A native of Port Chester, New York, Jonathan B. Alpert is a 1970 graduate of Colgate University,[1] and has a 4th degree black belt in karate.

Alpert has traveled widely as an investigative journalist and has reported from Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Cuba, China, and Afghanistan.

[6] Alpert won the Erikson Institute Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media with co-director Ellen Goosenberg Kent for their documentary War Torn: 1861-2010.

"Keiko's brother would literally go to the factory, and as the first color portapak was coming off JVC's assembly line, we'd get serial number one of everything," Alpert said.

His reports for NBC's The Today Show and Nightly News offered mass audiences a view of domestic and international affairs from a decidedly decentered perspective.

[14] In 1991, while employed by NBC, Alpert was the first American journalist to bring back uncensored video footage[15] from the first Persian Gulf War.

[19] In 2021, HBO Max debut Alpert's Life of Crime: 1984-2020 documentary, a thirty-six year chronicle of criminal and drug addicts in Newark, New Jersey.