Nicholas Berthelot Lemann is dean and Henry R. Luce professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is one of Columbia's graduate and professional schools. It offers three degree programs: Master of Science in journalism , Master of Arts in journalism and a Ph.D. in communications...

 in New York City.

Lemann is from New Orleans and he graduated from Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 in 1976, but has never attended a school of journalism. He is a journalist, editor, and author of several books on 20th century United States history. He has also been:

• Managing editor of the Washington Monthly
• associate editor and executive editor of the Texas Monthly
  Texas Monthly
  Texas Monthly is a monthly American magazine headquartered in Austin, Texas. Texas Monthly is published by Emmis Publishing, L.P. and was founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy, Texas Monthly chronicles life in contemporary Texas, writing on politics, the environment, industry, and education...
  
  
• a national staff reporter for The Washington Post
• a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly
  The Atlantic Monthly
  The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
  
  
• a staff writer for The New Yorker
  The New Yorker
  The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
  
  
• President of The Harvard Crimson
  The Harvard Crimson
  The Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
  
  

Lemann is a member of the Council on the Future of Media. This council is "championing a new global, independent news and information service whose role is to inform, educate and improve the state of the world- one that would take advantage of all platforms of content delivery
from mobile to satellite and online to create a new global network."

Personal

Lemann has been married twice. His first wife was Dominique Alice Browning

Dominique Browning

Dominique Browning was the last editor-in-chief of the shelter magazine House & Garden published by Conde Nast. Currently, she contributes to various newspapers and magazines and writes a monthly column for the Environmental Defense Fund website.As an author, Browning has written books related to...

, who later became an editor in chief of House & Garden

House & Garden (magazine)

House & Garden was an American shelter magazine published by Condé Nast Publications that focused on interior design, entertaining, and gardening....

; they married on 20 May 1983, have two sons, Alexander and Theodore, and later divorced. His second wife is Judith Anne Shulevitz

Judith Shulevitz

Judith Shulevitz is an American journalist, editor and culture critic. She graduated from Yale College in 1986.From 1991 to 1994, Shulevitz was the co-editor of Lingua Franca with Margaret Talbot...

, who was a columnist for Slate

Slate (magazine)

Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...

and 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...

; married on November 7, 1999, they have a son and a daughter. His sister is Nancy Lemann, a novelist. He is a practicing Jew.

Selected publications

• New Yorker
  The New Yorker
  The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
  
   articles:
  • September 2005 commentary on Hurricane Katrina
    Hurricane Katrina
    Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
    
    
  • August 2006 article on Citizen journalism
    Citizen journalism
    Citizen journalism is the concept of members of the public "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information," according to the seminal 2003 report We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information...
    
    , titled, Amateur Hour: Journalism Without Journalists
  • August 2007 commentary titled Rovian Ways on Karl Rove
    Karl Rove
    Karl Christian Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives...
    
    's resignation and legacy
• The Big Test
  The Big Test
  The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy is a 20th century history book by Nicholas Lemann ISBN 0-374-52751-2....
  
  (1999) ISBN 978-0374527518 (The story of how standardized tests (such as the SAT
  SAT
  The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a nonprofit organization in the United States. It was formerly developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service which still...
  
  ) became very important in the United States)
  • "None of the Above" Review, by Andrew Sullivan, The New York Times, Oct. 24, 1999.
  • "BOOKS OF THE TIMES; What's Wrong With the SAT and Its Elite Progeny" Review by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times, Oct. 4, 1999
• The Promised Land : The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America (1991) ISBN 978-0394269672 (On the migration of millions of black people from the South to the North in the 1940s and 1950s)
• Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War (2006) ISBN 978-0374248550 (The story of Reconstruction in the South after the Civil War)
  • "A Less Perfect Union Review by Sean Willentz, in the New York Times Sept. 10, 2006
  • First chapter of book, on the NY Times site.
• Slate
  Slate (magazine)
  Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
  
  articles:
  • June 1996 http://www.slate.com/id/2378/ on Asian Americans as "the new Jews."
  • October 2004 http://www.slate.com/id/2107947/entry/2108055/ on Philip Roth's The Plot Against America

External links

• Audio Interview with Sam Tanenhaus, the editor of The New York Times Book Review. (MP3 format)
• Lemann and Steve Shepard discuss future of journalism.