Michelle Goldberg (born 1975)"Michelle Goldberg". Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2016. Retrieved via Biography in Context database, January 28, 2017. is an American journalist and author, and an op-ed columnist for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. She has been a senior correspondent for ''

The American Prospect ''The American Prospect'' is a daily online and bimonthly print American political and public policy magazine dedicated to American modern liberalism and progressivism. Based in Washington, D.C., ''The American Prospect'' says it "is devoted to ...

'', a columnist for ''

The Daily Beast ''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008. It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...

'' and ''

Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

'', and a senior writer for ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...

''."Michelle Goldberg"
''The Nation''. Retrieved January 27, 2017. Her books are ''Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism'' (2006), ''The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World'' (2009), and ''The Goddess Pose: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West'' (2015).

Early life and education

Goldberg was born in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...

, the daughter of Carolyn and Gerald Goldberg. Her father was managing editor of ''

The Buffalo News ''The Buffalo News'' is the daily newspaper of the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area, located in downtown Buffalo, New York. It recently sold its headquarters to Uniland Development Corp. It was for decades the only paper fully owned by W ...

'' and her mother was a math professor at

Niagara County Community College Niagara County Community College (NCCC) is a public community college in Sanborn, New York, in Niagara County. NCCC offers associate degrees and was founded on November 8, 1962 and is sponsored by Niagara County. It is part of the State Univer ...

. Goldberg received a Bachelor of Arts degree at the

State University of New York at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

. She also holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. From her early teens she was active in the

abortion rights Abortion-rights movements, also referred to as pro-choice movements, advocate for the right to have legal access to induced abortion services including elective abortion. They seek to represent and support women who wish to terminate their pre ...

cause, escorting a pregnant 13-year-old friend to an abortion clinic when she herself was 13 and participating in protests and abortion-clinic defense as a high-school senior. In an opinion column titled, "Rant for Choice," published in the student newspaper at

SUNY Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

in 1995, Goldberg, wrote of on-campus

anti-abortion Anti-abortion movements, also self-styled as pro-life or abolitionist movements, are involved in the abortion debate advocating against the practice of abortion and its legality. Many anti-abortion movements began as countermovements in respons ...

demonstrators, "spit at them. Kick them in the head." Goldberg later told the ''Buffalo News'', "Just like someone who says, 'I'm going to kill you,' I didn't mean it literally. I didn't call the article 'A Call to Arms.'"

Career

Beginning in 2002, Goldberg was for several years a senior writer for ''

Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon (P ...

''. For approximately two years, through September 2015, she was senior contributing writer at ''

''. She worked as a senior correspondent at ''The American Prospect'' and a columnist for ''

'' and ''

'' magazine. Her work has been published in ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hum ...

'', ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'', '' Tablet'' and '' Glamour'',"Michelle Goldberg"
''The Daily Beast''. thedailybeast.com. Retrieved January 28, 2017. and in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', and other newspapers.

Books

Goldberg's first book, ''Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism'' (2006), was a finalist for the 2007

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism The Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism is an annual literary award for "a journalist whose work has brought public attention to important issues", awarded by the New York Public Library. It was established in 1987 in memory of ...

.Mentorship Program: Michelle Goldberg
. The Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. Retrieved January 27, 2017. In 2009, she published ''The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World'' (2009), which is based on her own reporting about the state of women's reproductive rights across several continents, and explores what she terms the "international battle over reproductive rights."

Opinions and controversies

In 2012, Goldberg criticized a column written by

Ann Romney Ann Lois Romney ( Davies; born April 16, 1949) is an American author and philanthropist. She is the wife of businessman and politician, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah. From 2003 to 2007, Romney was First Lady of Massachusetts, while her husband se ...

, wife of politician and businessman

Mitt Romney Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts f ...

, in ''USA Today''; Romney wrote that there was "no crown more glorious" than the "crown of motherhood." Goldberg responded that such phrases reminded her of "pronatalist propaganda of World War II-era totalitarian regimes." Conservative media outlets criticized Goldberg for the remark; she subsequently said, "I should have realized that right-wingers were going to pretend that I was saying that Romney is akin to two of the century's most murderous tyrants... I'm truly sorry to have given the right a pretext for another tedious spasm of feigned outrage." Goldberg, a progressive, has sometimes criticized strains of intolerance within the left's discourse. In 2013 in ''

'', Goldberg criticized the public and media reactions to a racist tweet by Justine Sacco, who was fired for tweeting "Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!" She wrote, "Almost any of us could be vulnerable to a crowd-sourced inquisition." In a July 17, 2020, column in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' headlined, "Do Progressives Have a Free Speech Problem?" Goldberg wrote, "The mass uprising following the killing of George Floyd has led to a necessary expansion of the boundaries of mainstream speech.... At the same time, a climate of punitive heretic-hunting, a recurrent feature of left-wing politics, has set in, enforced, in some cases, through workplace discipline, including firings." In 2014, Goldberg wrote a piece for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', titled "What is a Woman?," about the conflict between transgender women and some radical feminists. It was criticized by Jos Truitt in the ''

Columbia Journalism Review The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its contents include news and media industry trends, ana ...

'' on the basis of Goldberg's support for trans-exclusionary radical feminists (

TERF TERF () is an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. First recorded in 2008, the term was originally used to distinguish trans-inclusive feminists from a group of radical feminists who reject the assertion that trans women are wome ...

s). Goldberg endorsed Democratic candidate

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...

in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In the September 17, 2017, issue of ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'', Goldberg published a critical review of

Vanessa Grigoriadis Vanessa Maia Grigoriadis is an American journalist. Her work has been featured in ''The New York Times'', '' Vanity Fair'', and ''Rolling Stone'' among other publications. Background Grigoriadis is of Greek descent and grew up in New York City. Whe ...

's study of college rape ''Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus,'' which included errors that the publication later corrected. "Michelle is free to dislike my book," Grigoriadis wrote to ''Book Review'' editor

Pamela Paul Pamela Paul (born 1970/1971) is an American columnist, journalist, editor, and author. Since 2022, she has been an op-ed writer for ''The New York Times''. From 2013 to 2022, she was the editor of ''The New York Times Book Review'',Vanity Fair'', one ''Times'' source called the incident "a significant error," while another described the fallout as "humiliating".

''New York Times'' columnist

''The New York Times'' named Goldberg as an opinion columnist in September 2017. "We have entered a period of minority rule," Goldberg declared in her debut column, "Tyranny of the Minority," published September 25, 2017. Goldberg argued that the U.S. Constitution's bias toward small states in the Electoral College and U.S. Senate, along with the

gerrymandering In representative democracies, gerrymandering (, originally ) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The m ...

of U.S. House seats and other factors, gives the Republican Party a structural advantage in national elections, allowing it to win control of the federal government without winning the most votes nationwide. "Twice in the last 17 years, Republicans have lost the popular vote but won the presidency, and it could happen again," she warned. " resident DonaldTrump's election has revealed many dark truths about this country. One of them is: We’re a lot less democratic than we might think." Since then, many other political commentators have echoed Goldberg's critique. Goldberg takes a sanguine view on immigration, she feels that "America is tearing itself apart as an embittered white conservative minority clings to power, terrified at being swamped by a new multiracial polyglot majority." She contends, though, that "American voters can do to white nationalists what they fear most. Show them they’re being replaced."We Can Replace Them – In Georgia, a chance to rebuke white nationalism
Michelle Goldberg, New York Times, October 29, 2018 Goldberg was a strong critic of Donald Trump's presidency. In an October 17, 2020, column headlined "Trump’s Misogyny Might Finally Catch Up With Him", she wrote: "If Trump loses, it won’t be just because enough women recognize him as a deranged bigot, it will because he blighted too many of their lives." From 2018 to 2021, Goldberg appeared on the weekly podcast "The Argument," in which she and other columnists for the newspaper debated major national issues. Much of the ideological disagreement on the podcast arose between Goldberg and conservative columnist

Ross Douthat Ross Gregory Douthat (born 1979) is an American political analyst, blogger, author and ''New York Times'' columnist. He was a senior editor of ''The Atlantic''. He has written on a variety of topics, including the state of Christianity in Americ ...

, though in their final appearance together on the show in February 2021, each reflected on how the other's arguments had influenced them.

Personal life

Goldberg lives in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, Matthew Ipcar, in "a small apartment with small kids." She is a self-described secular Jew.

Bibliography

* * ''The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World'' * *

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Goldberg, Michelle 1975 births Living people Date of birth missing (living people) Journalists from New York (state) MSNBC people The Nation (U.S. magazine) people New York (state) Democrats The New Yorker people People from Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Rolling Stone people Secular Jews University of California, Berkeley alumni Writers from Buffalo, New York University at Buffalo alumni