Remnick was born to a Jewish family[2] in Hackensack, New Jersey, the son of Barbara (Seigel), an art teacher, and Edward C. Remnick, a dentist.[3][4] He was raised in Hillsdale, New Jersey, in a Jewish home with, he has said, "a lot of books around."[5] He attended Yavneh Academy in Paramus.[6] Remnick was also a childhood friend of comedian Bill Maher.[7] He attended Pascack Valley High School in Hillsdale.[8] At Pascack Valley High School he studied Russian and was thereby inspired to also study the politics and culture of the USSR.
He was graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1981 with an A.B. in comparative literature; there he met writer John McPhee, was a member of the University Press Club, and helped found The Nassau Weekly.[9] Remnick completed a 122-page-long senior thesis titled "The Sympathetic Thread: 'Leaves of Grass' 1855-1865."[10] Remnick has implied that after college he wanted to write novels, but due to the illnesses of his parents, he needed to get a job. Wanting to be a writer, he took a job at The Washington Post.[11]
Career
The Washington Post
Remnick began his reporting career at The Washington Post in 1982 shortly after his graduation from Princeton.[12] His first assignment was to cover the United States Football League.[13] After six years, in 1988 he became the newspaper's Moscow correspondent, which provided him with the material for Lenin's Tomb. He also received the George Polk Award for excellence in journalism in 1993.[14]
The New Yorker
Remnick became a staff writer at The New Yorker in September 1992, after ten years at The Washington Post.[12]
Remnick's 1997 New Yorker article "Kid Dynamite Blows Up", about boxer Mike Tyson, was nominated for a National Magazine Award.[12] In July 1998, he became editor, succeeding Tina Brown.[15] Remnick promoted Hendrik Hertzberg, a former Jimmy Carter speechwriter and former editor of The New Republic, to write the lead pieces in "Talk of the Town", the magazine's opening section. In 2005, Remnick earned $1 million for his work as the magazine's editor.[16]
In 2003, Remnick penned an editorial in The New Yorker in the lead-up to the Iraq War saying "the United States has been wrong, politically and morally, about Iraq more than once in the past... but... a return to a hollow pursuit of containment will be the most dangerous option of all."[17] In the months leading up to the war, the magazine also published several articles connecting Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida, often relying on unnamed sources, or simply the claims of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, as evidence. The magazine received some criticism for their journalism during this period.[18] The claims that Hussein and al-Qaida had a close operational relationship were false, as confirmed by numerous sources including a U.S military study in 2008.[19]
In 2004, for the first time in its 80-year history, The New Yorker endorsed a presidential candidate, John Kerry.[20]
In May 2009, Remnick was the subject of an extended Twitter thread by former New Yorker staff writer Dan Baum, whose contract with the magazine was not renewed by Remnick. The tweets, written over the course of a week, described the difficult relationship between Baum and Remnick, his editor.[21]
Remnick's biography of President Barack Obama, The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama, was released on April 6, 2010. It features hundreds of interviews with friends, colleagues, and other witnesses to Obama's rise to the presidency of the United States.
In 2010, Remnick lent his support to the campaign urging the release of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning after being convicted of adultery and ordering the murder of her husband by her lover.[22]
^Brennan, Elizabeth A.; Clarage, Elizabeth C. (1999). "1994: David Reminck", in: Who's who of Pulitzer Prize Winners. Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx Press. p. 276. Archived April 27, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
^ abWood, Gaby (September 10, 2006). "The quiet American". The Observer. Retrieved April 10, 2011. "David Remnick was born in 1958 and grew up in Hillsdale, New Jersey, where his father was a dentist and his mother an art teacher."
