David Friend, Vanity Fair's editor of creative development, served as Life magazine's director of photography during the 1990s. Friend is the author of Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11 (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2006). He won Emmy and Peabody Awards as an executive producer of the CBS documentary 9/11, which has aired in more than 140 countries. Friend co-curated the exhibition “Vanity Fair Portraits: 1913-2008,” opening February 14, 2008 at London’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG), then traveling to the Scottish NPG, Edinburgh; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the NPG, Canberra.

As a correspondent, Friend has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and elsewhere. As an editor, Friend broke the “Deep Throat” story in 2005, revealing that Mark Felt was Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s secret Watergate source. As a writer, Friend contributes frequently (on photographic and news subjects) to Vanity Fair, American Photo, and The Digital Journalist Web site. His humorous articles and cartoons have appeared in The Washington Post, Discover, The Common Review, and the on-line journal Salon. His poetry has appeared in The New Yorker.

Friend edited The Meaning of Life and More Reflections on the Meaning of Life (Little, Brown). Along with Graydon Carter, Friend edited Vanity Fair's Hollywood (Viking Studio) in 2000, Oscar Night (Knopf) in 2004, and Vanity Fair, The Portraits (NPG/Abrams), to be published in the fall of 2008.

Also, as a curator, he has mounted exhibitions for the International Center of Photography (on child war-victims in Rwanda), the United Nations (on the conflict in Somalia), the Newseum (“Vanity Fair and the Birth of the Modern Age: 1914- 1936”; “60 Years of Life”), and other venues. Friend, who has served on various photographic juries, created the Alfred Eisenstaedt Awards for Magazine Photography under the auspices of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, coordinators of the Pulitzer Prizes.

Friend established both Life and Vanity Fairs's Internet sites. His interactive feature for DigitalJournalist.org -- "20 Years: AIDS and Photography" -- won the Online Journalism Award in 2001 for best story published by an independent Web site.

Friend has conducted interviews with Presidents Reagan and Clinton, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, Israel's Ariel Sharon, and reclusive figures such as exiled Russian writer Aleksandr Solzenitsyn and photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. He helped secure exclusive photo sessions with a variety of subjects, including the victims of Chernobyl, White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and George W. Bush with his war council. Articles that Friend has edited have received honors in the areas of religious tolerance (Wilbur Award), arms control (Olive Branch Award), and famine coverage (World Hunger Year Award).

Friend graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College in 1977. He attended Highland Park (Illinois) High School, and is a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan.

Friend’s wife, Nancy Paulsen, is president and publisher of Putnams Children's Books. They have two children, Sam and Molly.

Contact: dfriend@davidfriend.net