Peter Baker | |
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 Baker in 2017 | |
| Born | Peter Eleftherios Baker (1967-07-02)July 2, 1967 (age 58) |
| Education | Oberlin College (no degree) |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, author |
| Employers |
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| Notable work |
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| Spouse | |
| Children | Theo Baker |
Peter Eleftherios Baker (born July 2, 1967) is an American journalist and author. He is the chiefWhite House correspondent forThe New York Times and a political analyst forMSNBC. He was a reporter forThe Washington Post for 20 years.[1] He has covered six presidencies, fromBill Clinton throughDonald Trump.
Baker was born in 1967, the son of tax attorney Eleftherios Peter ("Ted") Baker, whose "impoverished Greek immigrant" parents were originally surnamed "Bakirtzoglous",[2] and computer programmer Linda (later Sinrod), daughter of electrical engineer and x-ray technology expert Malvern J. Gross.[3][4] Baker attendedOberlin College nearCleveland, Ohio from 1984 to 1986,[5] where he worked as a reporter and editor for the student newspaper,The Oberlin Review.[6] He left Oberlin at the school's insistence because according to him, he "was not a good student." Baker never completed the coursework for an earned degree, although he was granted an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts by the school in 2021.[7]
After attending college, Baker worked forThe Washington Times for two years.[citation needed][clarification needed] He joinedThe Washington Post in 1988 as a reporter coveringVirginia news. He was there for 20 years, covering theWhite House during the presidencies ofBill Clinton andGeorge W. Bush.[8] During his first tour at theWhite House, Baker co-authored the paper's first story about theClinton-Lewinsky scandal and was the paper's lead writer during theimpeachment battle which ensued. He then published his first book,The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton through Scribner, aNew York Times bestseller based on his coverage of the impeachment proceedings in Congress. During his next White House assignment, he covered the travails of Bush's second term, from theIraq War andHurricane Katrina toSupreme Court nomination fights and the economy.
In between the stints at the White House, Baker and his wife,Susan Glasser, were bureau chiefs inMoscow for four years chronicling the rise ofVladimir Putin, the rollback of Russian democracy, theSecond Chechen War, and theBeslan school hostage crisis. Baker also covered the wars in Afghanistan andIraq.[9] He was the first American newspaper journalist to report from rebel-held northernAfghanistan after September 11, 2001. For the next eight months he reported on the overthrow of theTaliban and the emergence of a new government. He later was in the Middle East for six months, reporting from insideSaddam Hussein's Iraq and around the region before embedding with theU.S. Marines on the drive toBaghdad.[10]
In May 2005, Baker published his second book,Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the End of Revolution throughScribner, co-written with Glasser, a detailed accounting of Putin's consolidation of power during his first term aspresident of Russia. It was named one of the Best Books of 2005 byThe Washington Post Book World. While serving as White House correspondent forThe Washington Post, he won the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency in 2007 for his "exceptionally trenchant appraisal" of the achievements and shortfalls of the second year of George W. Bush's second term in office.[11]
In 2008, after 20 years withThe Washington Post, Baker began working forThe New York Times. He received the 2011Aldo Beckman Memorial Award for his "remarkable run" of detailed coverage of the second year of PresidentObama's first term.[12] Baker again won the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency and the Aldo Beckman Memorial Award in 2015.[13] In October 2013, he published his third book,Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House throughDoubleday, a detailed narrative account of the two-term presidency of George W. Bush.[14] It was listed as one of the10 Best Books of 2013 byThe New York Times Book Review.[15] In June 2017, he published his fourth book,Obama: The Call of History throughNew York Times/Callaway, a coffeetable book about Obama's two terms in office. In November 2017, it was nominated for anNAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Biography/Autobiography.[16]
After being briefly assigned as theJerusalem bureau chief for theTimes, in December 2016, Baker was reassigned back to the White House beat for the incoming administration of PresidentDonald Trump.[17] In October 2018, Baker published a book withRandom House entitledImpeachment: An American History, along withJon Meacham,Timothy Naftali, and Jeffrey A. Engel.[18] An updated and greatly expanded version of the Obama book will be published as a regular book in May 2019. He and Glasser wrote a biography of former Secretary of StateJames A. Baker III published by Doubleday in 2020.
In addition to his work for MSNBC, Baker is a regular panelist onPBS'sWashington Week.[19] In September 2022, a third book co-written with his wife, Susan Glasser,The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021 was published.
In 2000, he marriedSusan Glasser in a civil ceremony.[2] Susan has been a reporter and assistant managing editor atThe Washington Post, the editor-in-chief ofForeign Policy magazine, the founding editor ofPolitico Magazine, the editor ofPolitico, and a global affairs analyst forCNN.[21][22][23][24] She is a staff writer forThe New Yorker and she wrote its Letter from Trump's Washington. They live inWashington, D.C.
Their son,Theo Baker, is the youngest person to win aPolk Award for reporting (when he was eighteen) allegations that some research papers byMarc Tessier-Lavigne, then the president ofStanford University, had manipulated images.[25][26]
