David Salzer Broder (born September 11, 1929) is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author, television talk show pundit, and university lecturer. He was born in Chicago Heights, Illinois, the son of Albert Broder and Nina Salzer Broder.
Currently, he is the White House correspondent for The Washington Post, writes a twice-a-week political column for the paper, and lectures at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Broder is a graduate of Bloom Township High School in Chicago Heights, Illinois, and received an A.B. in 1947 and an A.M. in 1951, both in Political Science, from the University of Chicago. He served in the United States Army from 1951-1953.
Career
Before joining the Post in 1966, he worked at the New York Times,Congressional Quarterly, the now defunct Washington Star and the Pantagraph in Bloomington, Illinois.
Today, the longtime columnist is informally known as the "Dean" of the Washington press corps and the "unofficial chairman of the board" by national political writers. For many years he has appeared on Washington Week,Meet the Press, and other current affairs television programs.
It was announced at the close of the August 10, 2008 broadcast of Meet the Press that Broder was celebrating his 400th appearance on that program, on which he first appeared July 7, 1963. He has appeared far more often than any other person. Excepting the program's moderators, the person nearest to Broder in number of Meet the Press appearances is Bob Novak, who had over 120 fewer appearances.
Broder has been called "relentlessly centrist" by The New Yorker's political commentator Hendrik Hertzberg. Frank Rich of the New York Times has often described Broder as the nation's "bloviator-in-chief".
Broder won his Pulitzer for commentary in 1973 and has been the recipient of numerous awards and academic honors before and since. He is the author of several books about contemporary politics.
In 1990, Broder received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Colby College.
In 2001, Broder became a tenured, full professor at the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism while continuing writing full time at The Washington Post. He generally teaches one class a year on politics and the press. This class meets at the Post. Merrill College Dean, Thomas Kunkel, described Broder as the nation's "most respected political journalist" when he announced Broder's hire. Broder has also taught at Duke University (1987—1988).
During an interview in 1996, David Broder said that "It’s clear that some journalists now are in a market category where the amount of money that they can make on extracurricular activities raises, in my mind, exactly, and, clearly, in the public’s mind, exactly the same kind of conflict-of-interest questions that we are constantly raising with people in public life. . . ." In June, 2008, however, Ken Silverstein, a columnist at Harper's magazine alleged that David Broder had accepted free accommodations and thousands of dollars in speaking fees from various business and healthcare groups, in one instance penning an opinion column supporting positions favored by one of the groups. The Washington Post's ombudsman, wrote that Broder's acceptance of speaking fees was an apparent violation of the paper's policy on outside speeches, as was the fact that some of the groups that paid Broder also lobby Congress. Howell continued that "He (Broder) also said he had cleared his speeches with Milton Coleman, deputy managing editor, or Tom Wilkinson, an assistant managing editor, but neither remembered him mentioning them."
