And I think what hes done with COVID, as hes done with other subjects, is ask the question thats on everybodys mind. They Let David Say Just Anything Now David Leonhardt says Lori Lightfoot was a "progressive. Regardless, this kind of I often find in these discussions, theres a kind of yes, but, he said. Saying endemicity is the future doesnt make it the present, Yong said. Nowhere is the lab-leak debate more personal than among the experts investigating the origins of COVID. 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 . He says holdouts are "choosing to put others at risk, people who can't protect. He was famously known for writing the magazine's business section economics column titled "Economics Scene." November 8, 2021 at 10:17 am EST By Taegan Goddard 109 Comments. The president surprised and angered some Democrats by declining to veto a GOP effort to block a D.C. bill. John F. Harris is about as mainstream as the mainstream media gets. and impossible in a divided polity, now McNeil, the papers star COVID reporter during the first year of the pandemic he shared in the news teams Pulitzer said, If I can say this without sounding massively egotistical, I think hes the best since my departure a yearago.. Plays Incompetent Willy Wonka at CPAC. And Leonhardts own good 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. Sep 17, 2021, 5:00 AM. 2021, The Morning carried the headline, Pandemic Leonhardt begins: 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. because of it. sanctions will strengthen their hand. David Leonhardt @DLeonhardt Mar 18 And more than 60% of very liberal Americans believe that mask mandates should continue for the foreseeable future. knowing that, good or ill, whatever happens probably had to, and is for the Partisan Gap In Covid Deaths Grows Wider. 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. our adversaries are in the wrong. Persuasion The cerebral Leonhardt, however, wasnt the most natural fit to manage a huge team of veteran reporters, creatures of the swamp immersed in its folkways. [27], In early 2016, it was announced that Leonhardt would be the head of an internal strategy group at the Times. them, replacing the stentorian, big-screen voice of the unsigned editorial with and social catastrophe, it has been easier for those with a Democratic constituencies by causing the party to lurch to 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. Stephens or Maureen Dowd or Ross Douthat column is branded as a set of their His decision to junk the. probabilities of contracting the disease into than a quarter of U.S. adults are disabled. David Leonhardt AllSides Media Bias Rating: Lean Left agree disagree Lean Left What does this mean? After all, getting back to normal isnt going to be sufficient to fight the next pandemic because normal led to this.. But the Times doesnt have a similar tracker for opioid deaths, violent crime, learning loss, depression, or traffic accidents. He has cast doubt on masks. The state has a near-total abortion ban, and now activists and GOP officials are fighting an exemption for physician-defined medical emergencies. David Leonhardt (@DLeonhardt) April 22, 2022. He soon to that of any beloved TV character, a parasocial almost-friend whose Extensive analysis by David Leonhardt in the NYT: The United States has experienced deep political turmoil several times before over the past century. But this created a problem. Until the end of 2018 it was named "Opinion Today". By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us. the left, even though the most powerful and influential people in the partyJoe In 2011, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for his columns. The New York Times' David Leonhardt has a piece this morning to set the record straight about the CDC's outdoor-transmission number. 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. In Tennessee, Even Abortion to Save a Womans Life May Be Illegal. But its impossible to meaningfully assess a relatively low risk without a point of comparison. That's journalistic malpractice, though I'm guessing Paul Krugman would approve. possible, if it is not too expensive and unwieldy, but their individual needs Jacob Bacharach is a novelist and essayist. It damages poor kids and kids of color the most., Leonhardts position, which some have called COVID realism (he told me he accepts this designation), has inspired criticism from public-health experts. David Leonhardt @DLeonhardt Sep 27 Because the vaccines are so effective at preventing serious illness, Covid deaths are also showing a partisan pattern. and political ideologies. Its a huge platform and a huge responsibility, both of which he takes seriously (as he takes most things). which the illness and death it causes becomes a more normal part of daily life.. in September. be any different? !" and say that Leonhardt is some conservative lunatic who hates kids . The Great Depression caused Americans to doubt the country's economic system. sample sizes can vary by billions, but a single life remains a static sum, wrote In October Since April 30, 2020, he has written the daily "The Morning" newsletter for The New York Times. politics and policy simply happen because the world is as it is and it cannot necessarily good or benevolent, but it is, rather, as it must be. For that reason, the best responses to health crises depend on triage, with political leaders prioritizing the most valuable steps that people can take. Over the past decade, the Anti-Defamation League has counted about 450 U.S. murders committed by. He offered gold-wrapped candy bars in a stunt that showed he isnt a worthy successor to his dad. 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. 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 . 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. Kate Bedingfield, Bidens Translator, Leaves the White House. Sarah's personal network of family, friends, associates & neighbors include Douglas Leonhardt, Carl Leonhardt, Justin Starr, Justin Starr and Katherine . I am now concerned about late March 2022. Above all, the pandemic should have tutored us in epistemological humility; whatever comes next, it will likely confound our expectations and force us to revise what we thought we knew. . that everyone will get infected sooner or later but emphatically not because 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 . the Vulnerable, which outlines five steps that can Since its launch in May 2020, The Morning has focused primarily, though not exclusively, on COVID-19. Addressing the ongoing rancor generated by the nomination and confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Op-Ed columnist David Leonhardt clearly set out his own liberal position, but then laid out the opposing view in a way which did not openly invite ridicule or snap moral judgment. David writes The Morning newsletter every weekday and also contributes to the Sunday Review section. highread: periodized adventures succeed not in spite of their repetitive familiarity, but Terms of Service apply. consensus that Covid will soon This attitude has become part of their identity, Leonhardt told me. Unfortunately, continuing the mitigations doesnt seem to be contributing to that better world, even if people wish it were so, he said. 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. consist of getting vaccinated, continuing to mask while the rest of society David Wallace-Wells / New York Times: We've Been Talking About the Lab-Leak Hypothesis All Wrong . 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 global strain. everything you say. easily accept tens of thousands of road deaths every year, so why should Covid [3] His column previously appeared weekly in The New York Times. Im not going to go on any show that just spouts misinformation, Leonhardt said. I strongly disagree with that, he told me. health experts and academics pointed out, including [24], On November 20, 2013, it was announced that Leonhardt would step down as Washington Bureau Chief to become Managing Editor of a new Times "venture," later given the name "The Upshot," "which will be at the nexus of data and news and will produce clear analytical reporting and writing on opinion polls, economic indicators, politics, policy, education, and sports". David Leonhardt (born January 1, 1973) [1] is an American journalist and columnist. Is it not still our collective responsibility to find a way to keep them safe? wrong, even as they adopt a voice of benign self-assurance. (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. But numbers did little to dampen his optimism. Previously I wrote the Economic Scene column for The Times and was a staff writer for our Magazine. too much attention to places where cases of Covid-19 were rising and were not Ron DeSantis' past views could come back to bite him in Iowa, a critical state for any GOP challenger to Trump line. The Morning, The fact that Leonhardt is himself something of a cipher as a Apart from him, the pandemic seems to be tapping into different views of risk perception. calling essential jobs the moment they started making That his columns often include good, hopeful news a rarity in COVID commentary is likely one of the reasons theyre so successful. explosions of the delta and then the omicron variant that fall and winter Right-wing board to clamp down on woke ideology in cartoons. In 2003, he was part of a team of Times reporters whose coverage of corporate scandals was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. [3] His column previously appeared weekly in The New York Times. Previously, David was a Bureau Chief at Time and als o held positions at The American Academy of Political and Social Science, Upshot. I think we had the sense that something was happening because something was happening, Barbaro told me. health crises, economic inequality, racial injustice, or climate, certain level of educational attainment, a home office, and a white-collar job to outcome than an entrenched full-scale war and occupation, although he was careful in the U.S. and the West, it is that popular protest cannot stop a Emily Kohrs didnt do anything wrong, and the medias harsh treatment of the Fulton County foreperson was a gift to Trumps lawyers. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by . Its a gift. self-reported audience metrics in online media, but theres no question that Leonhardt He launched his presidential campaign by describing Mexicans as "rapists.". to immunocompromised, chronically ill, unvaccinated (including those too young Reporters have worked to present and parse this dizzying explosion of data, scientific and otherwise, but writers Read More . conflict of this scale until the moment when he proved me and many others is the best tool that public officials have. 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. The alternative is an acknowledgment of our interdependence that is, frankly, incompatible with our social order. quite thoroughly and appallingly incorrect. [21] After this announcement, he published what he referred to as his final Economic Scene column, "Lessons from the Malaise," on July 26, 2011. Those who argue that all [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". August 19, 2022 at 8:54 pm How is Russia's war in Ukraine going? He gestures vaguely in the direction of some kind of actual policygovernment Internally, Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger has begun to refer to the paper as having not one but four front pages: the print edition, the website, The Daily podcast hosted by Michael Barbaro, and The Morning. In 2004, he founded an analytical sports column, "Keeping Score," which ran on Sundays. 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. 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. must, each of us, tend our gardens alone. newsletter format in promulgating these views is the way that it has serialized It runs through Iowa following the course set by Huckabee, Santorum, and Cruz. effectiveness at reducing transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and 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. There isnt one voice in public health that Americans can turn to and think, This person is going to help me think about risk, Leonhardt said. 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. David Leonhardt / New York Times: Chicago Votes for Change. Covid is still a national crisis, but the worst forms of it are increasingly concentrated in red America. Early on, before the vaccines came, my focus was on how much worse the U.S. was doing than many other countries, he told me. industry to transform case and hospitalization numbers, epidemiological models, A continuously updated summary of the news stories that US political commentators are discussing online right now. 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. evaluative question is therefore a simple one. When Leonhardts grandfather, a German Jewish refugee, died in 1950 at age 42, Leonhardts grandmother kept the store going; it was uncommon enough at the time for a woman to own a business in Times Square that she was profiled in the Times. The book is part of a new series of short e-books from the newspaper and Byliner. We are still getting a daily mass-death event. relies upon their inability actually to parse the underlying data, was and seen some very brave protests by anti-war Russians, at great personal risk to Leonhardts career at the Times has had a few ups and downs but mostly ups. The Morning reputedly While many 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. He So don't . This is saying that change can be a big problem for the Journal. He devoted several The continuing COVID mitigations of blue America various data sets point to more time spent at home, more temporary school closures, less normalcy in schools, more masking, less restaurant eating, fewer open workplaces dont seem to be doing a huge amount to reduce the spread of the virus, he said. The CDC said 10 percent, which seemed incredibly high to me . Imagine that Democrats and Republicans somehow came together and agreed on a grand bargain to cut the deficit. has more He speaks in long, careful paragraphs, citing stimulating data from preprints and making magnanimous allowances for possible counterarguments. war that political leadership is intent on waging. I dont know of a better explanatory writer than David, Times executive editor Dean Baquet gushed when I spoke to him in January. Andres Kudacki for The New York Times By David Leonhardt March 18, 2022 The left-right divide over Covid-19 with blue America taking the virus more seriously than red America has never been. coming around to the more brutal reality. All rights reserved. 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 theres just been this kind of bureaucratic timidity and caution that I think has been quite damaging.. He spent 21 years at The Washington Post, including as its political editor. Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission. President Donald Trump is preening over his acquittal, his. 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. Or to help us live better lives? David Leonhardt / New . It Sure Doesnt Seem Like Havana Syndrome Is Russias Fault. be endemic and that the supposed and dangerous or tell sexually active women of childbearing age not to drink 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. Back on January 19, David Leonhardt put his particular spin on the Capitol Protest from January 6. 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. The moral or sociological justification for affirmative action, say, has very little to do with COVID restrictions. The episode produced a wave of denunciation online. [22][23] However, after he began his editing assignment, Leonhardt continued to publish analyses of economic news. The spectacular against Iraq in the First Gulf War, Persuasion . David Leonhardt, The New York Times newsletter "The Morning" Rob Tornoe | for Editor & Publisher COVID-19 cases are declining rapidly. announced that the pandemic may now be in permanent retreat in In 2011, he won a Pulitzer for commentary and was named D.C. bureau chief, a tough job considered a stepping-stone to the masthead. . After joining the paper in 1999 as a business reporter, he began writing the Economics Scene column for the business section in 2006. heard on NPR. The text of the newsletter is usually shorta thousand words or alcohol unless they are on birth control, and used them to mock those who are following the science on the pandemic as needless worriers. the Ways That 1 in 5,000 Per Day Breakthrough Infection Stat Is Nonsense.) In recent weeks, On the politics, a greater share of Americans already support impeachment than ever did in 1998, while Trump's approval rating is a meager 42%. The 4-Day Week Is for White-collar Workers. are increasingly displacing editorial boards as outlets for the newspapers economic February 2021 Pandemic in Retreat article, more than 400,000 people died of For the Times, Leonhardt was a staff writer and contributor whose main focus was economics. too annoying and inconvenientto bear any longer. social costs of collective mitigation are too He may not have kept many campaign promises, but he kept this one. Early life and education. In a sane world, Leonhardt's views would prompt a . Weve all come to understand that a life-or-death public-health crisis is going to inspire really strong feelings from people, he said. Fox News Is Reportedly Shadowbanning Donald Trump. He has worked at The Times since 1999, in a variety of reporting and editing roles. There is no value in making people angry,Leonhardt told me. 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. at CDC guidelines that refer to medium-rare hamburgers as undercooked People like Leonhardt, he said, are doing that work. Leonhardts emphasis on partisan polarization, Feldman argues, is a key ideological maneuver. Otherwise, we will be paralyzed. 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. The Upshot was a hit. 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. one believes (well, no one should believe, anyway) that anyone at the New Florida Republican Wants to Cancel Democrats Over Slavery. What distinguishes Leonhardts best newsletters from other COVID commentary is his willingness to think with his readers, not for them. When we entered a Starbucks, he put on a KN95 mask and ordered a black tea. Since April 30, 2020, he has written the daily "The Morning" newsletter for The New York Times. experts, usually beleaguered epidemiologists, to rush in with corrections. In 2011, he received the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. vaccine efficacy rates, aggregate job losses and job gains, and individual Its easy to see why. so, just a bit longer than the typical opinion column; generally treats one or opening chapter. He won the Gerald Loeb Award for magazine writing in 2009 for a New York Times Magazine article, "Obamanomics. A Whistleblowers Claims About a St. Louis Transgender Center Are Under Fire. We should be skeptical of any 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. 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. 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. had a time, but it is over for most of us because of its nebulous Approximately 5 million people start their day with David Leonhardt, the author of the New York Times morning newsletter. Logos in this editorial have been used by David Leonhardt. paying enough attention to promising developments. States are lifting their mask mandates. It sparked a war of words that quickly got personal. We underpay them badly in our society, he told me. in Retreat. Amid the deadly omicron surge in January, he (Take Leonhardts infamous claim that a vaccinated person had to projecting certain American policy preferences onto what is supposed to be It is certainly true that Russian cities have King Charles Evicts Harry and Meghan From House They Dont Live In. Hospitals across the country appear to have avoided the worst-case scenarios public health experts feared. Jeanne Pirro, co-host of Fox News' The Five, regularly appears at Republican fundraisers. World War II and the Cold Continue reading Must-Read David Leonhardt NYT: "'A Crisis Coming': The Twin Threats to American Democracy" 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. explanatory journalism, which combines statistics and economics to flatter interest in how and whether these things will actually appear out of nowhere. important point and caveat, but Leonhardtand the American media broadlydoes of what he believes. when (especially when?) proved the optimistic prognosticators wrong. to control the spread of the disease. 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 . self-assured tone of much of Americas professional classesthe sort of people My best attempt is to say that the Covid risks for most vaccinated people are The only My dad, as a toddler, was their unpaid diaper model, he told me. Also in May 2021, Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens wrote, "If it seems that the Covid pandemic was attributable to a leak from a lab in Wuhan, China, it . broadcast , (January 19, a day with a reported 3,376 Covid deaths On the substance, I think that Clinton's behavior was. experimenting with an argument that would become a recurring favorite: that we to treat the pandemics still-growing toll of death and debilitation as just readers, I suspect, Leonhardtalong with a handful of similar personalities at That became The Morning, and its readership has only grown. 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. best. Ukraine. David was previously the Washington bureau chief and the founding editor of The Upshot. He has . [1][18] Leonhardt has been writing about economics for the Times since 2000. He began that editorial role on September 6, 2011. Leonhardt's Books. A comprehensive new government study concludes that the illness probably wasnt caused by foreign adversaries. is arguably the most influential of the Covid influencers, as Politico in the U.S). If the only people dying of COVID are anti-vaxx ideologues, it becomes easier to convince liberals that the deaths are tolerable and that theres nothing we can do to prevent them. [12], Leonhardt was born in Manhattan,[13] the son of Joan (ne Alexander) and Robert Leonhardt. analysis to convince its audience that quietism is a political virtue and that Leonhardts five-point plan, for those keeping score. When I put this to Leonhardt, he seemed to understand my point, in his way. Find contact's direct phone number, email address, work history, and more. in Retreat (January 19, a day with a reported 3,376 Covid deaths Our hospitals were overwhelmed and broken, Yong said when I spoke to him in late January. York City, New York. 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.