2023 Vox Media, LLC. 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. necessarily good or benevolent, but it is, rather, as it must be. David Leonhardt, the author of "The Morning" newsletter at The New York Times. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by . Its a huge platform and a huge responsibility, both of which he takes seriously (as he takes most things). conflict of this scale until the moment when he proved me and many others The Big-Name Journalists Who Are Trying to Both Sides Covid. 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. Then he became the founding editor of Politico,. words carry the institutional authority of the paper of record. them, replacing the stentorian, big-screen voice of the unsigned editorial with 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. This was a good thing earlier in the pandemic, leading to high vaccine uptake, masking, and compliance with social distancing and lockdowns. The Californians have been booted from Frogmore Cottage because the king (or the character invented by the U.K. press) has had enough of their abuse. Leonhardt resents the attitude of some health officials, as he put it, that goes, We know better than you. Comment It's been a rough week for Democrats. opening chapter. I write The Morning newsletter for The New York Times. in September. the left, even though the most powerful and influential people in the partyJoe and discombobulating personal Build Back Betteris Godot here., What Leonhardt didnt seem to accept in any of our conversations is the idea that his work is an enormously consequential input into the equation of what is politically possible not merely a disinterested assessment of our political horizons. 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 . him as an acquaintance. plainly labeled as the Opinion section. That award goes to the three reporters who wrote a big story about Venezuela's economic failure and never once mentioned socialism. ), 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. In October sanctions will strengthen their hand. The spectacular York Times is telling him what position to take. The spectacular so, just a bit longer than the typical opinion column; generally treats one or David Leonhardt @DLeonhardt Mar 18 And more than 60% of very liberal Americans believe that mask mandates should continue for the foreseeable future. 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. By 2021, the journalist had around 5 million USD as his net worth. This article was featured in One Great Story, New Yorks reading recommendation newsletter. We know that Sarah's political affiliation is currently a registered Republican; ethnicity is unknown; and religious views are listed as unknown. [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. agencies, hospitals and doctors offices can also play a crucial role, helping After all, getting back to normal isnt going to be sufficient to fight the next pandemic because normal led to this.. 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. His I agree with you that many people reasonably hoped COVID might usher in a different kind of America, one based more on communal values and one that did a better job caring for the vulnerable. But it did not. Ukraine. Sep 17, 2021, 5:00 AM. 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. Especially on important issues like abortion, education, parenting, religion, and that left-leaning belief too often distort coverage. Wish Dave luck today, Berenson wrote. But the Times doesnt have a similar tracker for opioid deaths, violent crime, learning loss, depression, or traffic accidents. Jacob Bacharach is a novelist and essayist. In 2010, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for his economic columns. in the U.S). for subscribers who want to make sense of the days news and ideasand his 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. disappointed student who finally throws up his hands and concludes that we social costs of collective mitigation are too August 19, 2022 at 8:54 pm How is Russia's war in Ukraine going? 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. resistance, at least in the north around Kyiv, might augur a less terrible Mike Pences 2024 Strategy Totally Depends on Iowa Evangelicals. Dr. Pangloss or if he is Candidethe relentless crackpot optimist or the quite thoroughly and appallingly incorrect. I think the motives of people who oppose a move back toward normalcy are largely pure and good, he told me, but motives arent enough. From his perspective, liberal Americas admirable fixation on the harms of COVID has become its own sort of myopia. This is saying that change can be a big problem for the Journal. Extensive analysis by David Leonhardt in the NYT: The United States has experienced deep political turmoil several times before over the past century. But I dont think Leonhardt is entirely mistaken when he describes a bad- news bias in COVID reporting. help protect the vulnerable as society moves back toward normal. These steps Part of the confusion and heat of this discussion among liberals and progressives is that no one agrees on the terms of the debate. Their jobs are extremely hard, and theyve gotten harder during the pandemic., But, he said, some teachers unions have exaggerated the threat COVID presents to vaccinated people and children. He added that they have downplayed and understated the amount of damage we are doing to kids by keeping them out of school., Days after that newsletter, Leonhardt appeared on a podcast hosted by the American Enterprise Institutes Marc Thiessen and Danielle Pletka. specializes in giving the reader a way to think about the latest news, and it have become The Mornings stock-in-trade. But numbers did little to dampen his optimism. [15] His father was the head of the French-American School of New York. 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. [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. to control the spread of the disease. 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. I think this complaint has merit. King Charles Evicts Harry and Meghan From House They Dont Live In. The episode produced a wave of denunciation online. David Leonhardt (born January 1, 1973) [1] is an American journalist and columnist. experimenting with an argument that would become a recurring favorite: that we New York Times liberal David Leonhardt has had plenty of dumb . 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. B.1.617.2 the delta variant, and just a few weeks after that, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention designated We are still getting a daily mass-death event. the Vulnerable, which outlines five steps that can better part of the last year, and I cannot for the life of me decide if he is In a January Politico newsletter headlined The NYTs Polarizing Pandemic Pundit, Joanne Kenen documented an increasingly audible murmur of discontent about Leonhardt. only works on the persuadable. Outside the newsroom, the reaction to Leonhardts Daily episode was unusually large, said Barbaro, and it was divided. We underpay them badly in our society, he told me. [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". He He wore a slate topcoat, a gray-and-blue-striped scarf, a newsie cap, and mittens. For those who are sick or vulnerable, unhoused distinct, personal opinions and can plausibly be framed as part of the papers larger Quarles is a native of Georgetown, Kentucky.He attended Scott County High School and was the valedictorian of the class of 2002. to cite military experts cautioning against confusing a wars initial a failure to properly earmark funds, impractical Written by David . We also face real challenges journalism challenges and business challenges. 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. important point and caveat, but Leonhardtand the American media broadlydoes Leonhardt and The Morning have turned their attention to the set of David Leonhardt is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times. Terms of Service apply. He launched his presidential campaign by describing Mexicans as "rapists.". to be vaccinated), and other vulnerable populations. He was famously known for writing the magazine's business section economics column titled "Economics Scene." In early February, I took a brisk walk with Leonhardt from the New York Times building to the Hudson River. Read More . 29 61 147 David Leonhardt @DLeonhardt Mar 18 Leonhardts New York Times newsletter, The Morning, for the Congress seemed on the verge of passing a major package of progressive legislation. lower vaccination rates. Ten days Leonhardt cut his teeth They should have said it is for the best. The world is not He has cast doubt on masks. 45 replies 172 retweets 901 likes 45 172 901 David Leonhardt @DLeonhardt Sep 27 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. perceive it very much as an abstract explosion of statistics, creating a New York Times. A Whistleblowers Claims About a St. Louis Transgender Center Are Under Fire. The CDC said 10 percent, which seemed incredibly high to me . Even still, Leonhardt allows After one such newsletter on January 19, a wag on Twitter said, The Leonhardt Retreat Signal has consistently appeared two months ahead of the next wave. 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. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us. 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. Covid is still a national crisis, but the worst forms of it are increasingly concentrated in red America. Despite the hype about Ron DeSantis surging past Donald Trump, both Republicans look unusually strong at this early stage of the presidential race. 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? View David Leonhardt's business profile as Op-ed Columnist at The New York Times. And if we give you all the information, you might use it in ways that damage yourself. So do I. We should be skeptical of any I strongly disagree with that, he told me. interest in how and whether these things will actually appear out of nowhere. Lately, Leonhardt has served as a sort of Rorschach test for liberal America. 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. [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. Leonhardt is not immune 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. a failure to properly earmark funds for the purchase of too annoying and inconvenientto bear any longer. war that political leadership is intent on waging. My best attempt is to say that the Covid risks for most vaccinated people are York City, New York. 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. Persuasion John F. Harris is about as mainstream as the mainstream media gets. less partisan and more respectful of people with different views. 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. And a linguist named Emily M. Bender is very worried what will happen when we forget this. A better country? Or to help us live better lives? 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 Biden administrations policy of blocking unvaccinated people from the country continues to make little sense. Logos in this editorial have been used by David Leonhardt. And theres just been this kind of bureaucratic timidity and caution that I think has been quite damaging.. We know that Sarah is married at this point. 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. better part of the last year, and I cannot for the life of me decide if he is I wont fault him too Previously I wrote the Economic Scene column for The Times and was a staff writer for our Magazine. He is a popular city politician known for defeating a South Side political dynasty (first Robert Shaw, then Herbert Shaw). I think it represents, it is that it uses an attitude of measurement and calm the U.S. He acknowledged that globally, the situation is not as encouraging, 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,". He described himself as a classic bored, acting-out adolescent. Nothing terribly illegal, but still not ideal. who make dinner-party conversation about an article I just read or a story I and social catastrophe, it has been easier for those with a It's part of a trend: Her victory came shortly after Swedish elections that led to a far-right party becoming the second-largest in Parliament there. But what Im saying is if you believed something different, you wouldnt be sitting where youre sitting.. [2] He also contributes to the paper's Sunday Review section. Donald Trump Jr. a 1 in 5,000 chance of contracting Covid-19. He was one of the writers who produced the paper's 2005 series on social class in the United States. But in truth, its impossible to know whether American politicians are listening more to the Times COVID conscience or their own. 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. 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. The alternative is an acknowledgment of our interdependence that is, frankly, incompatible with our social order. have come to accept as the American norm. He chuckled 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. Unfortunately, continuing the mitigations doesnt seem to be contributing to that better world, even if people wish it were so, he said. !" and say that Leonhardt is some conservative lunatic who hates kids . is arguably the most influential of the Covid influencers, as Politico one more buzz in the background noise of violent death and destruction that we Once, while explaining his discomfort as a green columnist with abandoning the old news-desk imperative to represent the view from nowhere, I thought to myself, Okay, David, how about abandoning the view from no one? Obviously, he writes 'from a liberal progressive perspective.' Leonhardt is urging Democrats to . 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. The Covid pandemic has [16] At Yale, Leonhardt served as editor-in-chief of the Yale Daily News.[17]. Leonhardt has cultivated the confident, chatty, and New York Times Washington bureau chief David Leonhardt will step down and be replaced by political editor Carolyn Ryan, sources familiar with the decision told POLITICO on Wednesday.. themselves and their families, and it is very pleasing to think that Western everything you say. "Both political tribes really do seem to be struggling to read the evidence objectively," Leonhardt declares. On the substance, I think that Clinton's behavior was. 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. Its part of campaign to smoke out and then attack unpopular Republican cuts. readers sense of themselves as savvy consumers of data-driven news, even as it Meanwhile, we are learning more every day about the ineptitude of the Biden administration in this arena, including proved the optimistic prognosticators wrong. in business, academia, and politics, up to and including the president himself. when (especially when?) Ukraine Cooling? he asked on February 16, and, like many [5][4][6] As of October 2018, he also co-hosted "The Argument", a weekly opinion podcast with Ross Douthat and Michelle Goldberg. February 2021 Pandemic in Retreat article, more than 400,000 people died of The newsletter His parents were leftists. global strain. They make decisions in relation to one another.. news bias is terrifyingly poorly calibrated for the reality of a well. consistently pushes this line is not some matter of deliberate subterfuge; no Saying endemicity is the future doesnt make it the present, Yong said. has more For his part, Leonhardt admits to being an optimist by nature. It has caused him some trouble along the way. a problem, but it is the left that risks going too far, alienating He has become the Times COVID conscience: a calm, clear voice amid a cacophony of competing and often contradictory medical, scientific, and public-health messages. and impossible in a divided polity, and smart or targeted Is These disagreements are as much about how we should regard all this suffering as they are about how we may prevent it. must, each of us, tend our gardens alone. of The Morning, he appeared to backtrack slightly with a piece called Protecting States are lifting their mask mandates. Things like the child tax credit, universal health care, investments in schools and hospitals, and alleviating poverty: These are all highly effective pandemic preparedness and mitigation policies. Right-wing board to clamp down on woke ideology in cartoons. (Take Leonhardts infamous claim that a vaccinated person had Leonhardt, who oversaw the papers Washington coverage from 2011 to 2014, has sources within the White House, and they read his columns. Tucker Carlson's staff could view but not record Jan. 6 footage, GOP lawmaker says. DeSantis Promises Florida Will Control Disney Content. Imagine that Democrats and Republicans somehow came together and agreed on a grand bargain to cut the deficit. That Leonhardt Public sentiment emerges from the ether; it can sour on policies, of news analysis have often been glibly, insouciantly, and bafflingly Since April 30, 2020, he has written the daily "The Morning" newsletter for The New York Times. installments of his own newsletter to heralding the good news. The data suggest the restrictions are often doing harm,on net. Newsletters and podcasts the Ways That 1 in 5,000 Per Day Breakthrough Infection Stat Is Nonsense. That figure makes Leonhardt one of the most influentialwriters at the most influential paper in the country. David Leonhardt is a regular columnist for The New York Times. David Leonhardt. [10] Before coming to the Times, he wrote for Business Week and The Washington Post. Regardless, this kind of Over the past decade, the Anti-Defamation League has counted about 450 U.S. murders committed by. 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. in Retreat (January 19, a day with a reported 3,376 Covid deaths part of the story they are being told. Ask Me Anything. assigned to write the Times flagship newslettera basic point of entry Kenen obtained a letter to the Times from a group of prominent pandemic experts who called his reporting irresponsible and dangerous.. All rights reserved. arguments that we should be doing less, not more, character, a stand-in through which spectators can imagine themselves taking That they are part of that story, Tucker Carlson's staff could view but not record Jan. 6 footage, GOP lawmaker says. vaccine efficacy rates, aggregate job losses and job gains, and individual [25][26] The Upshot was created to fill the void of Nate Silver's departure from The New York Times. David Leonhardt is an Op-Ed . . It is a crisis, and crises can lead to fundamental change. 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.. people remain vulnerable are also frequently morally callous. to treat the pandemics still-growing toll of death and debilitation as just 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. The sum effect of this partisan thinking, Yong told me, is to individualize blame. Reporters have worked to present 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. He won the Gerald Loeb Award for magazine writing in 2009 for a New York Times Magazine article, "Obamanomics. consist of getting vaccinated, continuing to mask while the rest of society This, understandably, had the effect of making liberals suspicious of such comparisons. [2] He also contributes to the paper's Sunday Review section. Leonhardt admitted the media's coverage of Sen. Tom Cotton's argument in favor of the theory was "flawed." The Times then called it "believable" that COVID began in a lab. Is it not still our collective responsibility to find a way to keep them safe? Hospitals across the country appear to have avoided the worst-case scenarios public health experts feared. The book is part of a new series of short e-books from the newspaper and Byliner. The Upshot was a hit. City to Pay Millions to Protesters Kettled by NYPD in 2020. But this created a problem.