Michael Tomasky
Encyclopedia
Michael Tomasky is a liberal American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 columnist, journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

. He is the editor in chief of Democracy
Democracy (journal)
Democracy is a quarterly journal of progressive and liberal politics, as well as culture, founded by Kenneth Baer and Andrei Cherny in 2006. While new, Democracy is intended to be the progressive/liberal answer to such prominent and influential conservative journals as The Public Interest, Policy...

, a special correspondent for Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

 / The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast is an American news reporting and opinion website founded and published by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker as well as the short-lived Talk Magazine. The Daily Beast was launched on October 6, 2008, and is owned by IAC...

, a contributing editor for The American Prospect
The American Prospect
The American Prospect is a monthly American political magazine dedicated to American liberalism. Based in Washington, DC, The American Prospect is a journal "of liberal ideas, committed to a just society, an enriched democracy, and effective liberal politics" which focuses on United States politics...

, and a contributor to The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...

.

Biography

Tomasky was born and raised in Morgantown, West Virginia
Morgantown, West Virginia
Morgantown is a city in Monongalia County, West Virginia. It is the county seat of Monongalia County. Placed along the banks of the Monongahela River, Morgantown is the largest city in North-Central West Virginia, and the base of the Morgantown metropolitan area...

. He attended West Virginia University
West Virginia University
West Virginia University is a public research university in Morgantown, West Virginia, USA. Other campuses include: West Virginia University at Parkersburg in Parkersburg; West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Montgomery; Potomac State College of West Virginia University in Keyser;...

 as an undergraduate and then studied political science in graduate school at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...

, The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

, Harper's Weekly
Harper's Weekly
Harper's Weekly was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor...

, The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...

, The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...

, The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...

, Dissent
Dissent (magazine)
Dissent is a quarterly magazine focusing on politics and culture edited by Michael Walzer and Michael Kazin. The magazine is published for the Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas, Inc by the University of Pennsylvania Press....

, Lingua Franca, George
George (magazine)
George was a glossy monthly magazine centered on the theme of politics-as-lifestyle co-founded by John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Michael J. Berman with publisher Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. in New York City in September 1995...

, and GQ. He lives with his wife (Sarah) and daughter (Margot Julianna Kerr Tomasky, born July 6, 2010) in Silver Spring, Maryland
Silver Spring, Maryland
Silver Spring is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It had a population of 71,452 at the 2010 census, making it the fourth most populous place in Maryland, after Baltimore, Columbia, and Germantown.The urbanized, oldest, and...

.

From 1995 to 2002, Tomasky was a columnist at New York magazine, where he wrote the "City Politic" column. He was later executive editor of The American Prospect
The American Prospect
The American Prospect is a monthly American political magazine dedicated to American liberalism. Based in Washington, DC, The American Prospect is a journal "of liberal ideas, committed to a just society, an enriched democracy, and effective liberal politics" which focuses on United States politics...

, and remains a contributing editor. On October 23, 2007, Guardian America
Guardian America
Guardian America is an American version of the British news website The Guardian. Although the British version is also available in print, under the name The Guardian, Guardian America is not....

was launched with Tomasky as its editor. On March 3, 2009 he replaced Kenneth Baer
Kenneth Baer
Kenneth Baer is director of communications for the Obama White House's Office of Management and Budget. He is a former White House speechwriter, author, and analyst. Baer has a doctorate in Politics from Oxford University and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was elected to...

 as editor of U.S. political journal Democracy
Democracy (journal)
Democracy is a quarterly journal of progressive and liberal politics, as well as culture, founded by Kenneth Baer and Andrei Cherny in 2006. While new, Democracy is intended to be the progressive/liberal answer to such prominent and influential conservative journals as The Public Interest, Policy...

, at which time his title at The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

changed to editor-at-large. In May 2011 Tomasky left The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

to join Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

 / The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast is an American news reporting and opinion website founded and published by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker as well as the short-lived Talk Magazine. The Daily Beast was launched on October 6, 2008, and is owned by IAC...

as a special correspondent.

Tomasky is the author of Left for Dead: The Life, Death, and Possible Resurrection of Progressive Politics in America (1996), a study of the intellectual collapse of the American left, and of Hillary's Turn: Inside Her Improbable, Victorious Senate Campaign (2001), a chronicle of Hillary Clinton's successful election to the Senate in 2000.

Political views

In an October 2010 essay, "The Elections: How Bad for Democrats?", Tomasky gives his "own answer to the question of how things got this bad," expounding a theme he had been developing for several years in other articles:
Since the Reagan years, "Republicans routinely speak in broad themes and tend to blur the details, while Democrats typically ignore broad themes and focus on details. Republicans, for example, speak constantly of “liberty” and “freedom” and couch practically all their initiatives—tax cuts, deregulation, and so forth—within these large categories. Democrats, on the other hand, talk more about specific programs and policies and steer clear of big themes....What Democrats have typically not done well since Reagan’s time is connect their policies to their larger beliefs. In fact they have usually tried to hide those beliefs, or change the conversation when the subject arose. The result has been that for many years Republicans have been able to present their philosophy as somehow truly “American,” while attacking the Democratic belief system as contrary to American values.


Tomasky has explained that having good ideas is not as successful as having ideas the media pick up on:
As I've written many times, Democrats in general still tend to think that you win political fights by having superior arguments. This of course is manifestly not true. You win political arguments by framing the question the media decide to take up. That means being aggressive in your framing, creating conflict (which the media love), and making sure that reporters will go to the other side and ask them well, how do you respond to this? Some significant number of Americans who don't hate Barack Obama nevertheless think he wants socialism simply because conservatives have spent 18 months saying that Obama (and the Democrats generally) want socialism.

Books

  • Left for Dead: The Life, Death, and Possible Resurrection of Progressive Politics in America, Michael Tomasky, Free Press
    Free Press (publisher)
    Free Press is a book publishing imprint of Simon and Schuster. It was founded by Jeremiah Kaplan and Charles Liebman in 1947 and was devoted to sociology and religion titles. It was headquartered in Glencoe, Illinois, where it was known as The Free Press of Glencoe...

    , June 10, 1996, ISBN 978-0684827506
  • Hillary's Turn: Inside Her Improbable, Victorious Senate Campaign, Michael Tomasky, Free Press
    Free Press (publisher)
    Free Press is a book publishing imprint of Simon and Schuster. It was founded by Jeremiah Kaplan and Charles Liebman in 1947 and was devoted to sociology and religion titles. It was headquartered in Glencoe, Illinois, where it was known as The Free Press of Glencoe...

    , February 15, 2001, ISBN 978-0684873022

External links

  • Column archive at The American Prospect
    The American Prospect
    The American Prospect is a monthly American political magazine dedicated to American liberalism. Based in Washington, DC, The American Prospect is a journal "of liberal ideas, committed to a just society, an enriched democracy, and effective liberal politics" which focuses on United States politics...

  • Column archive at The Daily Beast
    The Daily Beast
    The Daily Beast is an American news reporting and opinion website founded and published by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker as well as the short-lived Talk Magazine. The Daily Beast was launched on October 6, 2008, and is owned by IAC...

  • Democracy
  • Column archive at The Guardian
    The Guardian
    The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

  • Column archive at The New York Review of Books
    The New York Review of Books
    The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...

  • Conversations with Charlie Rose
    Charlie Rose
    Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993...

  • Video discussions/debates involving Tomasky on Bloggingheads.tv
    Bloggingheads.tv
    Bloggingheads.tv is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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