Peter Slevin

Peter Slevin is a contributing writer to The New Yorker who spent a decade on The Washington Post’s national staff. He teaches classes on politics and the media; the U.S. role in world affairs; and reporting strategies on current events, from presidential campaigns to the intersection of policing, race, and reparations. He is frequently asked to give talks on the role of journalism in the age of Donald Trump and Trumpism. In May 2025, he was awarded Northwestern’s highest teaching honor when he was named a Charles Deering McCormick Distinguished Professor.

Slevin’s career as a reporter has taken him around the country and the globe, where he has covered events and personalities of every description, taking particular interest in telling stories rich with the voices of the people involved. His ambitious biography of Michelle Obama was voted one of the best biographies of the year by PEN America and Booklist, and was translated into Chinese, Korean and Dutch. In addition to serving as a commentator in documentaries about the former First Lady, he talks about the project in this public radio piece.

After starting his career at a small afternoon newspaper in Hollywood, Florida, Slevin moved to The Miami Herald, where his stint included seven years as European bureau chief, chronicling the collapse of communism in central Europe and the Soviet Union. Later, he reported from Cuba, Haiti and Mexico, then moved to Washington as chief diplomatic correspondent. He joined The Post in 1998, spending two years covering Washington, D.C., before crossing to the national staff in time for the Bush-Gore recount in Florida and the Clinton presidential pardon scandal. As a diplomatic correspondent after the 9/11 attacks, he wrote extensively about U.S. foreign policy and the Iraq war, concentrating on the Bush administration’s controversial post-war planning and the aftermath of the American-led invasion. He has reported from more than 50 countries.

Slevin spent six years as The Post's Chicago bureau chief, delivering deadline work and deeply reported stories, with a special focus on politics and the home front of the Iraq and Afghan wars. He produced long-form pieces about soldiers, their preparations for war and their return home, as well as the impact of war on their families, communities and public opinion.

At Medill, Slevin admires creative approaches to storytelling and believes that some of the best journalism flows from research and critical thinking done before the reporter has asked the first question. Urging his students to start with questions, not answers, and to zig when the press pack zags, he leads an undergraduate seminar titled “Politics, Media and the Republic,” as well as "Dilemmas of American Power," cross-listed with Medill and International Studies, and a seminar called “Police, Politics, Race and Community.” Most recently, he has invented a course called “Covering Trump.” He has guided student reporting trips to Cuba, France and Jordan, as well as to various parts of the United States.

Slevin is a member of the American Studies Governing Committee and the faculty advisory council of Northwestern’s Buffett Institute for Global Affairs. He was one of 11 members of President Michael Schill’s Advisory Committee on Free Expression and Institutional Speech. He lives in Evanston, where he is a board member of the nonprofit Evanston RoundTable news organization.