Michael S. Schmidt
Michael S. Schmidt | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1983 (age 40–41) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Lafayette College (2005) |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Employer | The New York Times |
Michael S. Schmidt (born 1983) is an American journalist and correspondent for The New York Times in Washington, D.C.[1]
Early life and education
Schmidt grew up in Nyack, New York, and went to high school in Richmond, Virginia.[2] He graduated from Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania in 2005 with an AB in International Affairs after founding and editing Marooned.[3]
Career
In 2004, Schmidt worked at The Boston Globe.[2]
Schmidt began working for The Times as a news clerk in 2005. In December 2007, he was made a staff reporter, covering performance-enhancing drugs and legal issues in sports.[4][5][6]
In 2009, Schmidt broke the stories that David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez [7] and Sammy Sosa[8] were among the roughly 100 players who tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2003.
In 2010, Schmidt broke the story about how the firm of baseball super agent Scott Boras had provided tens of thousands of dollars in loans to a young prospect, raising questions about whether Boras' firm had broken rules designed to prevent players from being exploited.[9]
Schmidt was a correspondent for The Times in Iraq in 2011. During his time in Iraq, he uncovered a series of classified documents in a junkyard in Baghdad. The documents were testimony from Marines about the 2005 Haditha Massacre. In that incident, the Marines had killed 26 Iraqi civilians. An Iraqi junkyard attendant had used other classified American documents to cook smoked carp.[10] The story, which ran as American troops were leaving Iraq in 2011, was widely praised.[11]
In 2012, he became a Washington correspondent for The Times, covering national security and federal law enforcement.[12] In March of 2015, Schmidt broke the story that Hillary Rodham Clinton had exclusively used a personal email account when she was secretary of state. [13] The story prompted Mrs. Clinton to announce that she would release all of her work related emails from her time in office. [14]
Since breaking the story, he has been the lead reporter covering the Hillary Clinton email controversy.
Defenders of Mrs. Clinton have said that Schmidt's coverage of her is not fair and he has been frequently criticized by the group Media Matters[15][16]
In May 2015, Schmidt was part of a group of Times reporters who broke a series of stories about the Justice Department charging FIFA executives. Schmidt was in the lobby of a hotel in Switzerland when law enforcement officers arrested the executives.[17]
In December 2015, a New York Times story by Schmidt and Apuzzo (written together with Julia Preston) criticized the US government for missing crucial evidence during the visa vetting process for Tashfeen Malik, who would later become one of the shooters in the 2015 San Bernardino attack.[18] The director of the FBI dismissed the reporting as "garble" and it turned out that rather than having "talked openly on social media about her views on violent jihad" as stated in the NYT article, she had mentioned these in private communications.[19]
The New York Times' public editor called for "systemic changes" after these articles by Schmidt and his coauthors (both of which had relied on anonymous government sources), describing these problems as a "red alert" highlighting the need for more diligent and skeptical reporting and editing.[19]
References
- ^ Schmidt, Michael S. "Michael S. Schmidt - The New York Times". Topics.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2016-06-11.
- ^ a b John Koblin. "Meet Michael Schmidt, the Young Times Writer Who Exposes Baseball's Worst". The New York Observer. Retrieved 11 July 2015.
- ^ "About · Lafayette College". Lafayette.edu. Retrieved 2016-06-11.
- ^ "U.S. investors are commodifying Dominican ballplayers - HardballTalk". NBC Sports. Retrieved 11 July 2015.
- ^ Schmidt, Michael S. "Jeter Said to Be Asking $23 Million to $24 Million a Year". Retrieved 11 June 2016.
- ^ New York Observer: Ah, Yes! Michael Schmidt Again. John Koblin. August 19, 2010
- ^ "Ortiz and Ramirez Said to Be on '03 Doping List". The New York Times. 31 July 2009. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
- ^ "Sosa Is Said to Have Tested Positive in 2003". The New York Times. 17 June 2009. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
- ^ "Sports Agent's Loans to Poor Players Pose Concerns". 23 November 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2016 – via The New York Times.
- ^ "Junkyard Gives Up Secret Accounts of Massacre in Iraq". The New York Times. 15 December 2011. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
- ^ "Q&A: New York Times Iraq reporter Michael S. Schmidt - Columbia Journalism Review". Cjr.org. Retrieved 2016-06-11.
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on July 17, 2015. Retrieved July 11, 2015.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ Schmidt, Michael S. (2015-03-02). "Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email Account at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2015-12-22.
- ^ "Hillary Clinton Says She's Asked State Department to Release Emails - NBC News". NBC News. Retrieved 2015-12-22.
- ^ "New York Times Reporter Acknowledges He Doesn't Know How Other Agencies Responded To Issa's Email Inquiry". Media Matters for America. Retrieved 2015-12-22.
- ^ Schmidt, Michael S.; Apuzzo, Matt (2015-04-07). "South Carolina Officer Is Charged With Murder of Walter Scott". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2015-12-22.
- ^ "How The New York Times Staked Out A Swiss Hotel To Cover FIFA Arrests". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2015-12-22.
- ^ Drum, Kevin (2015-12-16). "Strike Two for Pair of New York Times Reporters". Mother Jones.
- ^ a b Sullivan, Margaret (2015-12-18). "Systemic Change Needed After Faulty Times Article". The New York Times - Public Editor's Journal.