He was born in New York City, to Benjamin and Helen E. Greenfield.[4][5] He grew up in Manhattan and graduated in 1960 from the Bronx High School of Science. He has a sister, Janet Greenfield Elmo.[6]
Greenfield worked for seven years with political consultant David Garth.[5]
Over the course of his career, Greenfield has reported primarily on domestic politics and the media, and occasionally on culture. He appeared on the Firing Line television program as early as 1968. He was the host of the national public television series "CEO Exchange," featuring in-depth interviews with high-profile chief executive officers, for five seasons. He served as media commentator for CBS News from 1979 to 1983 and as political and media analyst for ABC News from 1983 to 1997, often appearing on the Nightline program. He served as a senior analyst at CNN from 1998 to 2007. On May 1, 2007, Greenfield returned to CBS News, where he served as a senior political correspondent until April 2011.[8] He hosted PBS's "Need to Know" from May 7, 2010, to June 28, 2013. [9][10] More recently he has done political commentary on NBC Nightly News.
His first wife was Carrie Carmichael, an author, whom he divorced in February 1993. They have two children: daughter Casey, also a Yale Law School graduate, and son David. Casey married screenwriter Matt Manfredi in 2004 and they divorced in 2006. Casey has a son with CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.[14][3]
On April 24, 1993, Greenfield married Karen Anne Gannett,[15] from whom he is now divorced.
In June 2002, he married Dena Sklar, a real estate broker.[16] They live in Santa Barbara, California, and New York City.[17]
Greenfield, Jeff (2012). 43*: When Gore Beat Bush—A Political Fable. ISBN978-1-614-52046-7.
Greenfield, Jeff (2013). If Kennedy Lived: The First and Second Terms of President John F. Kennedy: An Alternate History. G.P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN978-0-399-16696-9.
^ abcdef"People - Jeff Greenfield". WNYC. Archived from the original on May 20, 2012. Retrieved March 22, 2021. Before joining CNN, Greenfield was a political and media analyst for ABC News (1983-97), appearing primarily on "Nightline" and delivering weekly commentaries for "World News" Sunday. Previously, he was the media commentator for CBS News (1979-83). Greenfield has also appeared on William F. Buckley's "Firing Line" and PBS' "We Interrupt This Week." He was the anchor of PBS' "CEOExchange," a limited-run series, for five seasons.
^LANE, TAHREE (November 2, 2013). "Jeff Greenfield to discuss book on what might have been had JFK lived". The Blade. Toledo, Ohio: The Blade. Archived from the original on March 22, 2021. Retrieved March 22, 2021. I was basing this on what they had done during the big controversy in 1962 when the steel companies raised their prices and President Kennedy felt they had broken their word to him. This was all about keeping down steel prices and damping down inflation, so the Kennedy administration and Robert Kennedy in particular used the power they had in a way that would have been highly, highly controversial had it become known. They were using tax returns of the steel executives and they were threatening anti-trust actions. So I extrapolated from that, if that's what they did to stop the steel price increases, I think they would have used every means fair and not so fair to keep the story from bringing him down.
^Scott, Walter. "What has happened to CNN's Jeff Greenfield?". Dayton Daily News. No. November 3, 2002. Dayton, Ohio: Newspapers.com. p. 177. Retrieved March 22, 2021. In June, he wed Dena Sklar, a former associate director at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. And Greenfield tells us he's writing a novel, a satire of the media titled 'Jackpot', due out next year.