David Remnick Biography Quotes 1 Report mistakes
| 1 Quotes | |
| Born as | David Jay Remnick |
| Known as | David J. Remnick |
| Occup. | Journalist |
| From | USA |
| Spouse | Esther Fein (1987) |
| Born | October 29, 1958 Hackensack, New Jersey, USA |
| Age | 67 years |
David Jay Remnick, born in 1958 in the United States, emerged as one of the most influential American journalists and editors of his generation. He attended Princeton University, graduating in the early 1980s, and moved quickly into daily journalism. The intellectual rigor of his undergraduate years equipped him with the reporting discipline and literary sensibility that would define his career.
Washington Post Years
Remnick joined The Washington Post after college and came of age in a newsroom led by the legendary executive editor Ben Bradlee. At the Post he learned the craft at high speed, first on domestic beats and then on foreign assignments. His breakthrough came as a Moscow correspondent during the tumultuous final years of the Soviet Union. Reporting across a country in transformation, he chronicled the political and social upheaval that accompanied the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev, the ferment of glasnost and perestroika, and the ascendancy of Boris Yeltsin amid the disintegration of Soviet power.
Author and Pulitzer Prize
The reporting he did in the Soviet Union culminated in Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, published in the early 1990s. The book presented a ground-level portrait of a system collapsing under its own weight, rendering the era through voices of citizens, apparatchiks, and reformers. Lenin's Tomb won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, cementing Remnick's reputation as a writer who could match deep reporting with literary clarity. He went on to write additional books that demonstrated range and narrative ambition, including King of the World, a study of Muhammad Ali and the remaking of American sports and culture, and The Bridge, an exploration of the life and rise of Barack Obama set against the broader history of American politics and race.
The New Yorker
Remnick joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in the 1990s and, in 1998, succeeded Tina Brown as editor. In that role he inherited and refreshed one of America's most storied magazines, sustaining its devotion to long-form narrative, investigative reporting, and cultural criticism. He worked with a wide array of distinguished writers, from established literary figures like John Updike and Roger Angell to contemporary voices such as Malcolm Gladwell and Jill Lepore. He also partnered with art editor Francoise Mouly and a roster of illustrators and photographers to maintain the magazine's distinctive visual identity.
Editorial Vision and Coverage
As editor, Remnick emphasized rigor in fact-checking, editorial independence, and breadth of subject matter. He oversaw ambitious political reporting, science journalism, and international coverage, while also supporting profiles and criticism that shaped cultural conversation. The publication's response to national crises and elections reflected his belief that magazines should pair clarity of analysis with narrative depth. Under his leadership, The New Yorker expanded beyond print into digital platforms, podcasts, and live events. Remnick became the host of The New Yorker Radio Hour, bringing the magazine's reporting and interviews to a wide audio audience and extending its reach to new generations.
Themes and Influence
Remnick's own writing combines political insight with a novelist's attention to character. Whether examining the end of the Soviet experiment, the style and substance of Muhammad Ali, or the trajectory of Barack Obama, he tends to frame individual stories within sweeping historical arcs. Editors and reporters who have worked with him often cite his careful line edits, insistence on corroboration, and willingness to give writers space to do ambitious work. The magazine's many honors during his tenure reflect a collective effort by editors, writers, and artists, but they also trace back to his steady editorial hand.
Public Presence and Dialogues
A frequent interviewer and moderator, Remnick has engaged public figures across politics, arts, and science on stage at The New Yorker Festival and in broadcast conversations. These dialogues have included subjects he has covered extensively, from political leaders shaped by Cold War legacies to cultural icons whose work refracts American life. His approach foregrounds curiosity and an insistence on context, making complex subjects accessible without sacrificing nuance.
Personal Life
Remnick is married to Esther B. Fein, a journalist and editor whose own career includes reporting at major American news organizations. Their partnership, rooted in a shared engagement with news and ideas, has been a steady presence alongside his editorial life. Away from deadlines and production cycles, he has maintained the reading and reporting habits that first drew him to the profession.
Legacy
David Remnick's career links the craft of on-the-ground reporting to the stewardship of a major cultural institution. From the streets of Moscow at a moment of historical rupture to the editor's chair at The New Yorker, he has sought to pair accuracy with ambition. The people orbiting his career, Ben Bradlee and Tina Brown in the newsroom, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin in the geopolitical stories he covered, Muhammad Ali and Barack Obama in his books, and colleagues like John Updike, Roger Angell, Malcolm Gladwell, Jill Lepore, and Francoise Mouly in the pages of the magazine, trace a map of modern journalism's possibilities. His work underscores the enduring value of reported narrative in understanding both power and culture.
Our collection contains 1 quotes who is written by David, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners.
Other people realated to David: Alma Guillermoprieto (Journalist), Paul Muldoon (Poet)
David Remnick Famous Works
- 2010 The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama (Book)
- 2006 Reporting: Writings from The New Yorker (Book)
- 1998 King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero (Book)
- 1997 Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia (Book)
- 1996 The Devil Problem: And Other True Stories (Book)
- 1993 Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire (Book)
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