David Leonhardt

David Leonhardt (born January 1, 1973) is an American journalist and columnist. Since 2014, he has been the managing editor of a then-new venture at The New York Times that focuses on politics, policy, and economics. It features analytical journalism, with an emphasis on data and graphics. The new venture, named The Upshot, launched on April 22, 2014, six months after it was first announced.
Leonhardt was previously the paper's Washington bureau chief and an economics columnist. He joined The Times in 1999 and wrote the "Economics Scene" column, and for the Times Sunday Magazine. 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. Before coming to The Times, he wrote for Business Week and The Washington Post.
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".

Born in New York, Leonhardt graduated from Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York in 1990, and then continued his studies at Jonathan Edwards College, Yale University, graduating in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science degree in applied mathematics. At Yale, Leonhardt served as editor-in-chief of the Yale Daily News.

In 1998, he won a Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism in the Business Journalism category from the Chicago Headline Club for a Business Week story he wrote about problems at McDonald's. Leonhardt has been writing about economics for The Times since 2000. In 2004, he founded an analytical sports column, "Keeping Score," which runs on Sundays. He was one of the writers who produced the paper's 2005 series on social class in the United States. His economics column, "Economic Scene," appeared on Wednesdays from 2006 until 2011.

He has also been a staff writer for The Times Magazine and contributed to the "Economix" blog.

In 2003, he was part of a team of Times reporters whose coverage of corporate scandals was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He won the Gerald Loeb Award for magazine writing in 2009 for a New York Times Magazine article, "Obamanomics." He was a winner of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers "Best in Business Journalism Contest" for his New York Times column in 2009 and 2007. In 2010, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for his economic columns. In 2011 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.

On July 22, 2011, Leonhardt was appointed as chief of the Washington bureau of The Times. He began that editorial role on September 6, 2011. After this announcement, he published what he referred to as his final Economic Scene column, "Lessons from the Malaise," on July 26, 2011. However, after he began his editing assignment, Leonhardt continued to publish analyses of economic news.

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".

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. The book is part of a new series of short e-books from the newspaper and Byliner. 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". 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."

He was interviewed on The Colbert Report on January 6, 2009 about the gold standard. He was interviewed again on The Colbert Report on February 14, 2013 to speak about his new e-book.

• 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner, for commentary.
• 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist, as a columnist.
• 2009 Gerald Loeb Award
• 1998 Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism, from the Chicago Headline Club.