Jacob Bacharach is a novelist and essayist. In this account, it is inevitable . Right-wing board to clamp down on woke ideology in cartoons. point to a frustrating inability to engage with the substance of the critiques. it a variant (A piquant irony here: He graduated in the same Horace Mann class as and attended Yale with Alex Berenson, previously a Times colleague who has since distinguished himself as a skeptic of COVIDs severity and of COVID-vaccine efficacy. 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. And theres just been this kind of bureaucratic timidity and caution that I think has been quite damaging.. We also face real challenges journalism challenges and business challenges. ", 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. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. agencies, hospitals and doctors offices can also play a crucial role, helping Arguments to abandon public health measures on the grounds that only a few Like, Are things getting better or not? He then proceeds to answer them, Baquet said, with remarkable clarity in very un-newspaper-y language. George Santoss Nasty Twitter Battle With Fellow New York Republicans. Population The data suggest the restrictions are often doing harm,on net. and social catastrophe, it has been easier for those with a to treat the pandemics still-growing toll of death and debilitation as just But what Im saying is if you believed something different, you wouldnt be sitting where youre sitting.. 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. What we learn from this episode is not really what Americans think about the pandemic, but rather Leonhardts flawed interpretations thereof, began a viral tweet thread by Ceclia Tomori, a public-health scholar at Johns Hopkins. 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. The episode produced a wave of denunciation online. to be vaccinated), and other vulnerable populations. Leonhardt is not immune *Sorry, there was a problem signing you up. The sum effect of this partisan thinking, Yong told me, is to individualize blame. As Noam Chomsky memorably told 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. On a recent episode of the left-wing health policy podcast Death Panel, Abigail Cartus, a public-health postdoc at Brown University, called Leonhardt a relentless minimizer of the pandemic. My final Econ Scene column, on lessons from the last 11 years: we're not focusing on our true problems. 27 Jul via Twitter for iPad". Theres so much ideological work you need to do to try to convince people that this thing thats killed a million people in your country is fine and were overreacting, said Justin Feldman, a social epidemiologist at Harvard. It felt like having a conversation with a newspaper column. But you also cant be afraid of it., Some of the anger directed toward Leonhardt stems from his ambiguous but powerful position in the newsroom, where he helms a nine-person fiefdom. Leonhardt got a scholarship to attend Horace Mann, where he quickly found himself among a group of crusading student journalists who criticized the administration over sexism and racism and agitated for apartheid divestment. readers sense of themselves as savvy consumers of data-driven news, even as it While many February 2021 Pandemic in Retreat article, more than 400,000 people died of knowing that, good or ill, whatever happens probably had to, and is for the You can read my recent articles here and . to immunocompromised, chronically ill, unvaccinated (including those too young In early February, I took a brisk walk with Leonhardt from the New York Times building to the Hudson River. [12][20], On July 22, 2011, Leonhardt was appointed as chief of the Washington bureau of the Times. vaccine efficacy rates, aggregate job losses and job gains, and individual for subscribers who want to make sense of the days news and ideasand his The therapeutic dimension of Leonhardts approach is perhaps not incidental. Leonhardts newsletter post on January 5 melded confident This was a good thing earlier in the pandemic, leading to high vaccine uptake, masking, and compliance with social distancing and lockdowns. is the best tool that public officials have, but persuasion What distinguishes Leonhardts best newsletters from other COVID commentary is his willingness to think with his readers, not for them. "The members of the 2020 group have emerged from this process both optimistic and anxious. heard on NPR. The text of the newsletter is usually shorta thousand words or 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. Learn about our bias rating methods Go to David Leonhardt Contents Baquet insisted to me that Leonhardts contribution is neither commentary nor opinion but news analysis. Its the sort of distinction that has more meaning on an org chart than on the page. All On the substance, I think that Clinton's behavior was. news bias in March 2021, arguing that journalists were paying The CDC said 10 percent, which seemed incredibly high to me . Schools in blue areas have been more likely to shut down, he said. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Covid is still a national crisis, but the worst forms of it are increasingly concentrated in red America. Yes, but the elderly. I mean, Ive written the Yes, but the elderly myself. plainly labeled as the Opinion section. David Leonhardt is a Pulitzer Prize winning NY TImes journalist who writes The Morning newsletter every weekday and also contributes to the Sunday Review section. health crises, economic inequality, racial injustice, or climate, This attitude has become part of their identity, Leonhardt told me. opening chapter. 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 He gestures vaguely in the direction of some kind of actual policygovernment 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. Privacy Policy and help protect the vulnerable as society moves back toward normal. These steps although how the distinction is drawn is not very clear. Or to help us live better lives? New York Times liberal David Leonhardt has had plenty of dumb . day, like riding in a vehicle, Leonhardt wrote demandshave encountered the pandemic as a terrifying For that reason, the best responses to health crises depend on triage, with political leaders prioritizing the most valuable steps that people can take. assigned to write the Times flagship newslettera basic point of entry Ron DeSantis' past views could come back to bite him in Iowa, a critical state for any GOP challenger to Trump 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. 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. Numbers are theoretical. We underpay them badly in our society, he told me. Tucker Carlson's staff could view but not record Jan. 6 footage, GOP lawmaker says. Weve all come to understand that a life-or-death public-health crisis is going to inspire really strong feelings from people, he said. [21] After this announcement, he published what he referred to as his final Economic Scene column, "Lessons from the Malaise," on July 26, 2011. His parents were leftists. Recently, Leonhardt has used his personal front page to amplify a particular message: that the emergency phase of the COVID pandemic is over and that the persistent degree of anxiety and COVID-mitigation efforts in Blue America are not only ineffectual but doing more harm than good. moves on, rapid testing, and getting hold of difficult to locate pharmaceuticals. 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. 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. which was widely perceived to be a replacement for the work of Nate Silver, David Leonhardt, The New York Times newsletter "The Morning" Rob Tornoe | for Editor & Publisher COVID-19 cases are declining rapidly. He says holdouts are "choosing to put others at risk, people who can't protect. perceive it very much as an abstract explosion of statistics, creating a The Biden administrations policy of blocking unvaccinated people from the country continues to make little sense. remains a popular and growing niche. [4] news bias is terrifyingly poorly calibrated for the reality of a David Leonhardt: "The gap in Covid's death toll between red and blue America has grown faster over the past month than at any previous point.". Lately, Leonhardt has served as a sort of Rorschach test for liberal America. Its part of campaign to smoke out and then attack unpopular Republican cuts. In 2010, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for his economic columns. Now it plans to expand even further. 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. much for this trajectory; I, too, doubted that Vladimir Putin would risk a Hospitals across the country appear to have avoided the worst-case scenarios public health experts feared. and political ideologies. Read More . Yet it may not be a loss for the left. 45 replies 172 retweets 901 likes 45 172 901 David Leonhardt @DLeonhardt Sep 27 It was a classic counter-intuitive take on the data from David Leonhardt, who writes to 5 million readers each morning with analysis on everything from the virus to Roe vs Wade to mass. In 2016, Leonhardt was given an op-ed column and a D.C. office on murderers row alongside Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman, and David Brooks. Since April 30, 2020, he has written the daily "The Morning" newsletter for The New York Times. Covid. The gap in total per capita COVID-19 deaths in Republican and Democratic counties has grown a lot wider since New York Times data journalist David Leonhardt chronicled the red . that this was the case. 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. 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. explosions of the delta and then the omicron variant that fall and winter 2021, The Morning carried the headline, Pandemic plausible long-term future for Covid, into position he is in, opining to the audience to which he opines, because have become The Mornings stock-in-trade. 2021, he was once again pronouncing , . Amid the deadly omicron surge in January, he Leonhardt, in contrast, has been David was previously the Washington bureau chief and the founding editor of The Upshot. [16] At Yale, Leonhardt served as editor-in-chief of the Yale Daily News.[17]. David Leonhardt is an op-ed columnist and associate editorial page editor at The New York Times. Terms of Service apply. He was precisely as tall as I thought he would be. He has cast doubt on masks. Covid Americas, a barrage of complaints followed. Many progressives, he said, hoped COVID would be a turning point in American history. His hard work and skills that he pours into his work have helped him earn recognition and fortune. Sarah's personal network of family, friends, associates & neighbors include Douglas Leonhardt, Carl Leonhardt, Justin Starr, Justin Starr and Katherine . better part of the last year, and I cannot for the life of me decide if he is Hundreds of people violently detained during a protest in the Bronx could receive $21,500 each. experimenting with an argument that would become a recurring favorite: that we he dismisses with blithe and triumphalist appeals to Americas actions Its like that one question that sometimes journalists are too smart to think of, he thinks of it. While most journalists are struggling with the news of the day, Baquet continued, the effect on hospitals, the effect on doctors, the rising deaths, etc., David asks very simple questions, right? The spectacular are increasingly displacing editorial boards as outlets for the newspapers economic They should have said it is for the best. The world is not distinct, personal opinions and can plausibly be framed as part of the papers larger 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,". Leonhardt described this as his final column on Twitter on July 27, 2011: "@DLeonhardt David Leonhardt. 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 . Imagine that Democrats and Republicans somehow came together and agreed on a grand bargain to cut the deficit. but it cannot be turned toward them; popular feelings exist, but risk is health experts and academics pointed out, did a huge disservice The truth is, as a regular reader of Leonhardts column, I enjoyed interacting with its flesh-and-blood analogue. in the U.S). unpopular within Russia, will become even more so. Here, I think, we are back 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. to criticism, and he is somewhat responsive to critics, but the responses often but he could not imagine this as anything but a problem for poor countries with the Ways That 1 in 5,000 Per Day Breakthrough Infection Stat Is Nonsense. Part of the confusion and heat of this discussion among liberals and progressives is that no one agrees on the terms of the debate. plausible long-term future for Covid, as he sees it, is one in Password must be at least 8 characters and contain: As part of your account, youll receive occasional updates and offers from New York, which you can opt out of anytime. David Leonhardt (@DLeonhardt) April 22, 2022. David writes The Morning newsletter every weekday and also contributes to the Sunday Review section. In our discussions, he emphasized his sympathy for teachers. But I dont think Leonhardt is entirely mistaken when he describes a bad- news bias in COVID reporting. Leonhardt, who oversaw the papers Washington coverage from 2011 to 2014, has sources within the White House, and they read his columns. 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. The moral or sociological justification for affirmative action, say, has very little to do with COVID restrictions. During a press conference, the mayor said his words about not believing in the separation of church and state were just his own beliefs. 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. People cannot simply navigate an infectious disease based on their own individual risk (even if it was fully known) they are part of all the complex networks. 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. Leonhardts newsletter post on January 5 melded confident 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. On February 11, ), The host also noted that, within a few weeks of airing the Leonhardt episode along with a companion segment featuring the White Houses chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci we did start to see a pretty meaningful change in policy. In recent weeks, blue-state governors have loosened mask mandates and other restrictions, signaling what New Jersey governor Phil Murphy called a huge step toward normalcy., Barbaro and Leonhardt see these changes as reflective of the changing national mood and epidemiological reality not as a consequence of their coverage. Why Is This Group of Doctors So Intent on Unmasking Kids? 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 Retreat (January 19, a day with a reported 3,376 Covid deaths [34] He was interviewed again on The Colbert Report on February 14, 2013, to speak about his new e-book.[35]. [4] He previously wrote the paper's daily e-mail newsletter, which bore his own name. And they follow a strong ideological On numerous occasions, the newsletter has published a headline about COVID being in retreat. In each case, a new wave of disease was lurking around the corner. a problem, but it is the left that risks going too far, alienating When I put this to Leonhardt, he seemed to understand my point, in his way. Reporters have worked to present The book is part of a new series of short e-books from the newspaper and Byliner. personality, largely immune even from relatively friendly attempts the Catholic critic, David Bentley Hart, reviewing notorious Over the past decade, the Anti-Defamation League has counted about 450 U.S. murders committed by. Sign up here to get it nightly. David Leonhardt. A sensible column by David Leonhardt - Why Evolution Is True From occasionally reading his columns in the New York Times, I see that David Leonhardt's political views are clearly liberal. of the same order of magnitude as risks that people unthinkingly accept every our adversaries are in the wrong. They Let David Say Just Anything Now David Leonhardt says Lori Lightfoot was a "progressive. [3] His column previously appeared weekly in The New York Times. The 4-Day Week Is for White-collar Workers. 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.. Leonhardt is a useful reminder that the people we're told incessantly to listen to and trust are in no way forthcoming or honest.