Andrew Ross Sorkin (born February 19, 1977) is an award-winning
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist and author. He is a financial columnist for
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, "The Gray Lady"—named for its staid appearance and style—is regarded as a national newspaper of record...
and is the newspaper's chief
mergers and acquisitionsThe phrase mergers and acquisitions refers to the aspect of corporate strategy, corporate finance and management dealing with the buying, selling and combining of different companies that can aid, finance, or help a growing company in a given industry grow rapidly without having to create another...
reporter. He is also the founder and editor of DealBook, a financial news service, published by
The Times.
Sorkin graduated from
Scarsdale High SchoolScarsdale High School is a public high school in Scarsdale, New York, situated in the suburbs of Westchester County, founded in 1917. In its very first selection process, the United States Department of Education named Scarsdale High School as "one of the 144 exemplary schools to which others may...
in 1995 and earned a Bachelor of Science degree from
Cornell UniversityCornell University is a private university located in Ithaca, New York, USA, that is a member of the Ivy League.Cornell counts more than 255,000 living alumni, 28 Rhodes Scholars and 41 Nobel laureates affiliated with the university as faculty or students...
in 1999. Sorkin first joined
The Times during his senior year in high school, as a student intern.
Andrew Ross Sorkin (born February 19, 1977) is an award-winning
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist and author. He is a financial columnist for
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, "The Gray Lady"—named for its staid appearance and style—is regarded as a national newspaper of record...
and is the newspaper's chief
mergers and acquisitionsThe phrase mergers and acquisitions refers to the aspect of corporate strategy, corporate finance and management dealing with the buying, selling and combining of different companies that can aid, finance, or help a growing company in a given industry grow rapidly without having to create another...
reporter. He is also the founder and editor of DealBook, a financial news service, published by
The Times.
Career
Sorkin graduated from
Scarsdale High SchoolScarsdale High School is a public high school in Scarsdale, New York, situated in the suburbs of Westchester County, founded in 1917. In its very first selection process, the United States Department of Education named Scarsdale High School as "one of the 144 exemplary schools to which others may...
in 1995 and earned a Bachelor of Science degree from
Cornell UniversityCornell University is a private university located in Ithaca, New York, USA, that is a member of the Ivy League.Cornell counts more than 255,000 living alumni, 28 Rhodes Scholars and 41 Nobel laureates affiliated with the university as faculty or students...
in 1999. Sorkin first joined
The Times during his senior year in high school, as a student intern. He also worked for the paper while he was in college, publishing 71 articles before he graduated. He began by writing media and technology articles while assisting Stuart Elliott,
The Times’ advertising columnist. Sorkin spent the summer of 1996 working for
Business Week, before returning to
The Times. He moved to
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
for part of 1998. While there, he wrote about European business and technology for
The Times, and then returned to Cornell to complete his studies.
Sorkin joined
The Times full time in 1999 as the newspaper's European mergers and acquisitions reporter, based in London, and the following year became The Times chief mergers and acquisitions reporter, based in New York, a position he still holds. In addition, Sorkin started his financial-news website and email newsletter, DealBook, which he continues to edit. He writes a column by the same name (since April 2004) in the Tuesday editions (initially in Sunday editions). Sorkin also holds the title of assistant editor of business and finance news.
Sorkin married Pilar Jenny Queen in 2007.
News articles
Sorkin has written, co-written or contributed to approximately 2000 articles for The Times, including more than 120 front-page articles and about 150 DealBook columns.
Sorkin has broken news of major
mergers and acquisitionsThe phrase mergers and acquisitions refers to the aspect of corporate strategy, corporate finance and management dealing with the buying, selling and combining of different companies that can aid, finance, or help a growing company in a given industry grow rapidly without having to create another...
, including Chase's acquisition of J.P. Morgan and
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard Company , commonly referred to as HP, is a technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States. HP has its United States offices at the former old Compaq Campus in unincorporated Harris County, Texas, Latin America offices in Miami-Dade County, Florida,...
's acquisition of
CompaqCompaq Computer Corporation was an American personal computer company founded in 1982, and is now a brand name of Hewlett-Packard.The company was formed by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto — former Texas Instruments senior managers...
. He also led The Times' coverage of the world's largest takeover ever,
VodafoneVodafone is a British mobile network operator, with its headquarters in Newbury, Berkshire, England, UK. It is the largest mobile telecommunications network company in the world by turnover, and has a market value of about £75 billion...
's $183 billion hostile bid for Mannesmann. Additionally, he broke the news of I.B.M.'s sale of its PC business to Lenovo,
Johnson & JohnsonJohnson & Johnson is a global American pharmaceutical, medical devices and consumer packaged goods manufacturer founded in 1886. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company is listed among the Fortune 500...
's $25 billion acquisition of
GuidantGuidant Corporation, part of Boston Scientific, designs and manufactures artificial pacemakers, implantable defibrillators, stents, and other cardiovascular medical products. Their company headquarters is located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Their main competitors are Medtronic, St. Jude Medical,...
and
SymantecSymantec Corporation was founded in 1982 by Gary Hendrix with a National Science Foundation grant. Symantec was originally focused on artificial intelligence-related projects, including a database program. Hendrix hired several Stanford University natural language processing researchers as the...
's $13 billion deal for
VeritasIn Roman mythology, Veritas was the goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn and the mother of Virtue. It was believed that she hid in the bottom of a holy well because she was so elusive. Her image is shown as a young virgin dressed in white...
, and reported on News Corp.'s acquisition of Dow Jones and
The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal is an English-language international daily newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, in New York City, with Asian and European editions. As of 2007, it has a worldwide daily circulation of more than 2 million, with approximately 931,000...
.
Most recently, Sorkin has reported on the
Wall StreetWall Street is a street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. It runs east from Broadway to South Street on the East River, through the historical center of the Financial District. It is the first permanent home of the New York Stock Exchange; over time Wall Street became the...
financial crisisThe term financial crisis is applied broadly to a variety of situations in which some financial institutions or assets suddenly lose a large part of their value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and many recessions coincided with these...
, including the collapse of
Bear StearnsThe Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. based in New York City, is a global investment bank and securities trading and brokerage firm owned by JPMorgan Chase...
and
Lehman BrothersLehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was a global financial-services firm which, until declaring bankruptcy in 2008, participated in business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales, research and trading, investment management, private equity, and private banking. It was a primary dealer...
, and the government bailout of other major investment banks and
AIGAIG is American International Group, a major American insurance corporation.AIG may also refer to:*And-inverter graph, a concept in computer theory*Answers in Genesis, a creationist organization in the U.S.*Arta Industrial Group in Iran...
. He has also written about the troubled American auto industry.
DealBook
In October 2001, Sorkin created DealBook, a financial news service about deal making and Wall Street, published by The Times. He started it as a daily email newsletter that provided summaries of financial news stories from around the Web. It was one of the first financial news aggregation services on the Internet and the first time The Times had included links to competing publications. In March 2006, he introduced a companion web site, with updated news and original analysis throughout the day. The newsletter has more than 200,000 subscribers and the Web site has more than 2.5 million unique monthly users. In 2007, DealBook won a Webby Award for Best Business Blog and it won a SABEW award for overall excellence. In 2008, the site won an EPpy Award for Best Business Blog.
Television
Sorkin has appeared on
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices in Burbank,California...
's Today
show, Charlie RoseCharles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television interviewer and journalist.Emmy Award-winning Charlie Rose entered television journalism full-time in 1974, when he became the managing editor of the PBS series Bill Moyers' International Report...
on PBS, PBS' The NewsHour with Jim LehrerThe NewsHour with Jim Lehrer is an evening television news program broadcast weeknights on PBS in the United States. Unlike most other evening newscasts in the country, each edition is an hour long. The program also runs longer segments than most other news outlets in the U.S., with in-depth...
, MSNBC's HardballHardball or hard ball may refer to:*Hardball squash, a racquet sport*Hardball, a sports term used to distinguish baseball from its variant softball.*Hardball , a 2001 film*Hardball , a 1997 film with Tony Curtis...
and Morning JoeMorning Joe is a weekday morning talk show on MSNBC, hosted by Joe Scarborough with co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist. It airs between 6AM and 9AM U.S. Eastern Time....
, ABC's Good Morning AmericaGood Morning America is an American news Morning show and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network, debuting on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour, available exclusively on ABC News Now, was introduced in 2007...
, The Chris Matthews ShowThe Chris Matthews Show is a half-hour weekend news and political roundtable program produced by NBC News. It is taped in Washington, D.C., and nationally syndicated by NBC Universal Television Distribution...
, HBO's Real Time with Bill MaherReal Time with Bill Maher is a talk show that airs weekly on HBO, hosted by comedian and political satirist Bill Maher. Much like his previous show, Politically Incorrect on ABC , Real Time features a panel of guests that discuss current events in politics and the media...
, the BBC World ServiceThe BBC World Service is one of the most widely-recognised international broadcasters, currently broadcasting in 32 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays. It is politically independent, non-profit and...
, and is a frequent guest host of CNBCCNBC is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBC Universal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers...
’s Squawk BoxSquawk Box is a long-running business news television program which airs at breakfast time on the CNBC network. The program is currently co-hosted by Joe Kernen, Rebecca Quick and Carl Quintanilla. Since debuting in 1995, the show has spawned a number of versions across CNBC's international...
.
Sorkin hosted a weekly seven-part, half-hour PBS talk-show series called "It's the Economy, NY
" which focused on how the evolving economic crisis was affecting New Yorkers. An interview with journalist Michael WolffMichael Blieden Wolff is an American jazz pianist and composer. Wolff is best known for his role as the bandleader and musical director of The Arsenio Hall Show...
became contentious when Wolff questioned the continued viability of The New York Times
, Sorkin's employer, as an independent company.
Books
Sorkin has written a book on the Wall Street banking crisis, Too Big to Fail, scheduled for publication in the fall of 2009.
Awards
He won a
Gerald Loeb AwardThe Gerald Loeb Award, also referred to as the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, is a recognition of excellence in journalism, especially in the fields of business, finance and the economy. The award was established in 1957 by Gerald Loeb, a founding partner of...
, given for business journalism, in 2005 for breaking news. He also won a
Society of American Business Editors and WritersThe Society of American Business Editors and Writers is an association of business journalists. Its headquarters is at the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri....
Award for breaking news in 2005 and again in 2006. In 2007, the
World Economic ForumThe World Economic Forum is a Geneva-based non-profit foundation best known for its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland which brings together top business leaders, international political leaders, selected intellectuals and journalists to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world...
named him a Young Global Leader. Also in 2007, SiliconAlleyInsider.com named Sorkin one of New York's "most influential scribes." In 2008,
Vanity FairVanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero is a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in 1847-48, satirizing society in early 19th-century Britain. The book's title comes from John Bunyan's allegorical story The Pilgrim's Progress, first published in 1678 and still widely read at the time...
magazine named Sorkin as one of 40 new members of the "Next Establishment."
Controversy
He was embroiled in a controversy when he argued for a government-sponsored bankruptcy for
General MotorsGeneral Motors Company, often known as simply GM, is a United States based automaker with headquarters in Detroit, Michigan. GM was the world's 18th largest corporate entity and third largest automaker as ranked by 2008 revenues on the Fortune Global 500. Ranked by global unit sales for 2008, it...
in a November 18, 2008, Times column. Sorkin wrote: "At
General MotorsGeneral Motors Company, often known as simply GM, is a United States based automaker with headquarters in Detroit, Michigan. GM was the world's 18th largest corporate entity and third largest automaker as ranked by 2008 revenues on the Fortune Global 500. Ranked by global unit sales for 2008, it...
, as of 2007, the average worker was paid about $70 an hour, including health care and pension costs." MSNBC commentator
Keith OlbermannKeith Theodore Olbermann is an American news anchor, sportscaster, writer, and political commentator. He hosts Countdown with Keith Olbermann, an hour-long nightly news and commentary program on MSNBC...
disputed that figure, calling Sorkin the "World's Worst Person," stating that the figure was "mathematically and intellectually dishonest" because the cited wage includes health and benefit costs paid to retired workers and their surviving spouses, which are unrelated and not paid to current workers.
Sorkin also called for GM's chief executive to be fired. Times executive editor
Bill KellerBill Keller is executive editor of The New York Times.-Early life:Keller is the son of former chairman and chief executive of the Chevron Corporation, George M. Keller, Bill Keller attended the Roman Catholic schools St. Matthews and Junípero Serra High School in San Mateo, California...
said that "stepped over the line" of the paper's standards,
public editorThe job of the public editor is to supervise the implementation of proper journalism ethics at a newspaper, and to identify and examine critical errors or omissions, and to act as a liaison to the public. They do this primarily through a regular feature on a newspaper's editorial page. The position...
Clark HoytClark Hoyt is an American journalist who is currently the public editor of the New York Times, serving as the 'readers representative'. He is the newspaper's third public editor, or ombudsman, after Daniel Okrent and Byron Calame. His two-year term began on May 14, 2007.Hoyt is a member of the The...
reported on November 30, 2008. "Subtlety and restraint are important in news columns," Keller told Hoyt. Sorkin defended the tone of his column, suggesting that readers understand the differing roles of news reporter and columnist. Despite the controversy, the column was one of his most popular.
External links