Sharon Waxman
Sharon L. Waxman (born c.1963) is an American author, journalist, and blogger who has been a correspondent for "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times", and founded the Hollywood and media business news site "TheWrap" in early 2009. Biography. Waxman grew up in a Modern Orthodox, Jewish family in Cleveland, Ohio. She graduated from Barnard College in 1985 with a bachelor of arts in English literature. She then graduated from St. Antony's College, Oxford University, in 1987 with a master of philosophy in modern Middle East studies. Career. Journalism. Waxman was a foreign correspondent in Europe  and the Middle East from 1989 to 1995. During that time, she worked for Reuters, as a Jerusalem correspondent, and a number of American newspapers. In 1995, she moved to Los Angeles to cover Hollywood for "The Washington Post". In 1998, Waxman won the feature writing award for arts and entertainment from the University of Missouri. In 1999, she was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize by "The Washington Post" for her work covering the Second Palestinian Intifada. In 2000, she won the Penney Award, the highest prize in feature writing. Between 2001 and 2003, Waxman covered stories in the Middle  East for "The Washington Post." In 2003, she began covering Hollywood for "The New York Times". In 2004, after being attacked repeatedly by gossip blogger Roger Friedman in his writing, she opined about Friedman: "If he spent half as much time checking his facts as he did complaining about people stealing from him, there wouldn’t be so many errors in his reporting!" She added, referring to Fox News, for whom he wrote as a freelancer: "Do they hold him to journalistic standards, or does he just get to slander people with impunity?" In 2012, Waxman was named the best  online columnist at the National Entertainment Journalism Awards. The following year, she won the Distinguished Journalist in New Media from the Society of Professional Journalists. Authorship. In 2005, she published "Rebels on the Backlot: Six Maverick Directors and How They Conquered the Hollywood Studio System". The book profiles six directors, including Quentin Tarantino and David O. Russell. In 2008, Waxman published her second book, "Loot: The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World," which explores the global trade in antiquities and the battle by source countries to retrieve antiquities held in Western museums. Blog. Waxman founded the Hollywood  and media business news site "TheWrap" in early 2009. According to "CBS Market Watch", Waxman raised $500,000 for "TheWrap" news, as a news portal site covering entertainment and media, which launched on January 26, 2009. A second round of financing was closed in 2010. By 2013, TheWrap.com had grown into a site with 30 employees. From December 2013 through February 2014, "TheWrap" attracted an average of 2.8 million unique visitors from US computers, according to Comscore. It also convenes an annual conference attended by leaders in entertainment, media, and technology called TheGrill. TheWrap was nominated as the Best Entertainment  website in 2012 and named the best online news site in both 2012 and 2009 at the National Entertainment Journalism Awards by the Los Angeles Press Club. Accusations of mistreatment. In 2021, "Daily Beast" published testimonies from numerous employees at "TheWrap" discussing Waxman's ethics as a boss.