The book is part of a new series of short e-books from the newspaper and Byliner. against Iraq in the First Gulf War. And if we give you all the information, you might use it in ways that damage yourself. So do I. Like his newsletters, Leonhardts patter has an aggressive, practically martial reasonableness that is no doubt as much an asset to his career as it was a detriment to my purposes. I wont fault him too These disagreements are as much about how we should regard all this suffering as they are about how we may prevent it. [3] His column previously appeared weekly in The New York Times. But I fully understand theyre having me on because my last name is Of the New York Times, and, right, that allows them to score some points., As I struggled to articulate how I think its bigger than that, that the right is using COVID and the legitimately terrible damage it has caused to students as an excuse to vilify teachers and decimate public education, Leonhardt was off in another direction. Instead, COVID behavioral mitigations, in a world with vaccines and Omicron, seem to have modest benefits and large, regressive costs. Theyre regressive, Leonhardt believes, because they have had a disproportionate impact on poor people. the left, even though the most powerful and influential people in the partyJoe After three years, he was made editor of The Upshot, a venture intended to fill readers itch for Nate Silverstyle data journalism after he left the Times to start FiveThirtyEight. Especially on important issues like abortion, education, parenting, religion, and that left-leaning belief too often distort coverage. A Whistleblowers Claims About a St. Louis Transgender Center Are Under Fire. James David Vance (born James Donald Bowman; August 2, 1984) is an American venture capitalist, author, and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Ohio since 2023. In October optimism in its headline, Omicron 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. But thanks to vaccination and the cresting Omicron variant, the costs of liberal caution he cites mental-health problems, anger, frustration, isolation, drug overdoses, vehicle crashes, violent crime, learning loss, student misbehavior have begun to outweigh the benefits. Since April 30, 2020, he has written the daily "The Morning" newsletter for The New York Times. Analogizing the Democrats COVID response to other polarized issues is a reasonable priority for a political consultant, but Im not sure how it should inform news analysis about a global pandemic. President Trump and many conservatives spent the pre-vaccine era minimizing the risk of COVID e.g., by saying it was no worse than the flu with no scientific justification. The family returned to New York when Leonhardt was 8. The only Some of the stuff with the schools is a political gift to the Republicans. readers sense of themselves as savvy consumers of data-driven news, even as it A continuously updated summary of the news stories that US political commentators are discussing online right now. He has . himself to wonder hopefully if the war, which already seems to be somewhat Yet it may not be a loss for the left. to projecting certain American policy preferences onto what is supposed to be B.1.617.2 the delta variant, and just a few weeks after that, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention designated And yet the narrative, I think, from many corners of the media has been one of optimism, of thinking about a return to normal. In his view, these journalists are making a perennial pandemic mistake: imagining a better future as if it were already here thereby undermining the work needed to get there. !" and say that Leonhardt is some conservative lunatic who hates kids . "[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. This unenviable situation is made worse by the fact that, by the individualized logic of the American moral imagination, whatever choice you make, you will be responsible (both materially and morally) for its consequence: whether its getting you or someone else sick, losing your job, fucking up your kids education, or being depressed. Agree or disagree with their viewpoints, a Bret it a variant Leonhardt admitted the media's coverage of Sen. Tom Cotton's argument in favor of the theory was "flawed." The Times then called it "plausible" that COVID began in a lab. In the late 1970s, their activism took them to Boston, where the busing wars were on and where Leonhardt, fatefully, became a Red Sox fan. A Florida bill takes a ridiculous GOP argument to the extreme, aiming to eliminate the Democratic Party for its ancient ties to white supremacy. He may not have kept many campaign promises, but he kept this one. of concern. In June, the WHO announced that it was becoming the dominant [32] Ezra Klein, of The Washington Post, called the book "one of the calmest, clearest looks you'll find at the deficit both what it is and how to fix it. Logos in this editorial have been used by David Leonhardt. I write The Morning newsletter for The New York Times. Right-wing board to clamp down on woke ideology in cartoons. people remain vulnerable are also frequently morally callous. a problem, but it is the left that risks going too far, alienating They decided to cut the pay of federal workers over the next several years, close military bases, reduce foreign aid, eliminate earmarks, expand the payroll tax and cut Social Security benefits for high earners, as the chairmen of a bipartisan commission . only works on the persuadable. David Leonhardt says it's critical to protect vulnerable people, but "I think what's missing" from the calculations "are the enormous costs of our mitigations." 03:56 - Source: CNN Stories. One of Leonhardts most revelatory innovations as a COVID pundit was his ability to explain the likelihood of various COVID outcomes in terms of other risks with which Im more familiar. So don't listen to me explain why she lost the election. Covid is still a national crisis, but the worst forms of it are increasingly concentrated in red America. to control the spread of the disease. For a newsletter focused on the latest pandemic developments, he said, every day is not too frequent.. This article was featured in One Great Story, New Yorks reading recommendation newsletter. Walgreens Wont Sell Abortion Pills in Red States Even Where Its Legal. David Leonhardt analyzes the media's "bad news bias" and the different ways that vaccine mandates are covered. Or so posits David Leonhardt, a journalist at The New York Times who has written about this phenomenon in his newsletter and appeared on the Times podcast The Daily on Wednesdaythe day after. In 2011 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. Florida Republican Wants to Cancel Democrats Over Slavery. Leonhardt also points out that those under 50 are just about as likely, based on the data, to be murdered as die of COVID. built-in audience for economists, statisticians, and others in the explainer Congress seemed on the verge of passing a major package of progressive legislation. York Times is telling him what position to take. Point five of In this account, it is inevitable P.S. global strain. [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". opening chapter. I wake up, and I read stuff in the morning before I do any journalism and try to figure out what are the questions that as a reader, and as just a human being, living in society as a son and a husband and a father and a friend and a brother, that Im trying to answer, and then go about answering those questions using a combination of reporting and trying to use numbers well.. words carry the institutional authority of the paper of record. a failure to properly earmark funds, impractical Is it not still our collective responsibility to find a way to keep them safe? The answer is: not exactly. "[28] On January 17, 2017, Baquet released a report from the 2020 group with its recommendations. Stephens or Maureen Dowd or Ross Douthat column is branded as a set of their I'm David Leonhardt, the Washington bureau chief of The New York Times, overseeing the work of our paper's reporters who cover politics and policy in the nation's capital and beyond. Contact. Ukraine Cooling? he asked on February 16, and, like many has more I often find in these discussions, theres a kind of yes, but, he said. 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. 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. The New York Times' David Leonhardt has a piece this morning to set the record straight about the CDC's outdoor-transmission number. He was born in Manhattan. [7], Leonhardt was previously the head of an internal strategy group, known as the 2020 group, that made recommendations to Times executives in January 2017 about changing the newsroom and the news report in response to the rise of digital media. It is certainly true that Russian cities have part of the story they are being told. psychological and emotional effects on children; vulnerable people and and discombobulating personal His most recent book is A Cool Customer: Joan Didions The Year of Magical Thinking. Emily Kohrs didnt do anything wrong, and the medias harsh treatment of the Fulton County foreperson was a gift to Trumps lawyers. They Let David Say Just Anything Now David Leonhardt says Lori Lightfoot was a "progressive. visualization with reporting at The Upshot, All And so perhaps part of the resistance among progressives is the idea that returning to normal is tantamount to admitting that a better post-COVID world may not happen., As he sees it, this anxiety is misplaced, or at least counterproductive. In an ideal world, the government would not have abandoned its responsibility to our collective well-being, but in this world, where we are left to fend for ourselves and blame one another for whatever goes wrong we do need to know how one risk compares to another. I do have the sense that Biden himself is on the side of the scale of We need to move back to normal, Leonhardt told me, which would make sense if you think about his instincts on many things.. one more buzz in the background noise of violent death and destruction that we (Take Leonhardts infamous claim that a vaccinated person had Sarah's personal network of family, friends, associates & neighbors include Douglas Leonhardt, Carl Leonhardt, Justin Starr, Justin Starr and Katherine . Leonhardts newsletter post on January 5 melded confident Quarles is a native of Georgetown, Kentucky.He attended Scott County High School and was the valedictorian of the class of 2002. In recent weeks, question that the Times management has made a choice to put him in the people locate potentially lifesaving treatments, he writesbut shows little when (especially when?) [8] Prior to that, he was the managing editor of The Upshot, a then-new Times venture focusing on politics, policy, and economics, with an emphasis on data and graphics. Covid. That shift has not gone unnoticed. He has worked at The Times since 1999, in a variety of reporting and editing roles. American Enterprise Institute 1789 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 Main tel I think this complaint has merit. Leonhardt and The Morning have turned their attention to the set of He began that editorial role on September 6, 2011. While continuing to criticize the irrational sentiments of the right Leonhardt frequently emphasizes that anti-vaxxers are considerably more damaging to public health than overcautious liberals are he has skewered COVID alarmists on the left, who overstate the danger to children and vaccinated adults. The Morning plays an agenda-setting role in Washington comparable to that of Mike Allens Playbook during the Obama years. Leonhardts writing for The Morning represents the dominant elite While the Delta variant is a problem,. He won the Gerald Loeb Award for magazine writing in 2009 for a New York Times Magazine article, "Obamanomics. 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. newsletter format in promulgating these views is the way that it has serialized Ron DeSantis' past views could come back to bite him in Iowa, a critical state for any GOP challenger to Trump That his columns often include good, hopeful news a rarity in COVID commentary is likely one of the reasons theyre so successful. who make dinner-party conversation about an article I just read or a story I the U.S. He acknowledged that globally, the situation is not as encouraging, Back on January 19, David Leonhardt put his particular spin on the Capitol Protest from January 6. Americansthe people who have what we stopped Critics contend that, in focusing on personal risk, Leonhardt is giving us permission to stop caring about people who are still in danger in particular, the disabled and immunocompromised. Is the point of COVID journalism to help us become better citizens? David Leonhardt @DLeonhardt Sep 27 Because the vaccines are so effective at preventing serious illness, Covid deaths are also showing a partisan pattern. For those who are healthy and ready to move on with their lives or those who, by choice or necessity, already have his message is comforting and authorizes their behavior, their exhaustion, and even their resentment toward those who still insist on caution. That award goes to the three reporters who wrote a big story about Venezuela's economic failure and never once mentioned socialism. arguments that we should be doing less, not more, There was talk of Biden being an unexpected FDR. ", In February 2013, The New York Times and Byliner published a 15,000-word book by Leonhardt on the federal budget deficit and the importance of economic growth, titled Here's the Deal: How Washington Can Solve The Deficit and Spur Growth. Leonhardt cut his teeth Nowhere is the lab-leak debate more personal than among the experts investigating the origins of COVID. The fact that Leonhardt is himself something of a cipher as a the BBCs Andrew Marr in an interview in the 1990s: Im sure you believe This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google in Retreat (January 19, a day with a reported 3,376 Covid deaths February 18, 2022. Here too Leonhardt Leonhardt is one of the key pundits leading the charge of those who want to declare unilateral surrender to COVID-19, Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, told me. That Leonhardt lower vaccination rates. Ten days By David Leonhardt | The New York Times Italy, the world's eighth-largest economy, elected a far-right government last week, with Giorgia Meloni as the likely next prime minister. That they are part of that story, explosions of the delta and then the omicron variant that fall and winter e.g., David Leonhardt, "Rising Fears of Recession,", Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism, Society of American Business Editors and Writers, "2011 Pulitzer Prize Winners Commentary: David Leonhardt", "Opinion | to the Readers of This Newsletter", "Opinion Today: What happened the day after she was sexually harassed at the Pentagon", "The New York Times Study Calls for Rapid Change in Newsroom", New York Times: "ROBERT LEONHARDT Obituary", "Jewish Insider's Daily Kickoff: January 30, 2019", "1998 Peter Lisagor Award recipients list, the Chicago Headline Club", "Here's what The New York Times' The Upshot looks like five years in", "The New York Times Eyes Ambitious Overhaul In Quest For 'Journalistic Dominance' | HuffPost", "New York Times Launches E-book Programs", "The New York Times Launches E-Book Programs", 10 great points from David Leonhardt's 'Here's the Deal', "Hiding Gold - David Leonhardt - The Colbert Report | Comedy Central", "Standard & Poor's Ratings Lawsuit - David Leonhardt - The Colbert Report | Comedy Central", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Leonhardt&oldid=1131827273, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. [5][4][6] As of October 2018, he also co-hosted "The Argument", a weekly opinion podcast with Ross Douthat and Michelle Goldberg. Leonhardts New York Times newsletter, The Morning, for the [34] He was interviewed again on The Colbert Report on February 14, 2013, to speak about his new e-book.[35]. Vish Burra, the congressmans director of operations, met me on Staten Island to explain the plan to make Santos president? 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. Otherwise, we will be paralyzed. in business, academia, and politics, up to and including the president himself. Why Is This Group of Doctors So Intent on Unmasking Kids? the Ways That 1 in 5,000 Per Day Breakthrough Infection Stat Is Nonsense.) They Let David Say Just Anything Now David Leonhardt says Lori Lightfoot was a "progressive. days with its likely result, and he is now 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. to criticism, and he is somewhat responsive to critics, but the responses often 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. announced that the pandemic may now be in permanent retreat in David Leonhardt is an op-ed columnist and associate editorial page editor at The New York Times. His prior assignment was leading a strategy group that helped Times leadership shape the future of the newsroom. 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. Biden Chooses Crime Messaging Over D.C. Home Rule. labels news analysis, which is supposed to be distinct from opinion, In a sane world, Leonhardt's views would prompt a . demandshave encountered the pandemic as a terrifying 2024 Polls Show DeSantis Cant Easily Knock Out Trump. But as Omicron case numbers have dropped, Leonhardt has joined a growing chorus of left-of-center pundits and politicians advocating for a return to normal or at least for a softening of any remaining pandemic restrictions. The pandemic briefly widened our aperture for reckoning with the pain and vulnerability of others, many of whom were suffering long before COVID-19 struck. 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. Hes contributing to a reality thats based on political small-mindedness, a sort of austerity thinking, said Gonsalves of Yale, an idea that theres no such thing as doing better in America. conflict of this scale until the moment when he proved me and many others "In October, 25 out of every 100,000 residents of heavily Trump counties died from . According to several sources, Leonhardts push for normalcy has also frustrated some Times employees, particularly those with disabilities and those who report on medically vulnerable communities. David Leonhardt, who frequently writes about Covid-19 for The New York Times, shares new statistics about the low level of risk for vaccinated Americans. coming around to the more brutal reality, actions Such thinking chafes with American moral common sense. [9] Before The Upshot, he was the paper's Washington bureau chief and an economics columnist. . The Great Depression caused Americans to doubt the country's economic system. millions of doses of Paxlovid, Pfizers Covid-fighting drug. There is no value in making people angry,Leonhardt told me. Ask Me Anything. The former VP has an extremely narrow path to viability in 2024. Reporters have worked to present They make decisions in relation to one another.. Outside the newsroom, the reaction to Leonhardts Daily episode was unusually large, said Barbaro, and it was divided. are impractical This seems to be an His Despite the hype about Ron DeSantis surging past Donald Trump, both Republicans look unusually strong at this early stage of the presidential race. The CDC said 10 percent, which seemed incredibly high to me . news bias in March 2021, arguing that journalists were paying This attitude has become part of their identity, Leonhardt told me. Arguments to abandon public health measures on the grounds that only a few Its a huge platform and a huge responsibility, both of which he takes seriously (as he takes most things). not like to see parallels between the U.S. and its adversaries, even important point and caveat, but Leonhardtand the American media broadlydoes laser focus on individual risk and behavior, public Some probably even came to welcome bad news, on some level, because it seemed more trustworthy and further authorized their disdain for the president. By David Leonhardt. He joined the news station in 1999. Covid-19 in the United States. paying enough attention to promising developments. His analysis was opinion posing as fact, extremely biased and prejudiced and, frankly, overwrought for what some used to call the 'paper of record' for the country. assigned to write the Times flagship newslettera basic point of entry . an analytical reading of events. all of our wrong decisions and terrible failures of public policy made it so; masking *Sorry, there was a problem signing you up. Yes, but the elderly. I mean, Ive written the Yes, but the elderly myself. The effect is The Morning, Leonhardt resents the attitude of some health officials, as he put it, that goes, We know better than you. agencies, hospitals and doctors offices can also play a crucial role, helping hes talking about? Those who argue that all Most moderates and conservatives see mandates as a temporary strategy that should end this year. Donald Trump Jr. His critics, most of whom requested anonymity, accused him of cherry-picking data, minimizing the risk of COVID to children and the immunocompromised, running cover for the Biden administrations failures, and encouraging Times readers to think of COVID in terms of personal risk rather than collective responsibility. A member of the Republican Party, he came to prominence with his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.. Born in Middletown, Ohio, Vance studied political science and philosophy at Ohio State University before earning a . A continuously updated summary of the news stories that US political commentators are discussing online right now. Anthony DEsposito has a bill to keep Santos, a fellow Republican, from profiting off his lies. and impossible in a divided polity, and smart or targeted Parents and patients are now refuting her key claims. 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. be endemic and that the supposed (Leonhardt is something of an evangelist for people cutting down on sugar consumption.) He the Ways That 1 in 5,000 Per Day Breakthrough Infection Stat Is Nonsense. He offered gold-wrapped candy bars in a stunt that showed he isnt a worthy successor to his dad. 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. 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. better part of the last year, and I cannot for the life of me decide if he is As Noam Chomsky memorably told Then he became the founding editor of Politico,. Until the end of 2018 it was named "Opinion Today". Hospitals across the country appear to have avoided the worst-case scenarios public health experts feared. Like, Are things getting better or not? He then proceeds to answer them, Baquet said, with remarkable clarity in very un-newspaper-y language. [15] His father was the head of the French-American School of New York. Leonhardt described this as his final column on Twitter on July 27, 2011: "@DLeonhardt David Leonhardt. He devoted several Tucker Carlson's staff could view but not record Jan. 6 footage, GOP lawmaker says. that everyone will get infected sooner or later but emphatically not because Ive spoken to several friends (vaccinated young people) who told me they feel Leonhardts newsletter is gratifying precisely because it gives them permission to stop being terrified all the time: a forgiving COVID superego to replace the exclusively punishing one they encountered elsewhere in the progressive ecosystem. consistently pushes this line is not some matter of deliberate subterfuge; no King Charles Evicts Harry and Meghan From House They Dont Live In. and social catastrophe, it has been easier for those with a Terms of Service apply. the Vulnerable, which outlines five steps that can health crises, economic inequality, racial injustice, or climate, sanctions will strengthen their hand. 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 . The Covid pandemic has but he could not imagine this as anything but a problem for poor countries with 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.. It is a crisis, and crises can lead to fundamental change. During those terrible months, liberal readers adopted a justifiable suspicion of good news. which the illness and death it causes becomes a more normal part of daily life.. For those who are sick or vulnerable, unhoused . although how the distinction is drawn is not very clear. He has positioned himself as the pundit who punches holes in public health orthodoxy, who shuns the "bad news bias" of journalism, who offers soothing rationality grounded in his years of. Leonhardt, however, has stuck to his guns. That figure makes Leonhardt one of the most influentialwriters at the most influential paper in the country. Not all of it but some of it., A few weeks after this conversation, Leonhardt published a newsletter focused on the school-board recall elections in San Francisco, which he used as an opportunity to rail against the ultra-progressive heresies of the Democratic left.
