Jacob (Jake) Paul Tapper was born on March 12, 1969 in New York City. He was raised in Queen Village, Philadelphia. His mother, Helen Anne was originally Canadian but was raised in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She was a retired psychiatric nurse. Jake's father, Theodore "Ted" Tapper, was from Chicago and became president of South Philadelphia Pediatrics. Jake's father was born into a Jewish family, and his mother converted to Judaism after being raised as Presbyterian. Jake, also, was raised Jewish.
Jake attended Akiba Hebrew Academy, an independent Jewish day school in Merion, Pennsylvania before attending Dartmouth College, his father's alma mater. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude with an A.B. in History and Visual Studies in 1991. During college Jake was a member of Alpha Chi Alpha fraternity. He also briefly attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
Immediately after graduation, in 1992, Jake served as the Campaign Press Secretary for Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, the Democratic congressional candidate. In 1997 he briefly worked for Handgun Control, Inc., which is now known as the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
In 1998 Jake began his full-time journalism career. He was Senior Writer for the Washington City Paper for two years, for which he won a Society of Professional Journalists award. From 1999 to 2002 he served as the Washington Correspondent for Salon.com.
In 2001, he began hosting the news talk show Take Five on CNN, which centered on the discussion of politics and pop culture with young journalists. He contributed to TALK Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and The Weekly Standard. His work was included in National Public Radio's "The Best American Political Writing 2002" list. Jake began working for ABC News in 2003. He covered the levee break during Hurricane Katrina and also spent time reporting from Afghanistan. Jake's contributions to World News Tonight with Peter Jennings won the 2005 Edward R. Murrow Award for best network newscast.
On November 5, 2008, the day after the 2008 presidential election, Jake was named the Senior White House Correspondent. He won the Merriman Smith Memorial Award in 2010, 2011, and 2012 by the White House Correspondent's Association for his presidential coverage under deadline pressure. He was awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Live Coverage of a Current News Story for his ABC News coverage of the inauguration of President Obama. He interviewed President Obama several times during the course of his career, in addition to CIA director Leon Panetta, Vice President Biden, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, retired General Colin Powell, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, House Minority Leader John Boehner, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. He also interviewed Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain as well as John Edwards, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliana, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.
Jake announced that he would be joining CNN on December 20, 2012. In January 2013 he began hosting his own program, The Lead with Jake Tapper. The show won three National headliner Awards for its reporting that year. It won first prize for its coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and second prize for its coverage of the Oklahoma tornadoes.
| Birth Date: | 12 Mar, 1969 |
| Age: | 51 yrs |
| Occupations: | Journalist |
| Citizenship: | United States of America |
| Birth Place: | New York City |
| residence: | Washington, D.C. |
| Education: | Dartmouth College USC School of Cinematic Arts |
| Gender: | Male |
| Description: | American political journalist, correspondent, author |
| Twitter Id: | Jaketapper |
| Net Worth 2021: | 10 million |
