Lydia Polgreen

Lydia Polgreen
Polgreen at the 2018 Committee to Protect Journalists International Press Freedom Awards
Born
Lydia Frances Polgreen

1975 (age 48–49)
United States
Alma materSt. John's College
Columbia University
OccupationJournalist
Notable credit(s)The Huffington Post
The New York Times
SpouseCandace Feit

Lydia Frances Polgreen (born 1975) is an American journalist. She was editorial director of NYT Global at The New York Times, and the West Africa bureau chief for the same publication, based in Dakar, Senegal, from 2005 to 2009. She also reported from India.[1][2] She spent much of her early career in Johannesburg, South Africa where she was The New York Times South African Bureau Chief as well. She was editor-in-chief of HuffPost from 2016 to 2020,[3] after which she spent about one year between 2021 and 2022 as the head of content for Gimlet Media.[4] In 2022, after leaving Gimlet, she returned to The New York Times as an opinion columnist.[5]

She has received many honors and awards, among them, the 2009 Livingston Award for Excellence in International Reporting and, in 2011, the Medal for Excellence from Columbia University.[6]

Education

Polgreen graduated from St. John's College in 1997 and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2000.

Career

She started working at The New York Times in 2002.[7]

In 2006, she received a George Polk Award in Foreign Reporting from Long Island University for her coverage of ethnic violence in the Darfur region of Sudan.

In February 2008, she covered the Battle of N'Djamena in Chad. Some of her work in N’Djamena was illustrated by the French freelance photographer Benedicte Kurzen.

In April 2016, she became the editorial director of NYT Global for The New York Times.[8] On December 6, 2016, she left The New York Times to succeed the founder of The Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington,[8] as editor-in-chief.[9]

In 2021, she was named to Fast Company's Queer 50 list.[10]

Personal life

Polgreen's mother is originally from Ethiopia,[11] and her father is a white American.[12]

Polgreen is married to Candace Feit, a documentary photographer.[13] In November 2017, Polgreen was nominated to Out magazine's "OUT100" for 2017 in recognition of her work and visibility.[14] Rejecting rigid binaries, she identifies as both Black and mixed race; as both American and African; as a woman, though her masculine gender expression often leads people to assume she is a man; and as a lesbian, though she has also had heterosexual romantic relationships.[12]

References

  1. ^ John Koblin (October 21, 2008). "Times' Beijing Bureau Chief Takes On India". The New York Observer. Archived from the original on October 23, 2008. Retrieved August 26, 2010.
  2. ^ "Photo from AP Photo". Billionaires.forbes.com. 2010-07-09. Archived from the original on November 25, 2010. Retrieved 2010-08-27.
  3. ^ O'Connor, Lydia (6 March 2020). "Lydia Polgreen To Step Down As Editor-In-Chief Of HuffPost". huffpost.com. HuffPost. Archived from the original on 23 November 2020. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
  4. ^ "Gimlet Managing Director Lydia Polgreen Returning To Writing And The New York Times". Insideradio.com. 11 April 2022. Archived from the original on 2022-11-19. Retrieved 2022-04-11.
  5. ^ "Lydia Polgreen returns to The Times as an Opinion columnist". The New York Times Company. 2022-04-07. Archived from the original on 2022-04-10. Retrieved 2022-04-11.
  6. ^ "Lydia Polgreen". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 18 April 2010.
  7. ^ Bloomgarden-Smoke, Kara; Bloomgarden-Smoke, Kara (2016-12-06). "Huffington Post Names Lydia Polgreen Editor in Chief". WWD. Archived from the original on 2019-03-27. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
  8. ^ a b "Lydia Polgreen Named Editor-In-Chief Of The Huffington Post". The Huffington Post. 6 December 2016. Archived from the original on 1 February 2017.
  9. ^ "Lydia Polgreen on Leaving to Lead Huffington Post: 'Hardest Decision I've Ever Made'". The New York Times. 2016-12-21. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2019-03-27. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
  10. ^ "Announcing Fast Company's second annual Queer 50 list". Fast Company. Archived from the original on 2021-11-05. Retrieved 2021-06-03.
  11. ^ Polgreen, Lydia (3 April 2023). "The Rich World Has a Shockingly High Tolerance for Cruelty". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-05-12.
  12. ^ a b Polgreen, Lydia (1 December 2023). "There Is No Way to Live a Life Without Regret". The New York Times. Personally, I have never had much use for binaries. I was born to a Black African mother and a white American father, the beginning of a life that has included many identities and many hyphens, and doubtless will include more with the passage of time and the ever-gathering tumbleweeds of experience. I am Black but also mixed race; I am a woman but the way I look and dress means I'm constantly taken for a man; I'm American but also African, but not African American in the sense that that term is usually used; I am a lesbian but had happy (and unhappy) romantic relationships with boys and men in my youth.
  13. ^ Hicklin, Aaron (2017-03-31). "Lydia Polgreen: Meet the Queer Black Woman Changing Journalism". Out. Archived from the original on 2017-04-03. Retrieved 2017-04-06.
  14. ^ "OUT100: Lydia Polgreen, Editor, Journalist". Out. November 8, 2017. Archived from the original on December 29, 2017. Retrieved November 9, 2017.

Further reading