By David Leonhardt May 17, 2022 Follow our live coverage of the Buffalo mass shooting. for subscribers who want to make sense of the days news and ideasand his Lately, Leonhardt has served as a sort of Rorschach test for liberal America. But I asked him whether he worried about giving ammunition to right-wingers who quite obviously want to prosecute their old agenda against teachers unions and, Oh look, heres a guy from the Failing New York Times who agrees with us. So don't listen to me explain why she lost the election. For the most part, he said, the more helpful stuff is the comparisons, not the numbers., It seemed to break something of a taboo in liberal COVID commentary when, last April, Leonhardt compared the likelihood of fatal COVID in a vaccinated person to the likelihood of death in a car crash. The former VP has an extremely narrow path to viability in 2024. When Leonhardt was in middle school, his father lost his job teaching at a public school in Mamaroneck and found another one at Horace Mann, the Bronx private school. He described himself as a classic bored, acting-out adolescent. Nothing terribly illegal, but still not ideal. [15] His father was the head of the French-American School of New York. The second-largest retail pharmacy chain wont buck Republican attorneys general. When I put this to Leonhardt, he seemed to understand my point, in his way. is well have spoken foolishly, Dr. Pangloss tells Candide in Voltaires Meanwhile, we are learning more every day about the ineptitude of the Biden administration in this arena, including Leonhardt has cultivated the confident, chatty, and Another group of listeners said that our timing was off, that we had understated the risks of this moment, and that, in their minds, the episode just missed the mark. Barbaro was moved but not chastened by the feedback. optimism in its headline, , with his taste for individualistic thinking Since April 30, 2020, he has written the daily "The Morning" newsletter for The New York Times. much for this trajectory; I, too, doubted that Vladimir Putin would risk a February 18, 2022. In a January 26 appearance on The Daily, Leonhardt pressed his case that America is at a pivot point in which COVID goes from being this horrible, deadly, life-dominating pandemic to something that is more endemic to something that looks more like things that we deal with all the time without shutting down daily life, like the flu. He cited the results of a poll, conducted by his staff and Morning Consult, purporting to show that while older Republicans remain irrationally unafraid of COVID, younger and vaccinated Democrats are irrationally overcautious about it. commitment to publishing a diverse range of voices and views in a space that is in the subhead: How should that affect your behavior?, only agencies, hospitals and doctors offices can also play a crucial role, helping offering what we now know to be a highly inaccurate picture of the vaccines Find contact's direct phone number, email address, work history, and more. For Americas wage laborers, a 32-hour workweek is less of a beautiful dream than an oppressive reality. By David Leonhardt | The New York Times | Feb. 11, 2020, 5:00 p.m. | Updated: 1:59 p.m. All The truth is, as a regular reader of Leonhardts column, I enjoyed interacting with its flesh-and-blood analogue. people locate potentially lifesaving treatments, he writesbut shows little New York Times David Leonhardt's Monday column came right out and said it: "Trump Encourages Violence." The Times is trying to find a rise of hate crimes that it can blame on the president. I struggled to get him to talk about himself (he insists he is not private, only uninteresting), and he elegantly evaded my efforts to goad him into provocative indiscretions. Walgreens Wont Sell Abortion Pills in Red States Even Where Its Legal. According to Politico, even President Joe Biden reads Leonhardt. He joined the Times in 1999 and wrote the "Economics Scene" column, and for the Times Sunday Magazine. His impact especially in the tonier precincts of blue America, where the Gray Lady is still synonymous with prudence and prestige is impossible to overstate. View David Leonhardt's business profile as Op-ed Columnist at The New York Times. His economics column, "Economic Scene," appeared on Wednesdays from 2006 until 2011. He is a popular city politician known for defeating a South Side political dynasty (first Robert Shaw, then Herbert Shaw). Resisting steps toward normalcy isnt going to help Build Back Better pass, either. to projecting certain American policy preferences onto what is supposed to be I wont fault him too But over the course of the last year or so that vaccines have become available, I think the story has shifted, and my focus has too.. laser focus on individual risk and behavior, public 2021, The Morning carried the headline, Pandemic [5][4][6] As of October 2018, he also co-hosted "The Argument", a weekly opinion podcast with Ross Douthat and Michelle Goldberg. "Both political tribes really do seem to be struggling to read the evidence objectively," Leonhardt declares. For Leonhardts sharpest critics, this appetite for normalcy is a disturbing sign of our callousness; for his defenders, its the only way beyond our despair. [10] Before coming to the Times, he wrote for Business Week and The Washington Post. We are optimistic, deeply so, because The Times is better positioned than any other media organization to deliver the coverage that millions of people are seeking," the report read. who make dinner-party conversation about an article I just read or a story I our adversaries are in the wrong. Contact. vaccine efficacy rates, aggregate job losses and job gains, and individual newsletter format in promulgating these views is the way that it has serialized But I do feel a responsibility, when its possible to go speak to an audience that is likely to skew right, to try to just emphasize things like vaccines work, they really work. Thats the access issue right there, just staring you in the face. Even among those who refuse vaccination on ideological grounds, Yong notes, disinformation may be considered an access issue: Is it really acceptable that a person should die of COVID because the sources of information surrounding them are false? Comment It's been a rough week for Democrats. quite thoroughly and appallingly incorrect. "[19] He was a winner of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers "Best in Business Journalism Contest" for his The New York Times column in 2009 and 2007. himself to wonder hopefully if the war, which already seems to be somewhat Its a gift. Jacob Bacharach is a novelist and essayist. No episode is perfect, and I wouldnt call this episode perfect. (Science-desk editors reviewed the episode before it aired, as they do most COVID episodes of the podcast, according to Barbaro. Some critics have suggested Leonhardts work reifies this dynamic, absolving the government of its responsibility to protect the public or provide material resources so people can make healthy decisions. . The New York Times has done some of the most essential reporting on COVID during the pandemic, but the content thats being most amplified often minimizes at-risk people, including those at the New York Times, said Taylor Lorenz, who left her job at the Times earlier this year a circumstance that permits her to speak more freely about the Times than its current employees, who are subject to strict internal rules regarding collegiality. None of the science or health-desk reporters I contacted for this story agreed to comment. Jeanne Pirro, co-host of Fox News' The Five, regularly appears at Republican fundraisers. and impossible in a divided polity, and smart or targeted Also in May 2021, Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens wrote, "If it turns out that the Covid pandemic was caused by a leak from a lab in Wuhan, China, it will . people remain vulnerable are also frequently morally callous. Especially on important issues like abortion, education, parenting, religion, and that left-leaning belief too often distort coverage. On Saturday, New York Times senior reporter David Leonhardt published a substantial and lengthy feature surveying "the twin threats to American democracy." The first threat, according to. By David Leonhardt. !" and say that Leonhardt is some conservative lunatic who hates kids . But only to a point. optimist Steven Pinkers proposition that the world is now far less violent But its impossible to meaningfully assess a relatively low risk without a point of comparison. lower vaccination rates. Ten days Tucker Carlson's staff could view but not record Jan. 6 footage, GOP lawmaker says. We should be skeptical of any Arguments to abandon public health measures on the grounds that only a few Our hospitals were overwhelmed and broken, Yong said when I spoke to him in late January. He is the author of a short e-book published by the Times in February 2013: Here's the Deal: How Washington Can Solve the Deficit and Spur Growth. distinct, personal opinions and can plausibly be framed as part of the papers larger Despite the rights manifestly unpopular positions on race, guns, police accountability, and vaccines, Leonhardt wrote, Democrats and progressive activists have responded by overreaching public opinion in the other direction.. It felt like having a conversation with a newspaper column. proved the optimistic prognosticators wrong. Times science and health reporters won a Pulitzer Prize in 2021 for their coverage of the pandemic, but even big A1 stories receive but a fraction of the bleary eyeballs that greet Leonhardts genial, data-driven missives every day. self-reported audience metrics in online media, but theres no question that Leonhardt In 2011, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for his columns. The newsletter David Leonhardt is an American journalist working at The New York Times newspaper as an op-ed columnist. against Iraq in the First Gulf War, Persuasion He was born in Manhattan. Or to help us live better lives? and social catastrophe, it has been easier for those with a The answer is: not exactly. Agree or disagree with their viewpoints, a Bret In the year that followed Leonhardts New York Times Press Release: "The New York Times Announces New Journalism Ventures and Staff Changes", Maria Newman, "At Wary Yale, Seeds of Hope,", Jeremy W. Peters, "Times Names David Leonhardt Washington Bureau Chief,", David Leonhardt, "Economic Scene: Lessons from the Malaise,". paying enough attention to promising developments. And I think the risk has always been in pushing back toward that normal, we lose that chance to fashion a better normal, Yong said. And I think what hes done with COVID, as hes done with other subjects, is ask the question thats on everybodys mind. personality, largely immune even from relatively friendly attempts His prior assignment was leading a strategy group that helped Times leadership shape the future of the newsroom. This position has enraged some readers doctors, scientists, and journalists among them who believe its absurd to call for a return to normal when, according to the Times, around 2,000 people are dying from COVID each day. Those who argue that all Under President Biden, Leonhardt says, Democrats are emphasizing "the humane treatment of immigrants, regardless of their legal status," causing adverse consequences: He announced a 100-day halt. should not compel changes or alterations to normal lifenever mind that more [11], In April 2011 he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary "for his graceful penetration of America's complicated economic questions, from the federal budget deficit to health care reform". calling essential jobs the moment they started making A Florida bill takes a ridiculous GOP argument to the extreme, aiming to eliminate the Democratic Party for its ancient ties to white supremacy. (Leonhardt is something of an evangelist for people cutting down on sugar consumption.) broadcast , (January 19, a day with a reported 3,376 Covid deaths . conservative, in their views. [3] His column previously appeared weekly in The New York Times. analysis to convince its audience that quietism is a political virtue and that And not only that, there are many numbers the human mind cant actually engage with in any meaningful way. Namely, really big and really small numbers both hallmarks of the COVID era. As Noam Chomsky memorably told Leonhardt wasnt willing to go all the way with my armchair political psychology, but he agreed that taking COVID seriously has become a badge of progressive thinking. Given how conservative politicians twisted the truth about the pandemic and resisted measures to contain it, its understandable, he said, why so many people especially political progressives responded by going as far in the other direction as possible. He added, Those steps saved lives.. important point and caveat, but Leonhardtand the American media broadlydoes In our conversations, I found myself gaming out my own thoughts, risk calculations, and COVID-inflected choices with Leonhardt as a knowledgeable, sympathetic, though noncommittal sounding board treating him more like an analyst than a profile subject. knowing that, good or ill, whatever happens probably had to, and is for the about howwithin reasonto stay safe: We wish them well, but we can feel comfortable public Hospitals across the country appear to have avoided the worst-case scenarios public health experts feared. They have called for defunding the police They have also called for abolishing the agency that enforces immigration laws, eliminating private health insurance, maintaining the current system of affirmative action, and forbidding almost all abortion restrictions. The president surprised and angered some Democrats by declining to veto a GOP effort to block a D.C. bill. Does this guy actually know what Here too Leonhardt The Big-Name Journalists Who Are Trying to Both Sides Covid. Regardless, this kind of For others, Leonhardt is a dangerous font of wishful thinking: a Pied Piper leading the nations liberal elites into a self-satisfied state of necro-normalcy in which thousands of lives are disposable. [21] After this announcement, he published what he referred to as his final Economic Scene column, "Lessons from the Malaise," on July 26, 2011. For my money, David is the best the Times has at answering the big Where Are We Now in This Pandemic? questions, said Donald G. McNeil Jr., a former science-desk reporter who resigned under pressure in 2021 after he was accused of uttering a racial slur in front of high-school students. When Leonhardt published a newsletter in October 2021 acknowledging the minimal risk of COVID to children, Berenson praised it on his Substack. Privacy Policy and self-assured tone of much of Americas professional classesthe sort of people I strongly disagree with that, he told me. Most moderates and conservatives see mandates as a temporary strategy that should end this year. to that of any beloved TV character, a parasocial almost-friend whose That award goes to the three reporters who wrote a big story about Venezuela's economic failure and never once mentioned socialism. Democratic constituencies by causing the party to lurch to consensus that Covid will soon More than perhaps any writer in America, Leonhardt is positioned to shape our collective common sense about the state of the virus and our societys responses to it. In this sense, people who continue to insist on safeguarding the medically vulnerable are irrational, beset by a kind of madness. [34] He was interviewed again on The Colbert Report on February 14, 2013, to speak about his new e-book.[35]. He launched his political career by falsely claiming that the first black president was not really American. How we determined this rating: Community Feedback: 573 ratings Unless otherwise noted, this bias rating refers only to online news coverage, not TV, print, or radio content. Terms of Service apply. Leonhardt is not immune Steven Perlberg. George Santoss Nasty Twitter Battle With Fellow New York Republicans. . the Catholic critic, David Bentley Hart, reviewing notorious epidemiologist Justin Feldman responded with a long Slate article, titled, All possible conflict between nuclear superpowers, a catastrophic eventuality that He was famously known for writing the magazine's business section economics column titled "Economics Scene." of concern. In June, the WHO announced that it was becoming the dominant The Times COVID tracker, for example, was a brilliant innovation that allowed readers to see the damage of the pandemic when government officials would just as soon have hidden it. Leonhardt has a successful career as a journalist and has worked for The New York Times for more than two decades. is the best tool that public officials have, but persuasion The purpose of his intervention, said Steven W. Thrasher, a professor of journalism at Northwestern who is writing a book about the viral underclass, is to create less of a sense of crisis about the 9/11s worth of people dying every day. If Leonhardts efforts are successful, Thrasher says, people will see the news that 2,000 people died today, and they will think, Thats acceptable because they were old, they were sick, or they were unvaccinated. And that, Thrasher says, is eugenic and genocidal logic. Leonhardt, who has described his journalistic colleagues as having a "bad-news bias," sees his role as being an implicit corrective to some of the more alarmist coverage showing up elsewhere in. The episode produced a wave of denunciation online. Leonhardt admits as much. Its a huge platform and a huge responsibility, both of which he takes seriously (as he takes most things). That his columns often include good, hopeful news a rarity in COVID commentary is likely one of the reasons theyre so successful. David Leonhardt AllSides Media Bias Rating: Lean Left agree disagree Lean Left What does this mean? If Covid surges . [30][31] Matthew Yglesias, of Slate, wrote in a review of Here's the Deal: "if you're not a member of Congress and just want to understand the budgetary landscape on the merits, this is a great place to start". so, just a bit longer than the typical opinion column; generally treats one or that this was the case. but he could not imagine this as anything but a problem for poor countries with The fact that Leonhardt is himself something of a cipher as a the episodic drip-drip of favorite characters, conflicts, and themes. be endemic and that the supposed While working on the Quarles family farm, he was an undergraduate triple major (Agriculture Economics, Public Service & Leadership, and Political Science, B.S., '05) and earned masters in Agricultural Economics and in Diplomacy . As Leonhardt recently told me, COVID turned out to be the perfect story for a daily newsletter because people are desperate for information. The audience, he found, was insatiable. These columns are then The state has a near-total abortion ban, and now activists and GOP officials are fighting an exemption for physician-defined medical emergencies. Until the end of 2018 it was named "Opinion Today". Trump made some rhetorical flourishes in an interview with the right-wing news site Breitbart, which nonetheless didn't rise to the level of a . What distinguishes Leonhardts best newsletters from other COVID commentary is his willingness to think with his readers, not for them. A continuously updated summary of the news stories that US political commentators are discussing online right now. Leonhardt also points out that those under 50 are just about as likely, based on the data, to be murdered as die of COVID. In this regard Leonhardt is a genius of the form, and Yes, but the immunocompromised. Yes, but were not talking about zero death. And all those things are true, and they require hard decisions, but I dont see the evidence for why those exceptions should be driving wide-scale shutdowns of normal activity that are causing increases in mental-health problems; increases in suicide attempts, particularly among adolescent girls; massive gaps in learning; increases in behavior problems among children; higher blood pressure among adult Americans; and a huge surge of drug overdoses.. must, each of us, tend our gardens alone. The sum effect of this partisan thinking, Yong told me, is to individualize blame. In 2003, he was part of a team of Times reporters whose coverage of corporate scandals was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. I think my basic approach is to put myself in the shoes of a reader, which isnt hard because I am a reader, right? he said. 45 replies 172 retweets 901 likes 45 172 901 David Leonhardt @DLeonhardt Sep 27 On the substance, I think that Clinton's behavior was. For that reason, the best responses to health crises depend on triage, with political leaders prioritizing the most valuable steps that people can take. opening chapter. I dont know of a better explanatory writer than David, Times executive editor Dean Baquet gushed when I spoke to him in January. Leonhardt cut his teeth as a business and economics writer (for which he ultimately won a Pulitzer) and later worked on the Times ' efforts to integrate data analysis and visualization with. Plays Incompetent Willy Wonka at CPAC. Many progressives, he said, hoped COVID would be a turning point in American history. in Retreat (January 19, a day with a reported 3,376 Covid deaths The only The Covid pandemic has I do think for progressives who are legitimately concerned about things like the future of American democracy and the future of our planet and other things like deep inequality in this country, its important for them to be rigorous about what the country actually thinks, rather than to engage in wishful thinking. Early life and education. [2] He also contributes to the paper's Sunday Review section. when (especially when?) Then, in 2020, he was tapped to turn the Times sleepy newsletter, which already had a massive built-in audience, into a branded news product. He launched his presidential campaign by describing Mexicans as "rapists.". the Vulnerable, which outlines five steps that can He won the Gerald Loeb Award for magazine writing in 2009 for a New York Times Magazine article, "Obamanomics. A continuously updated summary of the news stories that US political commentators are discussing online right now. heard on NPR. The text of the newsletter is usually shorta thousand words or less partisan and more respectful of people with different views. Epidemiologists, meanwhile, encouraged us to take some responsibility for protecting them. which the illness and death it causes becomes a more normal part of daily life.. David Leonhardt is an Op-Ed . Leonhardt's failure to mention living standards is not the worst example of journalistic malpractice at the New York Times. Its really corrosive., Yong, the Atlantic writer, put it this way, I was writing as early as spring of 2020 that this is, in many ways, an opportunity to take stock of societal problems that have been allowed to go unaddressed for too long. The pandemic was an X-ray of the dysfunction and rot in our social order. I think we had the sense that something was happening because something was happening, Barbaro told me. Note that Leonhardt does not explicitly call for impeachment, but rather for aggressive hearings, especially on the four topics on which he focuses, as a means of galvanizing the political . 2021, he was once again pronouncing , . Amid the deadly omicron surge in January, he the left, even though the most powerful and influential people in the partyJoe . We just ask an enormous amount of teachers, and were asking even more of them now because kids are now behind academically and kids have greater mental-health problems and all kinds of behavior, bad behavior, is rising. But in truth, its impossible to know whether American politicians are listening more to the Times COVID conscience or their own. Although Murray puts up a good defense of how America infatuation with a college degree can lead to a class disparity, the author lacks the practicality of Core Knowledge, consideration of how a college education has its intrinsic and monetary merits that students can get by completing a degree, and an opposing view that a college degree does . Many liberals have spent two years thinking of COVID mitigations as responsible, necessary, even patriotic. assigned to write the Times flagship newslettera basic point of entry The Great Depression caused Americans to doubt the country's economic system. Unfortunately, continuing the mitigations doesnt seem to be contributing to that better world, even if people wish it were so, he said.