Mark Leibovich, of The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine, is joining The Atlantic as a staff writer, Editor in Chief Jeffrey Goldberg announced today. Leibovich, one of the country's premier political reporters and profile writers, will join The Atlantic at a time when the magazine is training its editorial focus on the crisis facing democracy in America and across the globe.
"Mark is an extraordinarily gifted reporter and writer who has helped shape the world's understanding of American power and American politics," Goldberg said. "His profiles of political leaders are legendary, both because they are wildly revealing and entertaining, and because they expose, like nothing else, the foibles, bizarre folkways, avarice and, more than occasionally, the humanity of Washington, D.C., and its inhabitants."
Over the course of 15 years with The New York Times, Leibovich earned a worldwide reputation as a gifted and incisive reporter and profile writer. He is also a best-selling author. His 2013 book, This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral--Plus Plenty of Valet Parking!--in America's Gilded Capital, is widely considered to be the most penetrating investigation in recent memory of the culture of Washington. This Town was a New York Times No. 1 best seller. His most recent book, 2018's Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times, was also a New York Times and national best seller. Leibovich won a National Magazine Award in 2011 for his profile of the journalist Mike Allen.
Before joining The New York Times in 2006, Leibovich spent 10 years at The Washington Post, including a stint as a political correspondent for the Style section. He had previously worked for the Post's Business section and at The San Jose Mercury News, where he covered Silicon Valley. Leibovich is also a contributing political analyst for NBC and MSNBC.
Leibovich is currently working on a sequel to This Town, about Washington during the Trump years. He will begin writing full time for The Atlantic in April, and will join a team that is making waves worldwide for its coverage of American politics and the crisis of democracy. This month, The Atlantic released a special issue of its print magazine devoted to this subject and anchored by a cover story, "January 6 Was Practice," warning of the real threat that the country's democracy faces in 2024. In an editor's note to lead the issue, Goldberg wrote of the commitment to this work: "The Atlantic, across its long history, has held true to the belief that the American experiment is a worthy one, which is why we're devoting this issue, and so much of our journalism in the coming years, to its possible demise."
Other recent editorial hires at The Atlantic include Claudine Ebeid as the executive producer of audio, coming from The New York Times; Andrea Valdez taking on a new role as a managing editor in the newsroom; and Nick Catucci as a senior editor working with the magazine's recently launched suite of newsletters for readers and subscribers.
