Mark Leibovich

Career

Leibovich was previously a national political correspondent in the New York Times' Washington Bureau. He came to the Times in 2006 from the Washington Post, where he spent nine years, first covering the national technology sector for the Post's business section, then serving as the lead political writer for the paper's style section. Leibovich previously worked at The San Jose Mercury News.

He is also the author of This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral-Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!-in America's Gilded Capital. The book debuted at #1 on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list in July 2013, and remained on the Times best-seller list for 12 weeks. Leibovich discussed "This Town" on the “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart, ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, Charlie Rose, PBS’s Moyers and Company and NPR’s “Weekend Edition". He also appeared as a contestant on NPR’s “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me”. In a February 2014 edition of Jeopardy!! This Town was the answer to a clue in a category titled “2013 Bestsellers”.

In advance of its July 2013 release, Politico published an article describing This Town as a "chronicle" of the "incestuous ecology of insider Washington." Leibovich, according to the story, is nicknamed "Leibo," and the book's original sub-title was "The Way it Works in Suck Up City." Fareed Zakaria as reviewer for Washington Post praises it as "hottest political book of the summer", containing " juicy anecdotes" and a tell-tale core of "corruption and dysfunction". Richard McGregor of the Financial Times described Leibovich as “like a modern-day Balzac.”

In his book review for the New York Times, novelist Christopher Buckley described This Town as a series of “mini-masterpieces of politico-anthropological sociology." The Economist said This Town “may be the most pitiless examination of America’s permanent political class that has ever been conducted.”

This Town was released in paperback in April 2014 in conjunction with the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, which Leibovich has described as “an abomination.”

The book attracted controversy when an aide to Representative Darrell Issa was fired for sharing reporters’ e-mails with Leibovich without their knowledge.

In addition to his political writing, Leibovich also authored The New Imperialists, a collection of profiles of technology pioneers.

Citizens of the Green Room, an anthology of Leibovich’s profiles in the New York Times and Washington Post, will be published in November 2014 by Blue Rider Press

Leibovich appears frequently as a guest on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, NPR’s On the Media, and other public affairs programs.

Awards and recognition

Leibovich has won a number of journalism awards, including a 2011 National Magazine Award for his profile of Politico's Michael Allen and the changing media culture of Washington. The New Republic described Leibovich as “brutally incisive yet not without pathos” in naming him one of Washington’s 25 Most Powerful, Least Famous People. Washingtonian Magazine has called him the "reigning master of the political profile” and The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg nominated Leibovich as Washington’s “most important journalist” for his “ability to make his profile subjects look like rock stars, on the one hand, and to make others look like complete idiots, on the other.”

Personal life

Leibovich was born in Boston, Massachusetts on May 9, 1965 and attended Newton South High School and the University of Michigan. He lives in Washington D.C. with his wife and three daughters.

His father is from Argentina. Leibovich is Jewish.