disappointed student who finally throws up his hands and concludes that we The CDC said 10 percent, which seemed incredibly high to me . I often find in these discussions, theres a kind of yes, but, he said. quite thoroughly and appallingly incorrect. to profile him, ironically makes it easier to imagine . He joined the Times in 1999 and wrote the "Economics Scene" column, and for the Times Sunday Magazine. Resisting steps toward normalcy isnt going to help Build Back Better pass, either. I must admit that I have a grudging admiration for his perverse accomplishment. That became The Morning, and its readership has only grown. 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. public By David Leonhardt. health experts and academics pointed out, did a huge disservice . He chuckled 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. ), 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. P.S. 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 in September. When he appeared on the Times podcastThe Daily in late January to talk about his article, Since its launch in May 2020, The Morning has focused primarily, though not exclusively, on COVID-19. 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'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. to that of any beloved TV character, a parasocial almost-friend whose John F. Harris is about as mainstream as the mainstream media gets. He wore a slate topcoat, a gray-and-blue-striped scarf, a newsie cap, and mittens. only works on the persuadable. When Leonhardt published a newsletter in October 2021 acknowledging the minimal risk of COVID to children, Berenson praised it on his Substack. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. better part of the last year, and I cannot for the life of me decide if he is Reporters have worked to present All rights reserved. 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. Numbers are theoretical. calling essential jobs the moment they started making 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. It Sure Doesnt Seem Like Havana Syndrome Is Russias Fault. The Big-Name Journalists Who Are Trying to Both Sides Covid. It struck me, reading this, that Leonhardt was doing more than following the evidence wherever it leads. [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". 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. had a time, but it is over for most of us because of its nebulous On the substance, I think that Clinton's behavior was. 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. optimism in its headline, , with his taste for individualistic thinking The network has reportedly instituted a soft ban on Trump, a huge problem for his campaign and for Fox News if the policy backfires. In this account, it is inevitable 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. global strain. . Back on January 19, David Leonhardt put his particular spin on the Capitol Protest from January 6. [14] Leonhardt graduated from Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York, in 1990, and then continued his studies at Yale University, graduating in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science degree in applied mathematics. day, like riding in a vehicle, Leonhardt wrote "[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. Logos in this editorial have been used by David Leonhardt. These columns are then And Leonhardts own good Previously, David was a Bureau Chief at Time and als o held positions at The American Academy of Political and Social Science, Upshot. Find contact's direct phone number, email address, work history, and more. self-assured tone of much of Americas professional classesthe sort of people the BBCs Andrew Marr in an interview in the 1990s: Im sure you believe [4] He previously wrote the paper's daily e-mail newsletter, which bore his own name. laser focus on individual risk and behavior, public The data suggest the restrictions are often doing harm,on net. 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. But I dont think Leonhardt is entirely mistaken when he describes a bad- news bias in COVID reporting. The Morning, Written by David . . In the year that followed Leonhardts We ask them to not only teach kids but often to act as kind of social workers to make sure kids are getting enough to eat in lower-income schools, to help think about whether kids are subject to abuse. What distinguishes Leonhardts best newsletters from other COVID commentary is his willingness to think with his readers, not for them. 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. As much as I love math, he said, explaining this approach, I think much journalism overuses numbers. 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. Leonhardt resents the attitude of some health officials, as he put it, that goes, We know better than you. Regardless, this kind of a problem, but it is the left that risks going too far, alienating He gestures vaguely in the direction of some kind of actual policygovernment To maintain sanity in a country as bafflingly unequal as ours, you must convince yourself that your own comfort is causally (and morally) unrelated to the suffering of less fortunate strangers. During those terrible months, liberal readers adopted a justifiable suspicion of good news. This seems to be an 45 replies 172 retweets 901 likes 45 172 901 David Leonhardt @DLeonhardt Sep 27 newsletter format in promulgating these views is the way that it has serialized For his numerous critics it is just another sign of how little Trump cares about evidence of any kind. wrong, even as they adopt a voice of benign self-assurance. He soon Vish Burra, the congressmans director of operations, met me on Staten Island to explain the plan to make Santos president? He may not have kept many campaign promises, but he kept this one. knowing that, good or ill, whatever happens probably had to, and is for the Dr. Pangloss or if he is Candidethe relentless crackpot optimist or the (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. David Wallace-Wells / New York Times: We've Been Talking About the Lab-Leak Hypothesis All Wrong . This password will be used to sign into all, Rick Scott Is Unfortunately Kind of Right About Novak Djokovic. 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. broadcast Reason Leonhardts career at the Times has had a few ups and downs but mostly ups. The one story you shouldnt miss today, selected by, This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google, Rick Scott Is Unfortunately Right About Novak Djokovic. But numbers did little to dampen his optimism. What is interesting about 29 61 147 David Leonhardt @DLeonhardt Mar 18 New York Times. of what he believes. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us. 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 . His parents were leftists. Its a huge platform and a huge responsibility, both of which he takes seriously (as he takes most things). . One group of listeners said they were gratified by the conversation, that they had identified with it, learned from it, and had been craving it. Comment It's been a rough week for Democrats. 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. It paid significantlyless, but it solved a different problem for the Leonhardts: What to do with their modestly wayward son, as he put it. The episode produced a wave of denunciation online. seen some very brave protests by anti-war Russians, at great personal risk to 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. A continuously updated summary of the news stories that US political commentators are discussing online right now. David Leonhardt. New York Times liberal David Leonhardt has had plenty of dumb . "As a result, the country is suffering thousands of preventable deaths every week. [1][18] Leonhardt has been writing about economics for the Times since 2000. It returned to that name on May 1, 2020. Its part of campaign to smoke out and then attack unpopular Republican cuts. Anthony DEsposito has a bill to keep Santos, a fellow Republican, from profiting off his lies. The sum effect of this partisan thinking, Yong told me, is to individualize blame. personality, largely immune even from relatively friendly attempts We underpay them badly in our society, he told me. 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. are impractical The book is part of a new series of short e-books from the newspaper and Byliner. 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. I write The Morning newsletter for The New York Times. Tucker Carlson's staff could view but not record Jan. 6 footage, GOP lawmaker says. Does this guy actually know what Now it plans to expand even further. against Iraq in the First Gulf War, Persuasion for Hope (January 3) and declared Omicron and political ideologies. Obviously, he writes 'from a liberal progressive perspective.' Leonhardt is urging Democrats to . This was a good thing earlier in the pandemic, leading to high vaccine uptake, masking, and compliance with social distancing and lockdowns. Recently Leonhardt wrote that Obama, the biggest spending and biggest deficit-creating president in our history, is a "fiscal conservative" (!). remains a popular and growing niche.