David Brooks: The Columnist Who Redefined What a “Conservative Voice” Sounds Like
David Brooks spent more than two decades as one of the most recognizable political and cultural commentators in American journalism, building a reputation as a thoughtful, often unpredictable voice at The New York Times before a significant 2026 career move sent him to a new publication after 23 years.
Early Life in Toronto, New York, and Pennsylvania
David Brooks was born on August 11, 1961, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His family later moved to the United States, and he grew up between New York City and Pennsylvania. He went on to attend the University of Chicago, where he studied history and graduated with his bachelor’s degree in 1983.
Starting Out as a Police Reporter
Brooks’ first job in journalism was decidedly unglamorous: he worked as a police reporter for the City News Bureau in Chicago, a wire service jointly owned by the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, covering daily crime and court stories — a world away from the political and cultural commentary that would eventually define his career. In 1984, he joined The Washington Times, where he contributed editorials and film reviews, giving him his first taste of opinion writing.
Nine Years at The Wall Street Journal
In 1986, Brooks joined The Wall Street Journal, initially editing the paper’s book review section and briefly serving as its film critic. From there, he was posted to the Journal’s Brussels office, where he worked as an editor and foreign correspondent covering Russia, the Middle East, South Africa, and broader European affairs — a significant expansion into international reporting. By the time he left the Journal in 1994, he had risen to op-ed editor, giving him direct experience shaping opinion journalism from an editorial leadership position.
Founding The Weekly Standard
In September 1995, Brooks became a founding senior editor of The Weekly Standard, joining the conservative political magazine at its very inception. He also worked as a contributing editor at both Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly during this period, building a broad footprint across some of the country’s most influential political and cultural publications. In 1996, he edited the anthology “Backward and Upward: The New Conservative Writing,” and in 2000 he published his first solo book, “Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There,” which examined the fusion of bohemian and bourgeois values among America’s educated elite.
Joining The New York Times
Brooks’ move to The New York Times in September 2003 came about through a direct recruitment effort by the paper’s editorial-page editor at the time, Gail Collins, who invited him to lunch specifically to discuss replacing outgoing conservative columnist William Safire. Collins later said she was looking for a conservative writer who understood how liberals think — someone who wouldn’t make Times readers, in her words, shriek and throw the paper out the window — and concluded that Brooks was exactly that voice.
Brooks has been candid about how difficult the transition initially was. He’s described his first six months at the Times as miserable, saying he had never before experienced being disliked on such a mass scale, reflecting the friction of writing conservative-leaning commentary for a readership not always inclined to agree with him. Despite that rocky start, Brooks went on to write for the Times for 23 years, becoming one of its most consistently read opinion columnists.
A Regular on PBS and NPR
In 2004, a year after joining the Times, Brooks became a commentator on “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” a role that evolved over the following two decades into his continued weekly appearances as part of “Brooks and Capehart” on PBS NewsHour, alongside fellow commentator Jonathan Capehart. He has also been a frequent political analyst on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and NBC’s “Meet the Press,” giving him a sustained, multi-platform presence in American political commentary well beyond his newspaper column.
A Prolific and Bestselling Author
Beyond his columns, Brooks has built a substantial career as a book author, exploring culture, psychology, and moral philosophy alongside his political commentary. Following “Bobos in Paradise,” he published “On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (and Always Have) in the Future Tense” in 2004, “The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement” in 2011, and “The Road to Character” in 2015, which became a number-one New York Times bestseller. His fifth book, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life,” followed in 2019, continuing his focus on questions of meaning, virtue, and personal formation.
Teaching and Institutional Roles
Brooks has maintained a substantial academic and institutional presence alongside his journalism career. He has taught at Yale University, serving as a senior fellow at Yale’s Jackson Institute (later the Jackson School of Global Affairs) during two separate stretches, from 2012 to 2018 and again from 2021 to 2022. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, chairs Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C., and serves as a senior advisor to the University of Chicago’s Leadership and Society Initiative — extending his influence into academic and civic institutions well beyond his newspaper column.
A Political Identity That Resists Easy Labels
Throughout his career, Brooks has described himself as a “moderate Republican,” though others have characterized him at various points as centrist, moderate conservative, or simply conservative. That ambiguity has, in many ways, been central to his appeal and his controversy alike — he has drawn criticism from the political right for columns seen as too sympathetic to liberal positions, and from the left for retaining conservative instincts on culture and morality, a tension that has followed him since his earliest, difficult months at the Times.
Leaving The New York Times for The Atlantic
In 2026, after 23 years as an opinion columnist for The New York Times, Brooks announced his departure from the paper, marking the end of one of the longest and most consequential columnist tenures in the paper’s modern history. His farewell piece for the Times reflected on questions of shared morality in American public life. He subsequently joined The Atlantic as a columnist, continuing to publish regular commentary on politics, culture, and society under a new institutional home for the first time in more than two decades.
Age
David Brooks is 64 years old as of early 2026. He was born on August 11, 1961, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where his father was completing graduate studies. He celebrates his birthday on the 11th of August each year, typically marking the occasion with intellectual lectures or spending personal time at his home in the Washington area.
Parents
Brooks was born to his parents, both of whom were highly accomplished academics. His father taught English literature at New York University, while his mother specialized in 19th-century British history as a scholar at Columbia University. He grew up alongside his sibling, a brother named Daniel Brooks, inside a highly intellectual urban household that split its time between Stuyvesant Town in New York City and the suburbs of Philadelphia’s Main Line.
Wife
Brooks is married to his wife, Anne Snyder. Anne is an accomplished author, journalist, and the editor-in-chief of Comment magazine. The couple tied the knot in 2017 following a collaborative working relationship during the production of The Road to Character. Previously, Brooks was married to his first wife, Sarah Brooks (formerly Jane Hughes), from 1986 until their divorce in 2013. Across his marriages, he has three adult children from his first relationship, with whom he maintains close personal ties.
Net Worth
Brooks has an estimated net worth of between $3 million and $6 million as of 2026. This solid financial foundation has been built through multiple bestselling book advances and royalties, lucrative long-term print syndication contracts with The New York Times, broadcast commentator fees from PBS, and academic lecturing honorariums.
Quick Facts
| Category | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full name | David Brooks |
| Born | August 11, 1961, Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Education | University of Chicago (BA, History, 1983) |
| Current role | Columnist, The Atlantic (since 2026) |
| Previously | Columnist, The New York Times (2003–2026); The Wall Street Journal; The Washington Times |
| Also | Commentator, PBS NewsHour (since 2004) |
| Notable book | “The Road to Character” (2015), #1 New York Times bestseller |
| Spouse | Anne Snyder (m. 2017); previously Sarah Jane Hughes (m. 1986; div. 2013) |
FAQ
Does David Brooks still write for The New York Times?
No — after 23 years as a Times columnist, he left the paper in 2026 and joined The Atlantic as a columnist.
What is David Brooks’ most famous book?
“The Road to Character,” published in 2015, became a number-one New York Times bestseller and is generally considered his most widely read book.
Does David Brooks still appear on PBS NewsHour?
Yes — he continues to appear as part of the “Brooks and Capehart” segment on PBS NewsHour, a role he’s held in various forms since 2004.
How would David Brooks describe his own politics?
He has described himself as a “moderate Republican,” though others have characterized him variously as centrist, moderate conservative, or conservative.
A Career Defined by Reinvention
From a Chicago police beat to more than two decades as one of the country’s most-read political columnists, David Brooks has consistently occupied a distinctive, hard-to-categorize space in American commentary — respected across ideological lines even as he’s drawn criticism from nearly every direction at different points in his career. His 2026 move from The New York Times to The Atlantic marks the most significant institutional change of his career in more than 20 years, but it continues a pattern that’s defined his entire body of work: a writer who keeps reaching for new frameworks to explain American life, rather than settling into a single fixed perspective.
