Ana Kasparian

Anahit Misak "Ana" Kasparian[1] (/kəˈspæriən/; born July 7, 1986)[2] is an American progressive[3] political commentator, media host, university instructor, and journalist.[4] She is the main host and a producer of the online news show The Young Turks, having begun working as a fill-in producer for the show in 2007. She also appeared on the television version of the show that aired on Current TV. She formerly hosted The Point on the TYT Network and currently co-hosts a Jacobin YouTube show, Weekends with Ana Kasparian and Nando Vila.[5][6][7]

Ana Kasparian
Kasparian in June 2016
Born (1986-07-07) July 7, 1986
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Alma materCalifornia State University, Northridge (BA, MA)
Occupation
  • Political commentator
  • media host
  • lecturer
  • journalist
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse(s)
Christian Lopez
​
(m. 2015)​

Life

Los Angeles-born Kasparian is the daughter of Armenian immigrant parents. Her great-grandparents on her father's side experienced first-hand the Armenian Genocide in 1915.[8] She was raised in the Reseda neighborhood of Los Angeles.[9] She grew up speaking Armenian as her first language and started kindergarten without being able to speak a word of English.[10] She has said watching Sesame Street as a child is what helped her to learn English quickly.[11] She danced ballet from the age of 3 to the age of 19 and performed ballet professionally throughout those years.[12] Kasparian graduated from Valley Alternative Magnet High School of Van Nuys in 2004[13] and California State University, Northridge (CSUN) in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts in journalism. She completed her Master of Political Science in 2010.[6]

In late 2015, Kasparian married Minor League Baseball player, model, and actor Christian Lopez. After having eloped, they had a public wedding in September 2016 which Cenk Uygur, fellow co-host of The Young Turks, officiated.[14]

Journalism

Kasparian said that seeing journalist Barbara Walters on 20/20 inspired her to get into journalism.[3][15] After getting her Bachelor of Arts, Journalism (BAJ) at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) she became an assistant producer with CBS Radio news stations in Los Angeles, first with KFWB and then KNX.[16][17] She said that she was lucky to be hired immediately after graduating,[3] but did not like working for CBS Radio because mainstream media is "not fun" due to the "robotic work environment" where she could not say what she wanted on air or do stories that were important to her. She enrolled in a master's degree program as a "way out" of media.[18] She has also worked with AOL News, YouTube, TidalTv and On Point.

Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur hosting The Young Turks

After becoming a fill-in host in April 2007, Kasparian became the producer and co-host with Cenk Uygur of the progressive talk radio on Sirius XM Satellite Radio and internet show/TV show The Young Turks. She was at first skeptical of her new work environment as an Armenian saying: "The Young Turks is a strange name," but after working there the name was explained to her as: "it essentially means rebels. People who rebel against societal expectations." She liked working at The Young Turks enough that she decided to stay in media. In fact, she was supposed to leave after two weeks but said she "kind of refused." She was first hired on to do marketing but "weaseled" her way into doing on-air segments. Kasparian described what she liked about working at TYT: "What I loved about the show was that it was unscripted. It was raw. It was just completely unfiltered." In a Forbes interview she also stated that she cannot pretend to be a "robot that's always neutral." She needs to state her opinion and sometimes "aggressively so" and TYT allowed her to do that.[3]

She posits that young people are interested in news, but "they see network anchors as simply folks who read tele-prompters." This is why she believes young people are attracted to online media because there are fewer tele-prompters and people are more genuine.[19] Kasparian and her co-host Uygur applied a populist left branding strategy that made TYT a successful global online organisation, with larger numbers of YouTube subscribers than several other notable news networks like CNN.[20] She co-hosted TYT University, a show focused on issues faced by university students that ran from March 15, 2011 to December 31, 2014, where she first hosted with Jayar Jackson and then John Iadarola. TYT University then turned into a show called "Think Tank" debuting on January 1, 2015 with different hosts and different topics but aimed at the same demographic. The show was hosted by John Iadarola and Hannah Cranston.[21] She was the main host of another TYT Network show, The Point, which was a panel style show with a weekly round up of news stories. Common co-hosts on The Point included: political commentator Dave Rubin, science communicator Cara Santa Maria, American actor Hank Chen, and American football player Drew Carter. However, this show came to a close by releasing its last episode on January 5, 2016.[16][22] She became a part-time journalist and op-ed writer at The Raw Story news outlet in May 2015.[23][24] Kasparian appeared on "Take Part Live" several times in 2014, sometimes as a guest and sometimes as a co-host. She also is a weekly host on the Jacobin YouTube show Weekends, formerly co-hosted by Michael Brooks until his sudden death in July 2020.[25][26][27]

Academia

Kasparian became a lecturer (i.e. instructor) at California State University, Northridge and began teaching journalism in August 2013.[23][28][29]

Political views

Kasparian has described herself as an atheist who pushes for progressive values.[30] She wants criminal justice reform and has been a critic of private and for-profit prisons calling them "hideous institutions."[31] She has spoken out about campaign finance reform which is meant to get money out of politics. She gave a TEDx talk on this subject explaining a path that could be taken to achieve campaign finance reform in December 2016.[29][32] She believes in free education for the United States and affordable housing.[3] During an appearance on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore in November 2015 she said, "people do stupid and offensive things all the time, and we can't expect to be shielded from it."[33]

See also

References
  1. Kasparian, Ana (October 26, 2007). "The Young Turks ... From an Armenian's Perspective". The Young Turks. Archived from the original on June 4, 2012. Retrieved March 25, 2012.
  2. ՄԱՆՈՅԵԱՆ, ԳԷՈՐԳ (April 30, 2005). ԼՈՒՍԱՐՁԱԿ- Երիտհայուհին [Lusardzak – Yerithayuhin] (in Armenian). Retrieved March 25, 2012.
  3. "The Young Turks' Ana Kasparian Won't Pretend To Be Neutral". Forbes.
  4. Ana Kasparian
  5. "The Young Turks Declare Independence on YouTube". NewMediaRockstars.com. July 9, 2012.
  6. Kasparian, Ana (2007). "AnaKasparian". The Young Turks. Archived from the original on December 3, 2012. Retrieved September 14, 2012.
  7. "Jacobin Magazine's "Weekends" with Ana Kasparian and Nando Vila and guest Jane McAlevey". Jane McAlevey. Retrieved January 23, 2021.
  8. "Germany Acknowledges The Genocide". YouTube. June 2, 2016. Retrieved January 4, 2017. Around the 3:20 time mark
  9. Kasparian says she grew up in Reseda at 2:00 mark of The Young Turks video "Mom Jailed For Putting Kids In Good School" (January 26, 2011)
  10. Kasparian explains this at the 0:20 mark of The Young Turks video "People Don't Trust Foreign Accents – Study" (October 28, 2010)
  11. "Bert, Ernie And Gay Marriage". Youtube.
  12. "TYT Postgame July 12, 2017: Ballet, Childhood, Being a Public Figure". Youtube.
  13. "Class of 2004". Lausd.net. Retrieved August 5, 2013.
  14. Reza Gorhesi (2016-09-27) The Young Turks' Ana Kasparian Reveals on TYT That She's Secretly Married. The Empty Lighthouse Magazine.
  15. "Words From Friends: Chatting With Ana Kasparian, Host of The Young Turks". Huffington Post.
  16. "Episode 94 : Media Mayhem". The Lip. March 14, 2013. Archived from the original on October 21, 2013. Retrieved October 21, 2013.
  17. Kasparian describes her experience with KFWB and KNX from 1:20 to 3:20 in the TYT University video "Bad Internships for College Students & Graduates" from October 25, 2011.
  18. "AskAna: Boss Ana, Yoga, Teacher Ana, Hanging Out, Life w/out TYT, Feminism, Hosting, Food". Youtube.
  19. "MIPTV: Online Video Gets Its Day in the Sun at Cannes". Hollywood Reporter. April 10, 2014.
  20. Peck, Reece (2019). Fox populism: Branding conservatism as working class. Cambridge University Press. p. 105. ISBN 9781108496766.
  21. "TYT University has been reborn as Think Tank!". TYT Network.
  22. "'The Young Turks' Steven Oh on YouTube Channel Town Square's Second Round Google Funding". NewMediaRockstars.com. January 18, 2013. Archived from the original on January 21, 2013. We're lucky to have Ana Kasparian (co-host of The Young Turks) hosting and she's fantastic.
  23. "Ana Kasparian". Linkedin.
  24. "Ana Kasparian's No Filter". The Raw Story.
  25. https://jacobinmag.com/2020/04/weekends-with-ana-kasparian-and-michael-brooks
  26. "unexpected passing of Michael Brooks". Twitter. July 20, 2020. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
  27. https://blubrry.com/jacobin/62042237/weekends-with-ana-kasparian-and-michael-brooks-june-6-2020-ft-tour-reed/
  28. "Journalism 415, Television News" (PDF). Csun.edu. Retrieved January 4, 2017.
  29. "Theme: Breaking Barriers". Tedx.
  30. "Does "Burkini" Ban Make France More Free, Or Less?". The Young Turks/YouTube. August 16, 2016.
  31. "NoFilter – How Private Prisons are Sucking Up YOUR Tax Dollars". YouTube.
  32. "How To Fix America's Broken Justice System – Ana Kasparian – TEDxCSUN". YouTube.
  33. "Journalism Grad, Professor Ana Kasparian Appears on 'The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore'". CSUN Department of Journalism.
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