National Journal Staff

This masthead links to brief biographies, e-mail addresses and recent articles by most National Journal reporters and editors. (Please note that the article archives are accessible to subscribers only.)

All NJ staff can be reached via the main contact number below.

Julie Abramson

Julie Abramson is assistant production editor of National Journal. She earned her B.F.A. in illustration from Rhode Island School of Design and attended the post-baccalaureate program at Maryland Institute, College of Art. Abramson has primarily worked for publishing companies, where she has both designed and illustrated a variety of material.

James A. Barnes

James A. Barnes is the political correspondent for National Journal and creator of the National Journal Insiders Poll. He is also a consultant to CNN for its election night and presidential primary night coverage. He has lectured on the presidency and the presidential nominating process at Oxford University, Stanford University and the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is a graduate of Washington and Lee University.

Randy Barrett

Randy Barrett is the managing editor in charge of National Journal's Inside Washington and People sections. He also writes regularly for the magazine. Most recently, Barrett was a senior writer with National Journal's Technology Daily. Earlier in his career, he was news editor for Interactive Week, and a staff writer for Washington Technology. He graduated magna cum laude from Brown University.

Richard A. Bloom

National Journal's picture editor and chief photographer. Born and raised in the Chicago area, he came to Washington, D.C. to attend George Washington University. Graduating with a BFA in photography, he won the David Lloyd Kreeger Award for Fine Art Photography. He has been with National Journal since 1975.

Carl M. Cannon

Carl Cannon is a White House correspondent for National Journal. In 1999, he was awarded the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency. Before joining the magazine in May of 1998, Cannon worked for six newspapers over a 20-year span. During that time, he covered the White House for the Baltimore Sun and was a member of the San Jose Mercury News staff that won the Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake.

Cannon was elected president of the White House Correspondents' Association in 2003 and in 2004 published The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War. He is also a co-author of Boy Genius, a biography of top Bush White House aide Karl Rove, and serves as the in-house writing coach at National Journal. A native of San Francisco, Cannon attended the University of Colorado, majoring in journalism. He has been a guest on NPR, BBC, CNN, MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews," and makes frequent appearances on Radio Telefís Éireann (RTE), the Irish National Public Service Broadcasting Organization.

Lisa Caruso

Lisa Caruso covers education, immigration and transportation for National Journal. She joined the magazine in 2003 as editor of the People section and later served as a lobbying reporter. Prior to that, she covered budget, appropriations, and the congressional leadership for CongressDaily. A graduate of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, she got her start in journalism at the York Dispatch in York, Pa. before covering environmental issues for Stevens Publishing and Congressional Green Sheets.

Winter Casey

Winter Casey is a People reporter for National Journal and CongressDaily. Casey previously served as staff writer and associate editor of National Journal's Technology Daily. Her former beat included international issues, trade, taxes, education and nanotechnology. She held internship positions with the editorial desk at USA Today, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, The Magazine Group, the State Department's international visitors' program and the foreign desk of The Washington Times. She is an honors graduate of Simon's Rock College of Bard.

Richard E. Cohen

Richard E. Cohen covers Congress for National Journal. He was the 1990 winner of the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for distinguished reporting on Congress. Cohen has authored numerous books about Congress, including a biography of Dan Rostenkowski. Since 2001, he has been co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. Cohen, who began working at NJ in 1973, is a graduate of Brown University and Georgetown University Law Center.

Charlie Cook

Charlie Cook is editor and publisher of The Cook Political Report and political analyst for National Journal Group, where he writes weekly columns for National Journal and CongressDailyAM. Regarded as one of the nation's leading authorities on U.S. elections and political trends, Cook is a frequent guest on television news shows. Prior to joining National Journal Group, Cook wrote a twice-weekly column in Roll Call.

Clive Crook

Clive Crook writes a column about economics and international politics for National Journal. Previously the deputy deputy editor of The Economist, Crook was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, and the London School of Economics. Before joining The Economist he worked as an official in Her Majesty's Treasury in Great Britain.

Jennifer E. Duffy

Jennifer Duffy is an associate editor of National Journal and managing editor of The Cook Political Report, where she is responsible for U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races. She previously worked as press secretary for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. She has served as an off-air analyst for NBC News on election nights. Duffy received a bachelor of arts degree in American government from Georgetown University.

Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.

Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. has covered the military and homeland security for National Journal since November 1997, writing on subjects as diverse as veterans' benefits, nuclear terrorism, military computer networks, and regional tensions between Pakistan and India. He wrote his first article about what became known as "homeland security" in 1998, his first article about what became known as "military transformation" in 1999, and his first article about "asymmetrical warfare" in 2000. Since 2004, he has been conducting in-depth interviews with military personnel about their experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq for a series of stories that combine oral history with policy analysis. One piece in this series, his January 2007 cover story on Marine Corporal Jason Dunham and other servicemembers decorated for valor, won the Atlantic Media Company's internal award for "best story of the year" across all of the company's seven periodical publications.

Before joining National Journal, Sydney Freedberg worked for the late Michael Kelly at The New Republic. He earned a bachelor's degree, summa cum laude, from Harvard University and a master's from Cambridge University (United Kingdom), both in modern European history. He is the son of the late Sydney J. Freedberg Sr., a World War II veteran and historian of Italian Renaissance painting.

Sydney Freedberg lives in Washington, DC with his wife, whom he met while they were both working at National Journal, and their daughter, who loves to sing and dance, especially when it is long past time for bed.

Brian Friel

Brian Friel covers Congress for National Journal. He covers a wide range of topics, from budget and appropriations to Iraq war policy to partisan politics. Friel previously covered education, transportation, justice and immigration for the magazine. Friel, who attended American University, previously served as managing editor of GovExec.com, the Web site of Government Executive magazine. Friel also covered human resources, leadership, and management issues for Government Executive and its Web site.

Steve Gettinger

Steve Gettinger directs coverage of the executive branch and the economy as a managing editor of National Journal. Before coming to NJ, he headed congressional coverage for Bloomberg News after 15 years as a reporter and editor for Congressional Quarterly. A graduate of Pomona College and of Columbia Journalism School, Gettinger is author of Sentenced to Die.

Robert Gettlin

Robert Gettlin is National Journal's managing editor in charge of lobbying coverage. He previously worked for columnist Jack Anderson, States News Service, The Washington Star, and Newhouse Newspapers. In 1991, Gettlin co-authored Silent Coup: The Removal of a President. Gettlin earned a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a master's degree in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University.

Charles Green

Charles Green has been the editor of National Journal since 1999. He spent 17 years in the Washington bureau of Knight-Ridder Newspapers, where his reporting beats included Congress, the White House, politics, and health care policy. Green, a graduate of the University of Maryland, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1992 for a series he wrote on Medicaid.

Shane Harris

Shane Harris writes about intelligence and homeland security for National Journal. He has written extensively about counterterrorism, civil liberties, and domestic surveillance. For five years, Harris was the technology editor and a staff correspondent for Government Executive magazine. Prior to that, he worked as an editor for Movieline magazine in Los Angeles. He graduated from Wake Forest University. He is a Sundance Film Festival screenwriting finalist. In 2007, he was named a finalist for the prestigious Livingston Awards for Young Journalists, which honor the best journalists in America under the age of 35.

Corine Hegland

Corine Hegland covers foreign policy for National Journal. She joined the magazine in 2001 after interning with the Washington Monthly. A graduate of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. and a former Harry S. Truman Scholar, Hegland worked on post-apartheid reconciliation and economic development in South Africa and served as a policy analyst for the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Jim Humes

Jim Humes is an editor on National Journal's copydesk. He began his career working for papers in New Jersey as a reporter and later an editor before moving on to New York for stints at Newsday, The Daily News, and New York Newsday. Before joining NJ, Humes worked at The Washington Post for about 15 years in various editing roles.

James Kitfield

James Kitfield is the national security and foreign affairs correspondent for National Journal. Kitfield has earned numerous awards, including the Gerald R. Ford Award for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense, which he won twice. Kitfield, a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia's Henry Grady School of Journalism, is the author of two books on the military: Prodigal Soldiers and War & Destiny.

Julie Kosterlitz

Julie Kosterlitz has covered a wide range of national political and public policy issues for National Journal since 1985. She has written extensively about social welfare and economics as well as finance and foreign policy. She is currently covering lobbying. Before joining National Journal, Kosterlitz spent four years as an investigative reporter for Common Cause Magazine. Kosterlitz received a B.A. in history with honors at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Margaret Kriz

Margaret Kriz covers energy and environmental issues for National Journal. Kriz joined the magazine in 1987 after writing about environmental issues for the Bureau of National Affairs newsletter company. Kriz has a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois and a master's from American University. In 2002, American Journalism Review named Kriz one of Washington journalism's "unsung heroes." From 2005 to 2006, Kriz was a fellow with the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. Kriz has served on the board of directors of the Society of Environmental Journalists and on the advisory board of the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources.

Kellie Lunney

Kellie Lunney is a reporter for the People section of National Journal and CongressDaily. She has been with the Atlantic Media Co. since February 2000, joining National Journal in November 2003. Previously she was the managing editor of GovExec.com for a year and a half. From 2000 to 2002, she covered federal management and homeland security issues for GovExec.com. She has a bachelor's degree from Colgate University.

John Maggs

John Maggs covers the economy and taxes for National Journal. He previously worked for 11 years at the Journal of Commerce, a daily business newspaper, for most of that time as senior reporter in Washington covering international economics. In that capacity, he traveled frequently to Europe, Asia and Latin America, and is familiar with business and government officials abroad. Maggs attended Columbia College at Columbia University.

Jodie Morris

Jodie Morris is National Journal's managing editor in charge of production. A Pennsylvania native, she is a magna cum laude art graduate of Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pa., and holds a master's degree in communications from Bloomsburg University. Morris has worked as a writer, editor, and graphic artist in journalism and nonprofit public relations for more than 20 years.

Ryan Morris

Ryan Morris is graphics editor for National Journal and The Atlantic. He creates information graphics, maps and other forms of visual journalism. Morris previously served as graphics coordinator for the Washington, D.C., bureau of the Associated Press. He also spent several years working in the graphics department at AP headquarters in New York. Morris has a bachelor's degree in journalism from New York University.

JoAnne Moncrief

JoAnne Moncrief was chief copy editor of National Journal from 1986-2000, and created NJ's electronic style guides. In 2005, she rejoined NJ as a copy editor. Moncrief has edited and copyedited for Macmillan, Pfizer, the American Council on Education, and the American Institute of Architects. In the early '80s, she was project director of a workbook series for Harcourt's classic Warriner's English Grammar and Composition. Moncrief attended Goucher College but transferred to Georgetown when the College of Arts and Sciences opened its doors to women. She holds a B.A. in English from GU.

Neil Munro

Neil Munro writes about the politics of science and the high-tech economy for National Journal. He's the author of The Quick and the Dead, Electronic Combat and Modern Warfare. Munro previously worked for The Washington Post's Washington Technology magazine and Gannett's Defense News. Born in Ireland, Munro graduated from University College Dublin and King's College London.

Joyce Murdoch

Joyce Murdoch is National Journal's managing editor for politics. A former Washington Post editor and reporter, she is the co-author Courting Justice. Murdoch owned and operated an independent news service that covered Congress for Georgia newspapers. She also served stints as a congressional press secretary and as an Atlanta Journal reporter. She is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia.

Patrick B. Pexton

Patrick B. Pexton is the deputy editor of National Journal. He also directs the magazine's coverage of foreign affairs and defense. Pexton previously served as editor of Navy Times and worked as a reporter for the Journal newspapers in the Washington suburbs covering politics and Maryland state government. Author of The President's War, Pexton holds a master's degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

William Powers

William Powers is the media critic for National Journal. His column offers commentary on a broad range of media topics. Before joining National Journal in 1997, he was a staff writer at The Washington Post, and a senior editor of The New Republic. He is a two-time recipient of the National Press Club's Arthur C. Rowse Prize for Press Criticism. Powers is a graduate of Harvard University. In 2006 he was a fellow at Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, which published his study, "Hamlet's Blackberry: Why Paper is Eternal."

Jonathan Rauch

Jonathan Rauch is a columnist for National Journal and a correspondent for The Atlantic. He received a National Magazine Award in 2005 for his NJ columns. The author of several books on public policy, including Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America, Rauch is also a writer in residence at the Brookings Institution. He is a graduate of Yale University.

S. Scott Rohrer

S. Scott Rohrer is National Journal's chief copy editor. He has more than 20 years' experience as a copy editor for magazines and newspapers, including the Charlotte Observer. Rohrer, a former NJ intern, holds a Ph.D. in American history from the University of Virginia and is the author of Hope's Promise: Religion & Acculturation in the Southern Backcountry.

Gregg Sangillo

Gregg Sangillo is a reporter for the People section of National Journal and CongressDaily. He began working for the magazine as a fact checker in November 2000. Sangillo attended West Chester University in Pennsylvania, where he graduated summa cum laude in political science and literature. He earned a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania in political science, focusing on U.S. foreign policy in East Asia.

Malorie Sellers

Malorie Sellers is National Journal's fact checker. She joined the magazine in 2007 after graduating from American University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in Journalism and Law & Society. While an undergraduate, Malorie interned at the D.C. editorial bureau of Forbes.

Marilyn Werber Serafini

Marilyn Werber Serafini has been the health care and welfare reporter for National Journal since 1995, and has won several awards for articles on these subjects. The most recent was from the Association of Health Care Journalists for an article scrutinizing the recent surge in specialty hospitals across the country. She has written extensively about Medicare policy, the uninsured, bioterrorism, and pandemic preparedness. A former reporter with CongressDaily, Serafini has also written about trade, tax, and budget policy. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland and of American University, where she received an M.A. in Journalism and Public Affairs.

Alexis Simendinger

Alexis Simendinger is a national correspondent for National Journal. She previously covered the White House for National Journal and the White House and Congress for the Bureau of National Affairs and was part of a team of BNA reporters that won a National Press Club reporting award in 1996. She earned a master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a bachelor's degree from New College in Sarasota, Fla.

Jill Smallen

Jill Smallen is the managing editor at National Journal who oversees congressional coverage. She served for six years as an editor at CongressDaily before joining National Journal magazine in 1997. Smallen conceived and directed a January 2004 National Journal cover package called "The State of Congress" that won first place in the National Headliner Awards for magazine coverage of a major news event. She attended Penn State University.

Paul Starobin

Paul Starobin writes about a variety of international and domestic topics as a staff correspondent for National Journal and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. Starobin previously was Moscow bureau chief for Business Week magazine and a reporter for Congressional Quarterly. He graduated from Wesleyan University and received a masters degree in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Bruce Stokes

Bruce Stokes covers international economics for National Journal. His awards include the John Hancock award for excellence in business and economics reporting. Stokes is the co-author of America Against the World and author of A New Beginning: Recasting the U.S.-Japan Economic Relationship. A former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Stokes is currently a journalism fellow at the German Marshall Fund and a consultant to the Pew Research Center. In 2004, he was chosen by International Economy magazine as one of the most influential China watchers in the American press. Stokes graduated from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and has a master's degree from the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Peter H. Stone

Peter H. Stone covers lobbying and campaign finance issues for National Journal. He is the author of Heist, a book about former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Stone previously covered legal and lobbying issues for Legal Times and was a business reporter at The Hartford Courant. Stone also spent a decade as a New York-based freelancer. Stone attended the University of Chicago and studied European history.

Monica Sullivan

Monica Sullivan joined National Journal in 2001 as a senior copy editor after 27 years at the League of Women Voters of the United States, where she served as publications director and as editor of the League's quarterly magazine. A Columbus, Ohio native, Sullivan graduated with a degree in American Studies from the University of Dayton in 1974.

Stuart Taylor, Jr.

Stuart Taylor, Jr. is a columnist for National Journal and specializes in coverage of legal affairs. Taylor was previously legal affairs reporter and Supreme Court reporter in the Washington bureau of The New York Times. Before that he was a lawyer with Washington's Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. Taylor, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, is the author of Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case.

Bara Vaida

Bara Vaida covers the lobbying industry for National Journal. Before joining the staff, she covered the high-tech world and its lobbying practices for National Journal Group's Technology Daily during the Internet boom and bust. She has also worked at the Trenton Times, Bloomberg Business News, and AFX News. Vaida earned a bachelor's degree from Hamilton College.

Kirk Victor

Kirk Victor covers the Senate for National Journal. He has also covered lobbying, labor, and telecommunications for the magazine and previously worked at National Law Journal and Legal Times. Victor has a law degree from the Antioch School of Law and was a litigator in the Justice Department's Civil Division. He has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree from Williams College.

David Wasserman

David Wasserman is an associate editor of National Journal and House editor of the Cook Political Report. He joined the Report in 2007 after three years as co-editor of Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball newsletter and website. In that capacity, he served as an off-air analyst for BBC America's Election Night 2006 coverage. He holds a B.A. in government with distinction from the University of Virginia and was awarded the 2006 Emmerich-Wright Outstanding Thesis prize for his study of congressional redistricting standards.

Jake Welch

Jake Welch is the production editor of National Journal. A Massachusetts native, he grew up in Connecticut and attended John Carroll University. He graduated from American University. Welch has been with National Journal for more than 30 years.

Jan Foerster Zimmeck

Jan Foerster Zimmeck designs National Journal's cover and feature stories. She holds a BFA from Wittenberg University and The School of Visual Arts. She has served as publications director for George Mason University and design consultant for Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Government Executive, Common Cause Magazine, and U.S. News and World Report. Her awards include first and second place for cover design from the National Headliner Awards.