Marc Ambinder (; born ) is an American university professor, journalist, and
television producer
A television producer is a person who oversees one or more aspects of video production on a television program. Some producers take more of an executive role, in that they conceive new programs and pitch them to the television networks, but upon ...
.
He is a former politics editor at ''
The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'', a
White House Correspondent
The White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) is an organization of journalists who cover the White House and the president of the United States. The WHCA was founded on February 25, 1914, by journalists in response to an unfounded rumor t ...
for ''
National Journal'', contributing editor for ''
GQ'', and was editor-at-large of ''
The Week
''The Week'' is a weekly news magazine with editions in the United Kingdom and United States. The British publication was founded in 1995 and the American edition in 2001. An Australian edition was published from 2008 to 2012. A children's ed ...
''
and a member of the ''
USA Today
''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...
'' national board of contributors. In 2017, he was the journalist-in-residence at the
University of Pennsylvania School of Law
The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (also known as Penn Law or Penn Carey Law) is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania, a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is among the most ...
. His third book, ''The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983'', was published by Simon & Schuster in July 2018. He teaches at the
USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
The USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism comprises a School of Communication and a School of Journalism at the University of Southern California
, mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it"
, religious_affiliation = N ...
, where he leads Annneberg's digital security initiative.
Education
Ambinder received a A.B. in history from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
in 2001. He was an associate managing editor of the Harvard Crimson.
Career
In 2016, Ambinder was a Leadership Fellow at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism. Since 2017, he has taught investigative journalism, political journalism and national security journalism. He consults for Fortune 100 companies on corporate and strategic communication. Until December 31, 2011 Ambinder was the
White House correspondent
The White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) is an organization of journalists who cover the White House and the president of the United States. The WHCA was founded on February 25, 1914, by journalists in response to an unfounded rumor t ...
at the ''
National Journal''. He previously worked at ''
ABC News
ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...
'' and was chief political consultant to ''
CBS News'' from 2008 to 2011. For years, he was the author of a
political blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...
, ''
The Hotline
''The Hotline'' is a daily political briefing published by Atlantic Media from its headquarters at The Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.. Founded in 1987, It is currently edited by Kyle Trygstad. and published independently until its acqui ...
''.
Though presidential politics and Washington have been his primary areas of interest, he also writes about intelligence and national security, and has
broken several stories, including details about the
raid on Osama bin Laden. His first book, "The Command: Inside The President's Secret Army," is an examination of the secretive
Joint Special Operations Command
The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is a joint component command of the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and is charged with studying special operations requirements and techniques to ensure interoperability and equi ...
.
He has secured access to the protective details of the Secret Service, broken stories about computer failures that jeopardized America’s nuclear arsenal, probed Pakistan’s fragile intelligence services, and became an authority on national security topics ranging from the
NSA and surveillance, to the government’s secret commando force, to its secretive continuity of government plans.
He has written 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 d ...
'', ''
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 ...
'', ''
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 ...
'', ''
Vice
A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character t ...
'', and numerous national magazines. He has been a consulting producer and on-air expert for documentaries about special operations forces, the Secret Service and government doomsday plans. He has been a guest on every national television news network in the U.S., on the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
following. He was nominated for an Emmy in 2005 and was part of a team that won a DuPont Silver Baton from Columbia University.
to provide positive remarks on Clinton in exchange for receiving an advance copy of a Clinton speech. Gawker based its report on a fragment of an email chain they obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Both Ambinder and Reines said that the emails lacked critical context, which showed that Ambinder did not actually make any such deal with Reines. Ambinder later said he regretted how such incidents, even when misinterpreted, contributed to the fraying of trust between political journalists and the public, and decried the proliferation of transactional reporting in Washington.
, which reduced his weight from 235 to 150 pounds. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant.