David Zurawik

David Zurawik is an American journalist and author. Born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Zurawik earned a master's degree in specialized reporting (pop culture) from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and received a doctorate in American studies from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2000. He now lives in Baltimore.

Zurawik worked as a reporter and critic for the Dallas Times Herald (now the Dallas Morning News before becoming the television critic, in 1989, for The Baltimore Sun. In 2008, he became the lead writer for The Baltimore Sun TV blog, Z on TV.

Zurawik is a frequent guest on the CNN’s public affairs talk show Reliable Sources, and has also appeared on Fox News shows such as The O’Reilly Factor and On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.

In addition to his position with the Baltimore Sun, Zurawik is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland.

In April 2015, Zurawik speculated publicly about the events depicted in a grainy camera-phone video of the arrest of Freddie Gray, who later died while in police custody, touching off riots that devastated Baltimore. Zurawik predicted – accurately, as it turned out – that the video would have as powerful an effect in the "court of public opinion" as did the videos of the Walter Scott shooting in South Carolina and the Eric Garner choke-hold in New York.

He is the author of The Jews of Prime Time, which looks at Jewish identity on network TV.