Andrew Ross Sorkin

Andrew Ross Sorkin (born February 19, 1977) is a columnist for the New York Times.[1] and is the newspaper's chief mergers and acquisitions reporter.

Sorkin graduated from Scarsdale (NY) High School in 1995 and earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University in 1999. Sorkin first joined The Times during his senior year in high school, as a student intern. He also worked for the paper while he was in college, publishing 71 articles before he graduated. He began by writing media and technology articles while assisting Stuart Elliott, The Times’ advertising columnist. Sorkin spent the Summer of 1996 working for Business Week, before returning to The Times. He moved to London for part of 1998, writing about European business and technology for The Times, and then returned to Cornell to complete his studies.

Sorkin joined the Times full time in 1999 as the newspaper's chief European mergers and acquisitions reporter, based in London, and became The Times' chief mergers and acquisitions reporter, based in New York, the following year, a position he still holds. In addition, Sorkin started his well-regarded financial-news blog, DealBook, in March 2006 (transformed from a daily emailed newsletter of the same name launched in October 2001), which he continues to edit. He writes a column by the same name (since 2004) in the Tuesday editions (initially in Sunday editions). In March 2009, Sorkin is expected to publish the 2000th article that he has written or co-written for The Times. Sorkin has written or contributed to 120 front-page articles.

Sorkin has appeared on NBC's Today show, Charlie Rose on PBS (11 appearances since 2004), PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, BBC World Service, and is a frequent guest host of CNBC’s Squawk Box. He won a Gerald Loeb Award, given for business journalism, in 2004 for breaking news. He also won a Society of American Business Editors and Writers Award for breaking news in 2005 and again in 2006. In 2007, the World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader. Also in 2007, SiliconAlleyInsider.com named Sorkin one of New York's "most influencial scribes." In 2008, Vanity Fair msgazine named Sorkin as one of 40 new members of the "Next Establishment," noting that he "not only breaks news, [but also] was one of only a few journalists invited to Herb Allen’s [2008 annual media] mogulfest, in Sun Valley, Idaho."

In January 2009, Sorkin began hosting a weekly seven-part, half-hour PBS talk-show series called "It's the Economy, NY," which focuses on how the evolving economic crisis is affecting New Yorkers. Guests have included Richard Parsons, Steve Forbes, Mort Zuckerman, Jon Corzine, Barry Diller and Niall Ferguson, as well as Jim Cramer and Jeff Madrick. An interview with journalist Michael Wolff became contentious when Wolff questioned the continued viability of The New York Times, Sorkin's employer, as an independent company.

In September 2008, Sorkin received a $700,000 advance from Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Press, USA, for a book on the ongoing Wall Street banking crisis. The book, to be entitled Too Big to Fail, is scheduled for publication on Ocober 6, 2009. It is expected to be approximately 350 pages.

Sorkin became embroiled in a controversy when he argued for a government-sponsored bankruptcy for General Motors in a November 18, 2008, Times column. Sorkin wrote: "At G.M.[General Motors], as of 2007, the average worker was paid about $70 an hour, including health care and pension costs." CNBC commentator Keith Olbermann disputed that figure, citing an independent study placing it at less than half -- closer to $28 an hour. Olbermann called Sorkin the "World's Worst Person," stating that the figure was "mathematically and intellectually dishonest" because the cited wage includes health and benefit costs paid to retired workers and their surviving spouses, which are unrelated and not paid to current workers. Just weeks later, on December 9, 2008, Sorkin's Times colleague David Leonhardt backed away from Sorkin's wage figure, reporting that "Big Three workers aren’t making anything close to $73 an hour (which would translate to about $150,000 a year)." Leonhardt noted that the number (which varies from $70-$77) came from the car companies themselves, and was calculated using the questionable method described by Olbermann. In later articles, published on February 3 and 13, 2009, The Times used the lower, $28-an-hour number.

The same Sorkin column called for G.M.'s chief executive to be fired. Times executive editor Bill Keller said that "stepped over the line" of the paper's standards, Public Editor Clark Hoyt reported on November 30, 2008. “Subtlety and restraint are important in news columns,” Keller told Hoyt. Sorkin defended the tone of his column, believing that readers understand the differing roles of news reporter and columnist.

Sorkin married Pilar Jenny Queen, a literary agent at Inkwell Management, on June 9, 2007. They live in Manhattan.

Sorkin's father is Laurence Sorkin, an attorney at Cahill, Gordon & Reindel, which serves as outside counsel to The New York Times.