Maureen Dowd

I’m an Opinion columnist at The New York Times.

What I Cover

I focus mostly on presidential politics but I like to branch out and write about New York, Hollywood, Silicon Valley and occasionally, European politics. I love to cover the arc of women’s victories and setbacks in American life. I like to write with humor, but given all the impeachments, indictments, coups and villainy I have to cover, it’s hard to do it as often as I’d like.

My Background

I started at The Washington Star in 1973, working as a clerk on the overnight shift, taking dictation from reporters covering the Watergate trial in the days before cellphones and laptops. I became a city reporter in 1975. When the Star folded in 1981, I went to Time magazine for a couple years. Then the great Anna Quindlen hired me for the city desk of The New York Times in 1983. I transferred to Washington, my hometown, in 1986, and covered the Bush I and Clinton White Houses before becoming a columnist in 1995. I received the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for distinguished commentary and have written several books, including “Bushworld,” which covered the presidency and personality of George W. Bush, and “Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide,” about gender politics. I have also written for GQ, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, The New Republic, Mademoiselle, Sports Illustrated and elsewhere.

I got an undergraduate degree from Catholic University and, in 2023, a Master’s Degree in English Literature from Columbia University.

Journalistic Ethics

You have to be Caesar’s wife at The Times. No one can achieve the purity of Bill Cunningham, the great Times street fashion photographer, who refused to even take a drink of water at parties he covered. But we can try. You can learn more about The Times’s ethics policy here.

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