David Brooks

He met his wife, Jane, while studying at the University of Chicago. The two got married in 1986. Later, she got converted to Judaism and changed her name to Sarah. The couple is blessed with three children.

He was born on August 11, 1961 in Toronto, Canada, to a Jewish family. His father was an American citizen living in Canada. His father was a professor of English literature at New York University while his mother studied nineteenth-century British history at Columbia.

He received his early education from the Grace Church School. Later, the family moved to Philadelphia where he completed his high school from the Radnor High School in 1979.

In 1983, he obtained his Bachelor in Arts degree in history from the University of Chicago.

After completing graduation he became a police journalist for the City News Bureau, a wire service owned jointly by the ‘Chicago Tribune’ and ‘Chicago Sun Times’. This job, as a reporter of Chicago's crime beat, had a conservatizing influence on his personality.

In 1984, he was admitted as an intern in Buckley's ‘National Review’ magazine. The training included an all-access license to the wealthy lifestyle that Buckley enjoyed as a wealthy author and commentator. After completing his internship he spent some time at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University and then joined the Washington Times where he worked on editorials and film reviews.

In 1986, he was appointed by ‘The Wall Street Journal’, initially editing the paper’s book reviews and briefly serving as a film critic. He also worked at the paper’s Brussels office as an editor and foreign correspondent. By the end of his tenure with the Journal in 1994, he had become an editor of the paper’s opinion page.

In 1995, he served as a senior editor at ‘The Weekly Standard’ magazine and also a contributing editor of ‘Newsweek’ magazine. In addition to his news reporting, he also wrote articles for several other magazines, including the ‘The Atlantic Monthly’.

He was a frequent collaborator as an analyst on NPR’s show ‘All Things Considered’ and the ‘Diane Rehm Show’. His articles have appeared in the leading newspapers and magazines including ‘The New Yorker’, ‘The New York Times’ Magazine, ‘Forbes’, the ‘Washington Post’ and ‘The Public Interest’.

He is best known for writing an op-ed column for ‘The New York Times’ and for being a political analyst for ‘The News Hour with Jim Lehrer’, a television news program.

In 2004, he established an award to honor the best political and cultural journalism of the year. Named after the great philosopher Sidney Hook, ‘The Sidney Awards’ are presented every year.