[1] Carlson was born in Boston, the son of college student Richard Boynton and Dorothy Anderson, 18 and 15 years old, respectively.

During that time, Carlson claimed many prospective parents came to visit him, including his birth mother, Anderson, posing as her own sister.

[7] Carlson graduated from the Naval Academy Preparatory School and attended the University of Mississippi through an ROTC program, holding odd jobs in between the breaks.

When Carlson was 22, he got a job working as a "copy boy" for night city editor Glenn Binford at the Los Angeles Times.

Two years later, Carlson and Brisson went to San Francisco to try to establish themselves, working as freelance independent television reporters, producing news features to sell for local and national distribution.

Carlson and Brisson became best known for a September 1969 article in Look, in which they linked Mayor Joseph Alioto to organized crime.

After three inconclusive jury trials, a fourth trial by judge without a jury in 1977 found that the plaintiff had sustained the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that defendant published the defamatory statements contained in the article with actual malice, that is, with reckless disregard for whether they were true or not, and was entitled to judgment in the sum of $350,000, plus costs.

[7] In 1975, Noyes took a job at KFMB-TV in San Diego, and asked Carlson to join him as a combination news anchorman and investigative reporter.

However, Carlson walked away from the job after 18 months, tiring of news, calling it a "kid's game" that was "insipid, sophomoric and superficial" and laced with "a lot of arrogance and hypocrisy.

"[7] He admitted to being part of that hypocrisy, by citing a piece he did that outed a local tennis player, Dr. Renée Richards, as a transgender woman.

[7] Carlson also targeted G. Elizabeth Carmichael and outed her as a transgender con-artist, refusing to refer to her as a woman when instructed to by the judge presiding over the trial.

For example, in 1984, the bank received negative press for allowing Edwin Meese, adviser to Ronald Reagan, to be 15 months delinquent on his mortgage.

[2] The following year, Carlson decided to run for mayor of San Diego in what became a contentious campaign against incumbent Roger Hedgecock, who was under indictment for perjury and conspiracy.

[14] In the summer of 1986, President Reagan announced his intention to nominate Carlson as an associate director of the United States Information Agency to succeed Ernest Eugene Pell.

Carlson became director of Voice of America, a U.S. government-funded, state-owned multimedia agency which serves as the United States federal government's official institution for non-military, external broadcasting.

In June 1991, Carlson left Voice of America after President George H. W. Bush nominated him to be the U.S. ambassador to the Seychelles.

[19] Critics decried that Republicans were weaponizing public broadcasting in order to make it an election issue against candidates who supported it.

[22] From 1992 to 1997, he was also president of InterMedia, the global research consulting firm which conducts opinion surveys for government agencies in over 75 foreign countries.

[25] He is the author of books: Women in San Diego's History (1977), Free and Fair: The Last Two Weeks of Apartheid (1995), and Why Dogs Talk on Christmas Eve.

[citation needed] He writes a weekly newspaper column, often about terrorism and national security, for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review[26] and the Charleston Mercury.

[34][33] Carlson was said to be an active father who had a specific outlook in raising his sons: "I want them to be self-disciplined to the degree that I think is necessary to find satisfaction...you measure a person on how far they go, on how far they've sprung.

[citation needed] Carlson and his wife live in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and in a small Virginia town on the Chesapeake Bay.