Dan Froomkin is the editor of , an independent website previously known as . He previously was a senior writer and Washington editor for The Intercept. Prior to that, he was a writer and editor for the The Huffington Post.
Personal history and career
Froomkin was raised in Washington, D.C. In 1997 he joined washingtonpost.com, the Post's relatively new online website, as a senior producer for politics. From 2001 to 2003, he was editor of washingtonpost.com. His column launched on January 12, 2004. In a career in journalism spanning over rwo decades, he had previously worked at The Winston-Salem Journal, The Miami Herald, and The Orange County Register. He was a Michigan Journalism Fellow and editor of new media for Education Week. From 2004 to 2009 he wrote a highly successful column for the online version of The Washington Post called White House Watch and was the Senior Washington Correspondent for the Huffington Post. On June 18, 2009 it was reported that his blog would cease to exist and his employment at The Washington Post was terminated. In July, 2009, he was hired by the Huffington Post. Froomkin subsequently worked as the Washington bureau chief for the Intercept, from Sept., 2014 until May, 2017. In September 2018, Froomkin revived as an independent website. Froomkin's brother is University of Miami Law Professor Michael Froomkin, a prominent blogger who writes on Florida politics and the law.
Publications
From ''White House Briefing'' to ''White House Watch''
In her editorial "The Two Washington Posts", published on December 11, 2005, Washington PostOmbudsmanDeborah Howell observes that the print newspaper The Washington Post and the website washingtonpost.com are two different entities; although "The Post Web site is owned by the Washington Post Co....it is not run by the newspaper. It is a separate company called Washington Post-Newsweek Interactive, or WPNI, with offices in Arlington." Whereas "The Post provides the vast majority of the Web site's content...the Web site has its own staff of 65 editorial employees and its own features.... here are cultural differences between the two newsrooms, which could be expected between a traditional newspaper and the more free-wheeling Web site....The two Posts interact every day.... political reporters at The Post don't like WPNI columnist Dan Froomkin's "White House Briefing," which is highly opinionated and liberal. They're afraid that some readers think that Froomkin is a Post White House reporter." Howell continued: There was some support from reader for Froomkin in editorial correspondence about the matter. On January 30, 2007, White House Briefing was renamed White House Watch.
''Nieman Watchdog: Questions the press should ask''
Froomkin is also deputy editor of Nieman Watchdog: Questions the press should ask, a blog hosted by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University that, according to his account of it, "seeks to encourage more informed reporting by soliciting probing questions from experts."
Firing from the Washington Post
On June 18, 2009, it was reported that Froomkin was being fired by the Washington Post. Froomkin confirmed this in a June 19 entry on White House Watch: "As Washington Post ombudsman Andy Alexander and others reported yesterday, The' Washington Post has terminated my contract. So sometime in late June or early July, I'll be writing my last blog post here." Froomkin was almost immediately hired by the Huffington Post, where he continued to write and edit. His last original column for that publication was September 25, 2013. He joined The Intercept on September 4, 2014. On May 9, 2017, The Intercept announced he was leaving. The Intercept's editor praised Froomkin upon his leaving, writing: "Dan was integral to The Intercept from the start, building up a scrappy and smart bureau from scratch and infusing our independent voice on politics with his skepticism, wisdom, and wit. Dan never wavered in his fierce commitment to the Intercept’s core mission of producing original accountability journalism.
Revival of White House Watch
In September 2018, Froomkin revived as an independent website.
