Nicholas Lemann

{{external media| float = left| video1 = [https://bigthink.com/videos/nicholas-lemann-growing-up-jewish-in-the-american-south/ "Nicholas Lemann: Growing Up Jewish in the American South"], Big Think}}

Nicholas Lemann was born, raised, and educated in a Jewish family{{cite web|url=http://bigthink.com/videos/nicholas-lemann-growing-up-jewish-in-the-american-south|title=Nicholas Lemann: Growing Up Jewish in the American South - Big Think|author=Nicholas Lemann|work=Big Think}} in New Orleans. He describes his family's faith as a "kind of super-Reform Judaism" where there were "no kosher laws, no bar mitzvahs, no tallit, no kippot".{{cite web|url=http://forward.com/articles/175310/nicholas-lemann-talks-about-journalisms-hazy-futur/|title=Nicholas Lemann Talks About Journalism's Hazy Future|work=Forward.com|author=Seth Berkman|date=April 24, 2013|access-date=May 28, 2017}}

He was educated at Metairie Park Country Day School,{{cite web|url=https://www.mpcds.com/page/list-detail?pk=83606&fromId=221070|title=Metairie Park Country Day — Nicholas Lemann 1972|work=Metairie Park Country Day School|access-date=27 May 2017}} a private school in New Orleans, from which he graduated in 1972, followed by Harvard University, where he studied American history and literature, and was president of The Harvard Crimson, where he wrote the Brass Tacks column, and from which he graduated magna cum laude in 1976.

Lemann began his journalism career as a 17-year-old writer for an alternative weekly, the Vieux Carre Courier, in his home city of New Orleans. In 1975, amid reports of mass murder in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge, Lemann wrote, "I continue to support the Khmer Rouge in its principles and goals but I have to admit that I deplore the way they are going about it."{{cite news|last1=Lemann|first1=Nick|title=Cambodia and Crimson Politics {{!}} News {{!}} The Harvard Crimson|url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1975/9/1/cambodia-and-crimson-politics-pbobne-day/|work=www.thecrimson.com|language=en}} After graduation, he worked at the Washington Monthly, as an associate editor and then managing editor; at Texas Monthly, as an associate editor and then executive editor; at The Washington Post, as a member of the national staff; at The Atlantic Monthly, as national correspondent; and at The New Yorker, as staff writer and then Washington correspondent.

Lemann won the 1980 Raymond Clapper Memorial Award "...for a series of stories outlining the plight of a family on welfare."{{cite news|author=UPI ARCHIVES|date=April 26, 1981|title=The White House Correspondents Association presented the annual Merriman...|work=United Press International|url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/04/26/The-White-House-Correspondents-Association-presented-the-annual-Merriman/3587357109200/}}

On September 1, 2003, Lemann became dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.{{cite news|title=Columbia Names Dean for its Journalism School|author=Karen W. Arenson |author-link=Karen W. Arenson |newspaper=The New York Times|date=April 16, 2003|url=https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40710F9355F0C758DDDAD0894DB404482&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fL%2fLemann%2c%20Nicholas}} During Lemann's time as dean, the Journalism School launched and completed its first capital fundraising campaign, added 20 members to its full-time faculty, built a student center, started its first new professional degree program since the 1930s, and launched initiatives in investigative reporting, digital journalism, executive leadership for news organizations, and other areas.[http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/profile/50 Profile] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131211012333/http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/profile/50 |date=2013-12-11 }} at Columbia Journalism School. He stepped down as dean in 2013, following two five-year terms.{{cite news| url=http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/09/lemann-to-step-down-as-dean-of-journalism-school-at-columbia/ | work=The New York Times | first=Christine | last=Haughney | title=Lemann to Step Down as Dean of Journalism School at Columbia | date=October 9, 2012}}

In 2015, Lemann launched Columbia Global Reports, a university-funded publishing imprint that produces four to six ambitious works of journalism and analysis a year, each on a different underreported story in the world.{{Cite web |url=https://www.cjr.org/analysis/columbia_global_reports.php |title=Could a university be the savior longform journalism has been looking for? |last=Murtha |first=Jack |work=Columbia Journalism Review |quote=The university-funded publisher aims to produce novella-length narratives, sprinkled with analysis, on underreported stories rooted in globalization...Unlike most traditional book publishers (but like high-end magazines), Columbia Global Reports fact checks, pays writers' expenses, and has a total production time, from signed contract to store shelves, that's measured in months, not years |date=September 22, 2015 |access-date=January 2, 2021}} From 2017 to early 2021, he was the director of Columbia World Projects.{{Cite web|title=Avril Haines Moves From Columbia World Projects to the Center of the World's Stage|url=https://news.columbia.edu/news/avril-haines-moves-columbia-world-projects-center-worlds-stage|access-date=2022-01-04|website=Columbia News|language=en}}

Lemann is the author or editor of several books, including Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream (2019), Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War (2006); The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy (1999); and The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America (1991), which won several book prizes. He has written widely for such publications as The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, and Slate; worked in documentary television with Blackside, Inc., Frontline, the Discovery Channel, and the BBC; and lectured at many universities.

Lemann serves on the boards of directors of the Authors Guild, the National Academy of Sciences' Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, and the Academy of Political Science, and is a member of the New York Institute for the Humanities. He was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in April 2010.

Lemann has been married twice. His first wife was Dominique Alice Browning, who later became an editor in chief of House & Garden. They married on May 20, 1983,{{cite news | title = Dominique A. Browning Marries Nicholas Lemann | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/21/style/dominique-a-browning-marries-nicholas-lemann.html | date = 1983-05-21 | newspaper = New York Times}} have two sons, Alexander and Theodore, and later divorced. His second wife is Judith Anne Shulevitz, a columnist for Slate, The New York Times Book Review, and The New Republic. Married on November 7, 1999,{{cite news | title = Judith Shulevitz, Nicholas Lemann | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/07/style/judith-shulevitz-nicholas-lemann.html?pagewanted=/ | date = November 7, 1999 | newspaper = New York Times}} they have a son and a daughter.{{cite journal|journal=Harvard Magazine|url=http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/090572.html|title=The Press Professor|date=Sep–Oct 2005|author=Anne Stuart|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061201105952/http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/090572.html|archive-date=2006-12-01}}

{{Incomplete list|date=August 2016}}{{bots|deny=Citation bot}}

===Books===

• {{cite journal |date=June 1986 |title=The origins of the underclass - part I |journal=The Atlantic Monthly |volume=257 |issue=6 |pages=31–55 |url=https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1986/06/257-6/132588086.pdf }}
• {{cite journal |date=July 1986 |title=The origins of the underclass - part II |journal=The Atlantic Monthly |volume=258 |issue=1 |pages=54–68 |url=https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1986/07/258-1/132588148.pdf }}
• 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
• September 2005 [http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/050912ta_talk_lemann commentary] on Hurricane Katrina
• August 2006 article on Citizen journalism, titled [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060807fa_fact1 "Amateur Hour: Journalism Without Journalists"]
• August 2007 commentary titled [http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2007/08/27/070827taco_talk_lemann Rovian Ways] on Karl Rove's resignation and legacy
• {{cite journal |date=April 15, 2013 |title=When the earth moved : what happened to the environmental movement? |department=The Critics. A Critic at Large |journal=The New Yorker |volume=89 |issue=9 |pages=73–76 |url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/04/15/when-the-earth-moved }}
• {{cite journal |date=Winter 2014 |title=The soul of the university |journal=Carnegie Reporter |volume=7 |issue=3 |pages=2‒6, 83‒84 |url=https://www.carnegie.org/publications/carnegie-reporter-vol-7no-3-the-big-picture-assessing-the-future-of-higher-education/ }}
• {{cite journal |date=March 22, 2021 |title=Bigger and better |department=The Talk of the Town. Comment |journal=The New Yorker |volume=97 |issue=5 |pages=11, 14 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/22/the-stimulus-bill-is-the-most-economically-liberal-legislation-in-decades }}Online version is titled "The stimulus bill is the most economically liberal legislation in decades".
• {{cite journal |date=May 30, 2022 |title=Give until it hurts |department=The Critics. Books |journal=The New Yorker |volume=98 |issue=14 |pages=70–73 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/05/30/would-the-world-be-better-off-without-philanthropists-paul-vallely-emma-saunders-hastings }}Online version is titled "Would the world be better off without philanthropists?".

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;Bibliography notes

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• {{C-SPAN|796}}
• {{Internet Archive film clip|id=openmind_ep1743|description="The Open Mind - "The further education of a journalist", Part I (2006)"}}
• {{Internet Archive film clip|id=openmind_ep1744|description="The Open Mind - "The further education of a journalist", Part II (2006)}}

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Category:Living people

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Category:American journalism academics

Category:The Atlantic (magazine) people

Category:Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism faculty

Category:Columbia University faculty

Category:The Harvard Crimson people

Category:Jewish American academics

Category:The New York Times journalists

Category:The New Yorker people

Category:Harvard College alumni

Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

Category:21st-century American Jews

Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society

Category:Writers from New Orleans

Category:Jewish American journalists