Elisabeth Bumiller

Elisabeth Bumiller
Bumiller in interview on U.S. Air Force deployment in 2009
Born	(1956-05-15) May 15, 1956 (age 68) Aalborg, Denmark
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Northwestern University Columbia University
Occupation	Washington bureau chief for The New York Times
Spouse	Steven R. Weisman ​ (m. 1983)​
Children	2

Elisabeth Bumiller (born May 15, 1956)^[1] is an American author and journalist who served as the Washington bureau chief for The New York Times from September 2015 until November 2024.^[2]

Early life and education

Bumiller was born in Aalborg, Denmark, to a Danish mother, Gunhild Bumiller Rose and an American father, Theodore R. Bumiller.^[3][4][5] Her mother was a nurse and her father an adventure-film photographer and producer.^[4] The family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, when she was three years old.^[3] Bumiller attended Walnut Hills High School, where she reported for the school newspaper, the Walnut Hills Chatterbox.^[3] She graduated in 1974.^[6]

Bumiller then attended Northwestern University as an undergraduate in the Medill School of Journalism, graduating in 1977.^[3] She wrote for the Daily Northwestern.^[3] She received a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979.^[3]

Career

Bumiller began her career at the Miami Herald.^[7] Her first journalism job in Washington was party reporter for The Washington Post's "Style" section, where she covered Washington society.^[3] In this role, Bumiller followed First Lady Nancy Reagan to the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer.^[3]

In 1985, Bumiller moved to India and continued to write for the Style section of the Post.^[3] She also wrote her first book, May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons (Ballantine, 1991), described as "examination of daily life for women in India."^[3] In 1989, when her husband Steven R. Weisman became Tokyo bureau chief for the Times, the couple moved again to Japan, where Bumiller continued to work for the Post and also began work on a second book, The Secrets of Mariko (Vintage, 1996).^[3]

In 1992, Bumiller and Weisman moved to New York, where Weisman took up the post as deputy foreign editor for the Times.^[3] In 1995, Bumiller joined her husband at the Times, as a general assignment metro reporter.^[3]

From fall 1999 until 2001, Bumiller became New York City Hall bureau chief, where she covered the mayoral administration of Rudolph Giuliani and Giuliani's abortive 2000 bid for the U.S. Senate against Hillary Clinton.^[3][7] During this time, Bumiller was a contributor to the "Public Lives" column, which profiled city officials.^[3]

In 2001, Bumiller was promoted to White House correspondent for the Times, serving in that role from September 10, 2001, to 2006.^[3][7] Weisman followed her to become the paper's senior diplomatic correspondent for the Times.^[3]

Bumiller was criticized by Eric Boehlert and Glenn Greenwald for failing to question George W. Bush on the run-up to the Iraq War. Reflecting on a March 6, 2003, presidential press conference before the invasion of Iraq, Bumiller said: "I think we were very deferential because ... it's live, it's very intense, it's frightening to stand up there. Think about it, you're standing up on prime-time live TV asking the president of the United States a question when the country's about to go to war. There was a very serious, somber tone that evening, and no one wanted to get into an argument with the president at this very serious time."^[8] At a panel discussion sponsored by Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism in November 2004, Bumiller stated: "You can't just say the president is lying...You can in an editorial, but I'm sorry, you can't in a news column...You can say Mr. Bush's statement was not factually accurate. You can't say the president is lying—that's a judgment call."^[9]

Beginning in June 2006, Bumiller took a one-year leave of absence from the Times to write a biography of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.^[10][11] During this period, Bumiller was also a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (September 2006—February 2007)^[12] and a Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund.^[13] Bumiller's book, Condoleezza Rice: An American Life, was published by Random House in December 2007.^[14] The book, which was based on ten interviews with Rice^[14] as well as interviews from 150 others, portrays Rice catering to Bush's desire to invade Iraq, and it describes her being taken completely by surprise when Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections.^[15] Jacob Heilbrunn, reviewing the book in The New York Times, wrote that Bumiller "brings a keen eye to Rice, probing not only her tenure as a policy maker and her close ties to George W. Bush, but also her personal and professional past.^[14]

In 2008, Bumiller covered the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain for the Times.^[7] During the campaign, McCain at times clashed with Bumiller and other Times writers.^[16][17] From 2008 to early 2013, Bumiller served as Pentagon correspondent; in this role, she traveled with the Secretary of Defense and was embedded with U.S. forces in Afghanistan.^[7] In May 2009, the Times published a controversial front-page article by Bumiller citing an unreleased Pentagon report for the proposition that one in seven detainees released from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp "returned to terrorism or militant activity"; this figure was criticized as inflated in a Times op-ed by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann,^[18] and Times public editor Clark Hoyt wrote that editors should have taken a more skeptical approach.^[19]

Subsequently, Bumiller was named Washington editor.^[20] In September 2015, executive editor Dean Baquet of The New York Times announced that Bumiller would replace Carolyn Ryan as the Washington bureau chief.^[20]

Personal life

In fall 1979, Bumiller met Steven R. Weisman, then the White House correspondent for The New York Times,^[3] and the two married in 1983 in an interfaith ceremony at their home in Georgetown.^[4] They have two children: a girl born in Japan and their second child, a boy was born after the couple moved to New York in the early 1990s.^[3]

References

1. Bumiller, Elisabeth (2011). "About the author". May you be the mother of a hundred sons: a journey among the women of India. New York: Penguin Books. p. i. ISBN 9781299042285.
2. "Dick Stevenson Is Our Next Washington Bureau Chief". The New York Times Company. November 22, 2024. Retrieved November 22, 2024.
3. Zeifman, Rebecca (Summer 2005). "On the Bush beat: New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller has become adept at covering the tight-lipped White House". Northwestern (alumni publication). Northwestern University. Retrieved August 17, 2005.
4. "Steven Weisman Weds Miss Bumiller". The New York Times. October 24, 1983. Rabbi Harold White and the Rev. William Bumiller, an Episcopal priest and uncle of the bride, performed the ceremony at the couple's Georgetown home.
5. "Obituary for Theodore R Bumiller". The Cincinnati Enquirer. June 28, 2004.
6. "Walnut Hills High School - Alumni Hall of Fame Dinner". April 30, 2011. Archived from the original on March 23, 2012. Retrieved April 30, 2011.
7. Biography of Elisabeth Bumiller (PDF). League of Women Voters of Scarsdale (LWVS) May 2015 Annual Luncheon. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 18, 2019. Retrieved December 2, 2015.
8. Boehlert, Eric (May 4, 2006). "Lapdogs". Salon.

   Cited in:

   • Greenwald, Glenn (2007). "The Manichean Road to Baghdad". A tragic legacy: how a good vs. evil mentality destroyed the Bush Presidency. New York: Crown Publishers. pp. 117–118. ISBN 9780307395214.

   and:

   • Cardaras, Mary (2013). "The news media: reporting and the run-up to war". Fear, power, and politics: the recipe for war in Iraq after 9/11. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. p. 187. ISBN 9780739179956.

9. FAIR (January–February 2005). "You can't just say the President is lying". Extra! (newsletter). Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Transcript of panel discussion in Washington, D.C., sponsored by Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism (November 4, 2004).
10. E&P Staff (March 1, 2006). "Bumiller of 'NYT' writing Condi bio, will take leave". Editor & Publisher. Archived from the original on December 8, 2015. Retrieved December 2, 2015.
11. Observer Staff (March 6, 2006). "Off the record". The New York Observer.
12. "Former Public Policy Scholar: Elisabeth Bumiller". wilsoncenter.org. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
13. "Dundon, Bumiller join GMF as Transatlantic Fellows". German Marshall Fund of the United States. June 3, 2010. Archived from the original on July 18, 2018. Retrieved December 2, 2015.
14. Heilbrunn, Jacob (January 20, 2008). "Consent and advise". The New York Times.
15. Dowd, Maureen (November 28, 2007). "Jump on the peace train". The New York Times.
16. "Transcript: John McCain's exchange with Elisabeth Bumiller". The Wall Street Journal. March 7, 2008.
17. Amira, Dan (September 23, 2008). "McCain's war against the Gray Lady: a timeline". New York.
18. Bergen, Peter; Tiedeman, Katherine (May 28, 2009). "Inflating the Guantánamo threat". The New York Times.
19. Hoyt, Clark (June 6, 2009). "What happened to skepticism?". The New York Times.
20. Byers, Dylan (September 8, 2015). "N.Y. Times D.C. shakeup: Carolyn Ryan out, Elisabeth Bumiller in as bureau chief: Ryan to focus on 2016 campaign". Politico.

External links

• Profile in Northwestern Alumni Magazine
• Interview with Elle Magazine
• Elisabeth Bumiller at IMDb
• Appearances on C-SPAN