Carol Ross Joynt

Carol Ross Joynt is an Emmy Award-winning network television producer, Washington writer, interviewer, blogger, photographer. She was born in Denver, grew up in Europe, Ohio, and on the East Coast, and lives in Georgetown, DC.

Carol skipped college and jumped right into national news, joining the staff of the Washington bureau of United Press International in January 1969, the same week Richard Nixon was inaugurated President for the first time. She started as a "dictationist," taking in breaking stories from Helen Thomas and Merriman Smith, but soon was reporting on the antiwar movement. Carol also covered political stories and the Apollo space program. In 1972, she was hired by TIME Magazine and moved to New York to write about politics and assorted features. She traveled on the McGovern campaign bus, reported from the presidential conventions in Miami, and covered the premiere of "The Godfather," among other assignments; TIME offered that kind of diversity of stories.

Later in 1972, Walter Cronkite asked Carol to be one of his three writers on The CBS Evening News; she accepted without hesitation. She wrote script for the Evening News and special broadcasts for four years as Cronkite informed viewers about the death of LBJ, the Watergate scandal, the resignation of Richard Nixon, the kidnap of Patricia Hearst, and the end of the Vietnam war. Each year, Carol and her colleagues were awarded the Writer's Guild Award for best news script, and The CBS Evening News was commended on many fronts for its outstanding coverage of Watergate and Vietnam, including Emmys, the DuPont and Peabody awards, among other accolades.

After a year-off to crew on "Spartan," a 72-foot Herreshoff racing boat based in the West Indies, and to live in the south of France, Carol returned to Washington and network news and a succession of positions, which included producer 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 national and global politics and the world's leaders to the latest successes or scandals involving the talented, the royal or the merely celebrated. At Nightwatch, Carol and host Charlie Rose won the 1987 National News Emmy Award for "Best Interview" for an hour CBS News broadcast interview with Charles Manson at San Quentin Prison.

Carol also directed documentary films and oversaw several film projects for clients such as the National Gallery of Art. She worked closely with museum Director J. Carter Brown as she directed a video retrospective of the NGA's 50th Anniversary, and a film tribute to the Kress family and their contribution to the Gallery's collections. In 1994 she directed a film for the American Academy in Rome, celebrating its 100th anniversary.

In 1997, when she was a producer for Larry King Live, her husband of twenty years, J. Howard Joynt III, died suddenly from pneumonia. Carol inherited Howard's landmark Georgetown restaurant, Nathans, where she created The Q&A Cafe, the only known "talk show in a saloon."

The Q&A Cafe launched in October 2001 as a response to the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Carol felt the community craved information and she sought to help fill that void by hosting weekly interviews with experts on subjects related to terrorism, the Middle East and South Asia. Over time, and with its growing popularity, The Q&A Cafe focused on other subjects as well - politics, medicine, science, the military, diplomacy, literature, the arts, sports, fashion, music and entertainment - and began broadcasting on youtube. Carol provides the show free of charge to local DC Cable. It airs Fridays at 8 p.m.

Carol closed Nathans on July 12, 2009, after the economy crashed and the building's landlords put the property up for sale. The Q&A Cafe moved to a new location, The Georgetown Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

In addition to booking and producing the show, Carol also writes and takes the photographs for a daily blog, "Swimming in Quicksand," on her website, caroljoynt.com, and a regular diary about Washington for the New York Social Diary at NYsocialdiary.com. But her priorities are making a home for her son, Spencer, who is a college freshman, their Bichon Frise, Leo, and Ozzy, the Conure parrot; writing, community affairs and, especially, survival.

Her memoir, "Innocent Spouse," to be published by Crown in May, is her account of the turn of events in her life after her husband's sudden death. It is about love and loss and a hundred avalanches as she deals with what he left behind. "Innocent Spouse" will resonate with any woman who has ever been married and asks the question, "do you really know the person you married?"

Here is a recent interview about the book on nbc.com: http://www.nbcwashington.com/blogs/niteside/Author_Carol_Joynt_Discusses_New_Book___Innocent_Spouse__All__National_-112501484.html