Ashley Parker | |
|---|---|
 Parker in 2018 | |
| Born | c. 1983 (age c. 41) Bethesda, Maryland, United States |
| Education | University of Pennsylvania (BA) |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Employers | |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 daughters |
| Awards | Pulitzer Prize[1] |
Ashley Rebecca Parker (bornc. 1983)[2] is an American journalist, senior national politicalcorrespondent forThe Washington Post,[3] and senior political analyst forMS NOW. From 2011 to 2017 she was aWashington-based[4] politics reporter[5] forThe New York Times.Jeffrey Goldberg,editor-in-chief ofThe Atlantic, announced that she would become a staff writer in mid-January 2025.[6]
Parker was born and raised inBethesda, Maryland, by Bruce and Betty Parker. Her father is a former president of Environmental Industries Association, a Washington, D.C.–based trade organization.[7] She has lived in Bethesda for the majority of her life, except during her college years and a few years while working forThe New York Times. Her immediate family still resides in the area.[8]
She marriedMichael C. Bender, who was at the time a White House reporter forThe Wall Street Journal, on June 16, 2018.[7]
Parker and her husband have two daughters as Ashley returned to work from the birth of her 2nd daughter to the Post, in November of 2023. Her first daughter, Mazarine, was born in November 2018.[9] Parker is a stepmother to Bender's daughter from a previous marriage.[10]
Parker attended Bethesda'sWalt Whitman High School, where she was a member of the class of 2001.[2] She also spent part of her junior year atLa Universidad de Sevilla in Spain and has a command ofSpanish.
In 2005, she graduatedsumma cum laude from theUniversity of Pennsylvania, where she majored in English (Creative Writing concentration) and Communications.[11][12] She had been a Benjamin Franklin Scholar, and during her senior year, was awarded the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize in writing.[13] Parker also completed internships withThe New York Sun and theGaithersburg Gazette, which is owned byThe Washington Post. She served as a features editor and writer at both34th Street Magazine andThe Daily Pennsylvanian, the independent student newspaper for the University of Pennsylvania inPhiladelphia.[14]
After college at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, Parker interned at theGaithersburg Gazette and reported on local government, including city planning meetings.
She worked as a researcher forMaureen Dowd, a columnist forThe New York Times.[15]
She appeared and continues to appear onWashington Week on PBS, and she has also written forThe New York Times Magazine. She covers manyRepublican Party candidates, elected officials, and topics as well as[16][17] covering routineNew York City topics[18] and theWhite House. She also coveredChelsea Clinton's wedding forThe New York Times.[19]
Parker's photographs have appeared inVanity Fair and her writing has appeared in other publications includingThe New York Sun,Glamour,The Huffington Post,[20]Washingtonian,Chicago Magazine andLife magazine.
During the2016 presidential campaign, Parker initially coveredJeb Bush's campaign before being moved to that ofDonald Trump.[21]
She and herPost colleaguePhilip Rucker shared the 2017 Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency.[22]
She was part of the reporting team atThe Washington Post that, withThe New York Times team, won thePulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2018 on coverage ofRussian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[23][24]
On September 7, 2019, Donald Trump called Parker and Rucker in atweet "two nasty lightweight reporters" and called for banning them from the White House.[25][26]
On November 20, 2019, Parker co-moderated thefifth Democratic Party presidential debate of the 2020 campaign, along withRachel Maddow,Andrea Mitchell, andKristen Welker.[10]
In January 2021, she becameThe Washington Post White House bureau chief.[27]
In 2021, Parker was a member of The Washington Post team that developedThe Attack, a three-part online series that cited systematic security failures ahead of the January attack on the U. S. Capitol. The series won the 2021 George Polk National Reporting Award in Journalism.[28]
On May 9, 2022, she was part ofThe Washington Post team that received thePulitzer Prize for Public Service.[29][30]
In July 2022, Parker became senior national political correspondent forThe Washington Post.[31] In December 2024,The Atlantic announced that Parker will be joining the magazine's staff as a writer.[32]
Parker was part of the Washington Post team that won the 2024 Prize in National Reporting for its examination of the impact of theAR-15 semi-automatic rifle.[33][34][35]
The Washington Post's @PhilipRucker (Mr. Off the Record) & @AshleyRParker, two nasty lightweight reporters, shouldn't even be allowed on the grounds of the White House because their reporting is so DISGUSTING & FAKE.