Elaine Lafferty is a former staff correspondent for TIME magazine, editor in chief of Ms. magazine, and correspondent for the Dublin-based The Irish Times. She co- authored My Turn at The Bully Pulpit with Greta Van Susteren, published by Crown. She was also features editor at MORE magazine, and her work has been published in The Nation, The Daily Beast, and The New York Observer.
During her tenure at Ms., Lafferty led the magazine to increased circulation and financial stability. In addition, under her leadership, Ms. won its first National Magazine Award nomination in 17 years. Prior to joining Ms., she spent four years as a war correspondent for The Irish Times, covering conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East. Her stories for The Irish Times were included in the paper’s annual book The Best of The Irish Times. Several of Lafferty’s dispatches can be read here and here.
At Time, Lafferty covered a wide variety of subjects from the magazine’s Los Angeles bureau, from social justice issues to breaking news stories, for which she won several awards. She contributed to over 30 cover stories. Lafferty was the lead Time correspondent on the civil and criminal O.J. Simpson trials, and also covered the Unabomber case, the Polly Klaas murder case, and the Andrew Cunanan murder of designer Gianni Versace.
In late 2007, Lafferty took a sabbatical from journalism to volunteer for the Hillary Clinton for President campaign. Lafferty’s role in the 2008 election campaign is described in two published accounts of the election, Rebecca Traister’s Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women (Free Press), and Anne Kornblut’s Notes From the Cracked Ceiling published by Random House. Based on her observations of both party’s candidates, after the conclusion of Clinton’s campaign, Lafferty joined John McCain’s campaign staff for three months in August 2008.
In 2011, Lafferty ran the social media for Diana Nyad’s Expedition, the Swim from Cuba to Florida, joining the flotilla accompanying Nyad on two of the attempts, helping Nyad become the #1 search term on Google during the swim. She filed dispatches from the crossing to several media outlets, including ESPNw.
Currently, Lafferty is a ghostwriter and editor for several best-selling books, published by Harper Collins, Crown and others. She is the president of a media, speechwriting and editing firm. Today she is working on a book about epigenetics, family and resilience.