
Gordon F. Joseloff, editor and publisher of WestportNow, is an award-winning veteran journalist who reported from London, Moscow, Tokyo and other world capitals for United Press International and CBS News for more than two decades.
Joseloff founded WestportNow in March 2003 as one of the nation’s first community news websites. Since then, it has gained national attention and is often cited as a model for Internet community journalism sites. It has won numerous awards for excellence from the Connecticut chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Joseloff was editor as well as publisher of WestportNow from its founding until November 2005 when he was elected first selectman (mayor) of Westport, a southwest Connecticut shoreline community of 26,000. (See www.westportct.gov)
Upon his swearing in as Westport’s first selectman, Joseloff announced he was relinquishing his editor’s position but would remain publisher and a contributing photographer.
Upon the end of his eight years in office in November 2013, Joseloff again added editor to his publisher duties.
During a 16-year career at CBS News, Joseloff served as a correspondent, senior producer and bureau chief in New York, Moscow and Tokyo. He started at CBS as a writer for Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather and went on to cover some of the world’s major news stories everything from presidential summits and economic conferences to disasters, riots and revolutions.
In Moscow for CBS, Joseloff covered the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the resulting U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics. He was the first U.S. network correspondent into Poland in August 1980 when the Solidarity trade union movement was born led by Lech Walesa.
While in Tokyo for CBS, his coverage included the Soviet shoot down of Korean Air Lines flight 007, the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India (for which he shared an Emmy Award in 1984), the Bhopal, India gas leak that killed thousands, the overthrow of President Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, and the illness and death of Emperor Hirohito of Japan.
After returning from overseas in 1989, he coordinated special projects for CBS News in New York and helped organize the network’s coverage of the 1991 Gulf War.
In 1993, he joined Simba Information Inc., a Wilton, Conn. media consulting and publishing firm. While there, he founded and became editor-in-chief of Media Daily, an online publication covering the media and information industries. He was also vice president of Simba’s electronic publishing division.
Prior to joining CBS News in 1975, he was a correspondent and editor for UPI in New York, London and Moscow. He started as a summer replacement in UPI’s Albany, N.Y. bureau in 1964 while in college. He has also written for Time magazine and The New York Times, among others.
Joseloff has been honored by the Writers Guild of America for news writing.
A 1967 graduate of Syracuse University, Joseloff was a freelance editor and writer in Westport before founding WestportNow.
Prior to his eight years as first selectman, he served 14 years on the town’s legislative body, the Representative Town Meeting (RTM). He was first elected to the RTM in 1991, became Deputy Moderator in 1993, and was elected Moderator in 1995.
His 10-year tenure as RTM leader was matched by only one other person in its history.
Joseloff is also active in other community affairs, including serving as an honorary member of the advisory board of the Westport Historical Society, and is a member of the Westport Rotary Club and the League of Women Voters of Westport.
He was cited by the Westport Arts Advisory Committee in 2013 for lifetime achievement in journalism. He is a member of the Overseas Press Club of America and The National Press Club.
He is a volunteer firefighter and a former volunteer Emergency Medical Technician in Westport.
Joseloff began his journalism career in Westport working summers as a teenage reporter for the now-defunct Westport Town Crier. In his teenage years, he was a weekend airplane traffic reporter for WICC in Bridgeport and served as the station’s New York correspondent where stories covered included John F. Kennedy’s 1962 birthday party at Madison Square Garden at which Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday.”
Joseloff is the divorced father of two, both of whom went through the Westport school system.
Daughter Anna-Liisa was born in Helsinki, Finland in 1980 while her father was based in Moscow. She is a 2002 graduate of New York University and obtained her law degree in May 2005 from Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., where she was editor of the law review. She is now a stay-at-home mom.
Son Benjamin was born in Tokyo in 1982 while his father was based there. He is a 2004 New York University graduate and received his law degree from Stanford University Law School in May 2008.
In September 2009, he completed a year as law clerk to U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall in Bridgeport, Conn. For three months afterward, he was program director of the Stanford University Law School program at the American University in Kabul, Afghanistan.
In January 2010, he became an associate with the New York law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. In November 2014, he joined the U.S. Treasury Department as attorney advisor international affairs and was assigned to the National Security Council at the White House. In 2019, upon returning to Westport, he rejoined Cravath.
Joseloff has six grandchildren, Ulysses G. Nixon, born in September 2009, Delphine J. Nixon, born in April 2012, and Tallulah P. Nixon, born in November 2015 to daughter Anna-Liisa and son-in-law Jared P. Nixon, and Samuel A. Joseloff, born in June 2013, Carl H. Joseloff, born in December 2015, and Louise Emilee Joseloff, born in March 2018 to son Benjamin and daughter-in-law Taryn Allen.