Janet Langhart Cohen

Janet Langhart Cohen, president of Langhart Communications, is an Emmy-nominated journalist who began her television career on CBS in Chicago. During her 25-year career, Cohen has appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC and BET; hosted ABCs Good Day in Boston; covered special assignments for Entertainment Tonight and produced several programs, including On Capitol Hill with Janet Langhart. As an overseas correspondent, she covered news in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Throughout her career, Cohen interviewed many major newsmakers and leaders of the 20th century. Among the prominent people she interviewed are President Bill Clinton (who acknowledged her work in his last State of the Union address), President Jimmy Carter, Margaret Thatcher, Rosa Parks, General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., Mel Gibson, Bill Cosby, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Denzel Washington, Dan Rather and Larry King.

Cohen also has worked as a columnist for The Boston Herald, U.S. News and World Report, and served as spokeswoman for Avon Cosmetics. She has been a judge for the White House Fellows Program and judged the Miss America pageant. Cohen is the wife of former Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen. She was known as "First Lady of the Pentagon," due to her active and visible public role while her husband was in office. She inspired several initiatives aimed at quality of life for the Defense Departments military and civilian employeesincluding the Military Family Forum, the Pentagon Pops concert series, the Secretary of Defense Annual Holiday Tour (an entertainment revue). Cohen also created and hosted Special Assignment, a weekly television program that was broadcast globally over the Armed Forces Network from 1997 to 2001.

She wrote her first book, a memoir entitled, From Rage to Reason: My Life in Two Americas in 2004. In 2007, she and her husband co-wrote Love in Black and White, A Memoir about Race, Religion and Romance, about the bonds Langhart and Cohen share over similar life circumstances and backgrounds.

Most recently, Cohen has written a one-act playAnne and Emmettan imagined conversation between Nazi child victim, Anne Frank, and child victim Emmett Till, of the Jim Crow southern United States. She also is actively involved in the provision of higher education for underprivileged children.