David Frum Named Senior Editor at The Atlantic

Washington, D.C. (March 19, 2014)— The veteran political commentator and author David Frum is joining The Atlantic as a senior editor beginning March 31, James Bennet, editor in chief of The Atlantic, announced today. In his new role, Frum will write for the Web site and the magazine and participate in Atlantic events.

“David is a gutsy, heterodox thinker and a lovely writer—the very definition of the sort of contributor who has distinguished The Atlantic all these years,” said Bennet. “I look forward to his bracing work appearing across all our platforms.”

Frum comes to The Atlantic after an extended absence from full-time journalism. He joins an Atlantic politics and national affairs team that includes writers Molly Ball, Ta-Nehisi Coates, James Fallows, Conor Friedersdorf, Peter Beinart, and Andrew Cohen, as well as editors David Graham and Jennie Rothenberg Gritz.

“In a media world of quick takes and fast reacts, The Atlantic offers something indispensable: news that stays news,” said Frum. “I hope to offer readers content they will continue to think about even after the browser window closes and the latest Facebook status update is buried beneath the Twitter feed.”

David Frum is the author of eight books, two of them New York Times bestsellers. He is the author most recently of the e-book, Why Romney Lost (published within 48 hours of the 2012 vote), and a novel,Patriots, a political satire.

Frum has worked on the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Forbes magazine, and for the Manhattan Institute and the American Enterprise Institute. In the 1990s, he was a regular contributor to theWeekly Standard; between 2003 and 2008, Frum wrote a daily blog for National Review. Between 2009 and 2012, he edited a group blog, FrumForum.com, dedicated to the reform and renewal of political conservatism. Frum’s blog was hosted at the Daily Beast/Newsweek from January 2012 until May 2013.

Frum served as a special assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2002; he was a senior foreign policy advisor on the Rudy Giuliani presidential campaign from 2007 to 2008. He now sits on the boards of the U.S. think tank R Street, the U.K. think tank Policy Exchange, and the drug control group Smart Approaches to Marijuana.

Frum’s first book, Dead Right, was described by William F. Buckley as “the most refreshing ideological experience in a generation,” and by Frank Rich of the New York Times as “the smartest book written from the inside about the American conservative movement.”

A native of Toronto, Frum received a simultaneous B.A. and M.A. in history from Yale in 1982. He was appointed a visiting lecturer in history at Yale in 1986; in 1987, he graduated from the Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Federalist Society. Frum lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, journalist and author Danielle Crittenden Frum. The couple has three children.