With our team of White House correspondents, I cover President Biden, his administration and the foreign policy, intelligence and military advisers who shape the nation’s national security policy. White House reporters spend their days (and nights and weekends, alas) interviewing members of the president’s staff or other national security officials, attending speeches and conferences, and talking with critics of the president’s policies. We often travel with the President around the world, sometimes on Air Force One, which looks more luxurious in the movies than it is in reality.
Because I focus on foreign policy and national security issues, I often range beyond the White House, interviewing foreign leaders, members of Congress, and academics. I often seek to write analytical articles that explain the underlying factors that led to a major decision, or place a major event in a historical frame that gives readers some context of how hard choices are made.
I have worked at The Times for more than four decades, starting two months after I graduated from Harvard. That makes me — for better or worse — one of the longest-serving correspondents, dating back to when the printed paper was our only product. I served as a business correspondent covering the early days of Silicon Valley, and worked on the team that won a Pulitzer Prize for uncovering the causes of the space shuttle Challenger disaster. I was a foreign correspondent and bureau chief in Japan for six years. In Washington, I have covered five presidents, from Clinton to Biden, and served on teams that won two other Pulitzers, most recently for uncovering Russia’s role in the 2016 election.
I have written three books, including “The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in the Cyber Age,’’ which later became an HBO documentary by the same title. A second documentary, “Year One,’’ also on HBO, describes the tumultuous first year of the Biden presidency. I am at work on a new book, on the re-emergence of superpower conflict, that will be published in 2024. I also teach a course at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government entitled “Central Challenges in American National Security, Strategy and the Press.” When I’m traveling, you often can find a small fly rod packed away amid my computer gear.
I graduated from Harvard College in 1982, and I grew up in White Plains, N.Y.
Not surprisingly, many people want to influence our coverage, so we all work hard to maintain the independence of our journalism. Those standards of integrity are described in our Ethical Journalism Handbook. When I’m traveling for The Times, or dining with a source, the paper pays my way — even for those seats on Air Force One. When I am giving a talk or appearing on a television news show or podcast, I try to focus on reporting and analysis, not opinion. I don’t attend political fund-raisers, contribute to campaigns or lend my name to political causes. I do vote in local and national elections, because I think that is every citizen’s responsibility. I belong to a handful of nonpartisan foreign policy and national security think-tanks and study groups.
Email: sanger@nytimes.com
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