Michael Weisskopf is the senior correspondent for TIME in the magazine's Washington, D.C. bureau. He covers national politics and investigations, and most recently, the ongoing war in Iraq.

While reporting TIME's "Person of the Year" story in December, 2003, Weisskopf threw a live Iraqi hand grenade from a U.S. Army humvee, saving himself, TIME's photographer and four soldiers, but losing his right hand. For his Iraq stories, Weisskopf has won the National Headliners Award, The Daniel Pearl Award for courage and integrity in journalism, honorable mention from the Overseas Press Club and two nominations for the National Magazine Award.

As an investigative reporter for the nation section, Weisskopf has scored many scoops, including   the smoking-gun letter of FBI whistle-blower Coleen Rowley and broke stories on Arthur Andersen's shredding of Enron documents, President Bill Clinton's deal with prosecutors and several Monica Lewinsky stories. 

He is co-author of two books: Truth At Any Cost, a book on the Kenneth Starr probe published in April of 2000 by HarperCollins, and Tell Newt to Shut Up, a book about the 1995 Republican revolution in congress, published in 1996 by Simon & Schuster's paperback division.

In 1998, Weisskopf, along with Washington Bureau Chief Michael Duffy and Correspondent Viveca Novak, was awarded the prestigious Goldsmith Award for Investigative Reporting, sponsored by Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy, for their portfolio of investigative stories on campaign finance abuses.  In 1999, he and chief political correspondent Eric Pooley were given the Henry R. Luce award for "Outstanding Story" for a piece they wrote on Kenneth Starr called "How Starr Sees It." 

Weisskopf joined TIME in January 1997 from The Washington Post. In his 20 years with the Post, he covered money in politics, the environment and the Pentagon.  He was the paper's correspondent in China from  1980 to 1985 and covered the hostage crisis in Iran in 1979 and 1980.  Prior to joining the Post, Weisskopf covered  politics and government for The Baltimore Sun.  

He began his career in journalism at The Montgomery Advertiser in Montgomery, Alabama.  While at the Post, Weisskopf won the George Polk Award for national coverage and The Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress.  In 1996 he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.  Weisskopf received his Master of Arts from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and his Bachelors degree from George Washington University.