Five years after founding The Times’s flagship newsletter, Mr. Leonhardt recently began a new role on Opinion, overseeing the editing and writing of the paper’s editorials.
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Millions of readers know David Leonhardt as — until recently — the voice of The Morning, The New York Times’s flagship newsletter that he founded in 2020.
But his byline goes way back. In his 25-year career at The New York Times, Mr. Leonhardt has held more than half a dozen titles. He joined the paper in 1999 as a Business reporter, covering management and the workplace. He became the Washington bureau chief in 2011, reshaping the desk’s operations to become more digitally focused. He helped start The Upshot, The Times’s data-driven arm, in 2014. He had a stint with The Times’s Opinion section, from 2016 to 2020, before starting The Morning that May.
It was yet another instance of him reimagining an aspect of the newspaper business in an innovative way.
“One of the things that’s been really exciting for me is that you can reinvent your own job at this place without leaving,” said Mr. Leonhardt, 52, who won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2011 for his columns on the financial crisis, health care and other subjects.
Now, after five years as a constant presence in readers’ inboxes explaining issues such as the side effects of Covid vaccines and whether it makes more sense to rent or buy a home, he began a new role earlier this month with Times Opinion: editorial director. In that capacity, he will oversee the editing and writing of The Times’s editorials, essays that reflect the opinions of members of the editorial board.
In a recent interview, he reflected on what he has learned in his role guiding readers through the biggest issues of the day. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.