Carol Joynt
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Carol Ross Joynt is an Emmy-winning network news producer, interviewer and writer in Washington, DC. She is the host of "The Q&A Café,[1] a talk show she created in October 2001 in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks. At the outset the program focused on interviews related to 9/11. Washington D.C. Over the years it evolved to feature interviews with notables and newsmakers from all walks of life. Carol called upon her extensive background producing talk shows for Charlie Rose, David Brinkley, Ted Koppel, Larry King, and the fact that she had inherited the restaurant, Nathans,[2] to create the Q&A Café.
Nathans was a popular Georgetown watering hole that was founded by Carol's husband, John Howard Joynt III, in 1969. When he died suddenly in 1997 she inherited the bar and that's where she set up "The Q&A Cafe." It took place weekly in Nathans back dining room. A lease dispute and eviction forced Nathans closure in 2009. Carol moved "The Q&A Cafe" to the nearby Ritz Carlton Georgetown hotel. Her struggle owning Nathans, which included a surprise multi-million dollar criminal tax fraud case, bankruptcy, myriad business calamities, while also trying to hold onto her television career and raise her son, are the focus of her memoir, "Innocent Spouse," which is scheduled to be released by Crown Publishers in 2011.
Carol has interviewed almost 300 notable individuals, including Fred W. Smith, the founder of FedEx, Kenneth Feinberg, the "special master" of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, Tim Russert, Dr. Anthony Fauci of NIH, Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder, Huffington Post creator Arianna Huffington, Daily Beast founder Tina Brown, Gen. Bernard E. Trainor, "Spinal Tap" stars Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer; Bob Woodward, Erica Jong, Christopher Hitchens, Tom Brokaw, Marion Barry, Douglas Feith, George Stevens, Jr., Fred Thompson, Mark Warner, Washington Nationals president Stan Kasten, Jack Valenti, Chuck Todd, Sally Bedell Smith, Vernon Jordan, Kitty Kelley, Carly Fiorina, Jim Lehrer, Oliver Stone, Valerie Plame Wilson, Bob Balaban, Maury Povich and Connie Chung, "DC Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, Gwen Ifill, Ben Bradlee, Sally Quinn and Quinn Bradlee, Jonathan Tisch, Mark Penn, Ted Leonsis, Alexandra Wentworth, Jonathan Capehart, George Stephanopoulos, C.Z. Guest, Connie Schultz, Michelle Rhee, Dan Rather, Ted Sorensen, Jane Lynch, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.
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[edit] Journalism career
She began her career in national news the same January week in 1969 when Richard Nixon was inaugurated President for the first time. She joined the staff of the Washington bureau of United Press International, taking dictation from Helen Thomas and Merriman Smith, when she wasn't packing a gas mask and note pad to cover violent anti-war protests in the streets. She also covered political stories and the Apollo space program. After a few years in Washington, she was hired by TIME Magazine and moved to New York City to write about politics and features.
In 1972 Walter Cronkite asked Joynt to be one of his three writers on the CBS Evening News, where she sat by his side for four years as Cronkite informed viewers about the death of President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Watergate scandal, the resignation of Richard Nixon, the kidnap of Patricia Hearst, and the end of the Vietnam war. She and her colleagues were three times awarded the Writer's Guild Award for best news script. The CBS Evening News was commended on many fronts for its outstanding coverage of Watergate and Vietnam.
After a year-off to crew on a Spartan, a classic Herreshoff New York 50 in the West Indies, in 1976 Joynt returned to Washington and network news and a succession of positions, which included producing roles at NBC News, CBS News Nightwatch, USA Today the TV Show, This Week with David Brinkley, Nightline, Larry King Live, John Hockenberry, and Hardball with Chris Matthews. For these broadcasts she focused on subjects ranging from global politics and the world's leaders to the latest successes or scandals involving the talented, the royal or the merely celebrated. In 1987 Joynt and Charlie Rose won the national news Emmy Award for "Best Interview" for an hour CBS News special with Charles Manson at San Quentin Prison.
[edit] Film work
Joynt also directed documentary films and oversaw several other film projects for the National Gallery of Art, including a retrospective of the NGA's 50th anniversary, and a tribute to the Kress family and their contribution to the Gallery's collections. In 1994 she made a film for the American Academy in Rome, celebrating its 100th anniversary.
[edit] Family life & business
Carol was born in Denver, Co. She is the daughter of Olga (Papp) Ross, who died in 1987 and Richard Harold Ross, the former director of the Airlie Foundation, who died in 1999. Her siblings are Susan Ross, who is deceased, David Scott Ross of Jupiter, Fl and Robert Keith Ross of Warrenton, Va. In 1997, when she was a producer for Larry King Live, her husband of twenty years, J. Howard Joynt III, died suddenly from pneumonia. Their son, Spencer Ross Joynt, was born in November 1991. Carol raised him alone. Though she has been linked to several men she has not remarried. Her sister-in-law is the presidency scholar, Dr. Martha Joynt Kumar. Her literary agent is Laney Katz Becker of the Markson Thoma agency.
In addition to producing and hosting "The Q&A Cafe," Carol also writes a regular weekly column about Washington for the website New York Social Diary.,[3]
In February 2011, Carol was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.[3]
