Is Maggie Haberman ‘The Greatest Political Reporter Working Today?’

Image by Getty Images

By Nathan Guttman May 25, 2017

President Trump calls her “third-rate,” “sad” and “totally in the Hillary circle of bias,” but New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman is still the commander-in-chief’s go-to journalist when he needs to share, vent, or complain.

An extensive Elle magazine profile of Haberman crowned the 43-year-old reporter as the must-read source for anyone interested in “what Donald Trump is really thinking.”

Haberman grew up in New York’s Upper West Side breathing journalism at home, with her father Clyde, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, and her mother Nancy, a publicist at the prominent Rubinstein communications firm.

Covering New York local politics, a beat that included figures like Hillary Clinton and Trump, gave Haberman a leg up as she moved to national political coverage with Politico and then the Times.

And as a seasoned, fearless reporter who is deeply respected by her colleagues, Haberman has a message to all those still trying to overcome Trump’s election victory. “I think people have to move past that, because otherwise you’re just never going to be able to cover him,” she said. “Every moment cannot be, ‘Wow! Can you believe what he just did?’ Yes, I can! Because he is the same person he was during the campaign.”

Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected] or on Twitter @nathanguttman

Nathan Guttman, staff writer, was the Forward’s Washington bureau chief. He joined the staff in 2006 after serving for five years as Washington correspondent for the Israeli dailies Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. In Israel, he was the features editor for Ha’aretz and chief editor of Channel 1 TV evening news. He was born in Canada and grew up in Israel. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO