Overseas Press Club, as well as a judge of its annual awards. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, The Economist, The Spectator (UK), The Guardian, The New Leader, and has spoken on National Public Radio and in many other outlets. He has lectured at dozens of universities and think tanks around the world.

From 2005 to June 2009, he served as executive editor of CFR.org, the website of the Council on Foreign Relations. Moran was a foreign affairs columnist for Globalpost.com, and a member of the communications advisory board of Human Rights Watch. From 2009 to May 2011, he served as vice president, executive editor and senior geostrategy analyst at Roubini Global Economics, the macro/strategy consultancy founded by economist Nouriel Roubini.

Moran's book, The Reckoning: Debt, Democracy and the Future of American Power, was published in 2012 by Palgrave Macmillan. In the book, Moran argues that US policymakers reacted incorrectly to the 2008 financial crisis, exacerbating US problems, but that demographics and cultural factors still make the US the economy to watch in the 21st century - a good thing for the many smaller countries who undervalue the role American influence and power plays in their own economic stability.

Starting in 2008, Moran led a team that received a series of Emmy awards for documentary work. In 2008, he served as Executive Producer of a team that won a News & Documentary Emmy award for Crisis Guide: Darfur, an interactive multimedia feature on the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's Darfur region. He repeated the following year (2009), winning the Emmy in the "New Approaches to Business and Financial Coverage" category for Crisis Guide: The Global Economy. In April 2011, "Crisis Guide: Pakistan" received an Overseas Press Club award. In 2012, Moran and his team won its third Emmy withCrisis Guide: Iran, the final in the series.
As a columnist, Moran may be best known for his work during his years at MSNBC.com, Brave New World. One column in particular, written in December, 1999, was entitled "Times's Up for the Taliban" and, citing the threat Osama bin Laden presented to major cities in the United States, advocated a U.S.-led coalition of like-minded states invade and capture the al-Qaida leader. He broke the 2004 story of inadequate armor on American Humvee patrol vehicles, a revelation which, combined with the quick, angry response of service parents, ultimately forcing the Pentagon to spend tens of millions to "back-armor" the vehicles. Jack H. Jacobs, a retired U.S. Army colonel awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War, said of Moran's Humvee reporting was "an important story that helped save countless lives. All the more impressive because wartime makes it hard to bring this kind of stuff to light."