David Broder
Political analyst and Pulitzer Prize winner
David S. Broder, a national political correspondent reporting the political scene for The Washington Post, writes a twice-weekly column that covers an even broader aspect of American political life.
Broder was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in May 1973 for distinguished commentary. He has been named "Best Newspaper Political Reporter" by Washington Journalism Review. A survey for Washingtonian magazine found that Broder was rated "Washington's most highly regarded columnist" by both editorial-page editors and members of Congress, leading 16 others in ratings for "overall integrity, factual accuracy and insight."
In 1990, a survey by Washingtonian magazine of the opinion-page editors of the largest 200 newspapers rated Broder as "Best Reporter," "Hardest Working" and "Least Ideological" among 123 columnists.
Broder has been called "the high priest of political journalism" by author Timothy Crouse, "the unchallenged 'dean' of what many political reporters like to think is their 'priesthood' " by U.S. News, and "probably the most respected and influential political journalist in the country" by columnist Richard Reeves. Esquire said Broder "has few challengers as the most influential political journalist in the country," and media critic Ron Powers on CBS-TV said, "Broder is not famous like Peter Jennings, he's not glamorous like Tom Brokaw, but underneath that brown suit there is a superman."
Broder has won numerous awards, including the White Burkett Miller Presidential Award in 1989, and the prestigious 4th Estate Award from the National Press Foundation in 1990, which also honored him with the Distinguished Contributions to Journalism Award in 1993. He received the Elijah Parrish Lovejoy Award from Colby College in 1990 and was elected to Sigma Delta Chi's Hall of Fame. In addition, he won the 1997 William Allen White Foundation's award for distinguished achievement in journalism and, in the same year, was given the National Society of Newspaper Columnists Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1997, he was named among the 25 most influential Washington journalists by National Journal and among the capital city's top 50 journalists by the Washingtonian magazine, a list he has appeared on since 1973.
Before joining the Post in 1966, Broder covered national politics for The New York Times (1965-66), The Washington Star (1960-65) and Congressional Quarterly (1955-60). He has covered every national campaign and convention since 1960, traveling up to 100,000 miles a year to interview voters and report on the candidates.
Broder is a regular commentator on CNN's "Inside Politics," and makes regular appearances on NBC's "Meet the Press" and "Washington Week in Review."
He is author or co-author of six books: "The System: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point" with Washington Post alumnus Haynes Johnson (Little, Brown and Co., 1996); "The Man Who Would be President: Dan Quayle" with Bob Woodward (Simon & Schuster, 1992); "Behind the Front Page: A Candid Look at How the News is Made" (Simon & Schuster, 1987); "Changing of the Guard: Power and Leadership in America" (Simon & Schuster, 1980); "The Party's Over: The Failure of Politics in America" (Harper and Row, 1972); and "The Republican Establishment: The Present and Future of the G.O.P." with Stephen Hess (Harper and Row, 1967).
Broder was born in Chicago Heights, Ill. He received his bachelor's degree and an M.A. in political science from the University of Chicago, served two years in the U.S. Army and began his newspaper career at the Bloomington (Ill.) Pantagraph. He has been a fellow of the Institute of Politics of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a fellow of the Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs at Duke University.
Broder and his wife (the former Ann Creighton Collar) have four grown sons and make their home in Arlington, Va.