Sam Dolnick is an American journalist, film and television producer, and deputy managing editor for The New York Times. ^[1] He helped launch The Daily podcast and the documentary series, The Weekly. ^[2]

Biography

Dolnick was born to novelist Edward Dolnick and Lynn Iphigene Golden, who met at Brandeis University as students. ^{[3] [4]} His mother is the daughter of Ruth Sulzberger Holmberg and a granddaughter of The New York Times publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger and his wife, Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger. ^[5] Through his mother, a director of The New York Times and the Smithsonian Zoo, ^[6] he is a fifth-generation member of the Ochs-Sulzberger family that owns the newspaper. ^[7] He has a brother, Ben Dolnick, who is a novelist. ^[8] He is also the nephew of Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha, and Michael Golden, former publisher of the International Herald Tribune and vice chairman of The New York Times Company. ^[8]

Dolnick graduated from Georgetown Day School, where he played basketball, ^[9] and received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University. ^{[4] [10] [11]} After graduating from Columbia, he interned for Wayne Barrett at The Village Voice in 2002 and worked night shifts at The Staten Island Advance from 2002 to 2004. ^{[12] [13]}

In 2004, Dolnick joined the Associated Press and moved to Delhi in 2007 as a foreign correspondent for AP. ^[4] Dolnick joined The New York Times in 2009 as a metro reporter. ^[14]

Dolnick was promoted to deputy sports editor in 2013. ^[15] In addition to covering amateur cage-fighting, ^[16] horse racing, ^[17] and the Sochi Olympics, ^[18] he also profiled the Sinaloa cartel's 90 year-old drug mule, Leo Sharp in 2014 for The New York Times Magazine. ^[19] His story later became the inspiration for Clint Eastwood's 2018 film, The Mule. ^[20] In 2014, he left the sports desk to become senior editor of the paper's mobile team. ^[21]

In 2015, Dolnick was promoted to associate editor. ^{[22] [7]} As associate editor, he was responsible for launching numerous digital and mobile initiatives at the Times, ^[23] including NYT Audio, NYT VR, ^[24] The Daily podcast, The Daily 360, and the TV documentary series The Weekly, where he also serves as an executive producer. Dolnick was one of three cousins in the Ochs-Sulzberger family who had been candidates to become deputy publisher of the Times and successor to Arthur Sulzberger Jr. ^[4] A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher's son, was named to the role in October 2016. ^[25]

In 2017, Dolnick was elevated to masthead as an assistant editor. ^{[26] [27]} In that role, he oversees the Times' audiovisual work. ^{[1] [28]}

In 2018, he profiled a man named Erik Hagerman who, upon learning that Donald Trump has become president, decided to cut off from all news media and live in self-imposed isolation. ^[29]

In 2019, Dolnick was elected a member of the Pulitzer Center board. ^[30]

In 2022 he was promoted to deputy managing editor. ^{[31] [32]}

Awards and nominations

Dolnick was the recipient the 2012 Worth Bingham Prize for investigative reporting into New Jersey's privatized halfway houses. ^[13] He also won a George Polk Award in 2013 for the same work. ^{[33] [34]}

References