Name James Poniewozik | Role Critic | |
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Education New York University, University of Michigan Profiles | ||
New York Times 1939: TV will never catch on
James Poniewozik ( ) (born 1968) is an American journalist and television critic. Currently the chief TV critic for The New York Times, he previously wrote Time's Tuned In column for 16 years.
Originally from Monroe, MI, Poniewozik attended the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, graduating with a BA in English (1986–1990). He subsequently attended the graduate program in fiction writing at New York University. He contributed to publications such as The New York Times Book Review, Fortune, and Rolling Stone. From 1997 to 1999, he was the media critic and editor of the media section at Salon.com.
Poniewozik was Time magazine's television critic from 1999 to 2015, his Tuned In column critiquing television and related media. In August 2015, it was announced that he would join The New York Times' culture desk as chief television critic.
He currently lives in Brooklyn. His father was Catholic, and of Polish descent. His mother was Jewish from a Sephardi background from Morocco. Poniewozik attended church as a child, and became an atheist as a teenager; he has since described himself as "culturally Jewish".