Scott Wilson takes on new portfolio as California-based senior national correspondent

Announcement from National Editor Matea Gold, Deputy National Editor Philip Rucker and America Desk Editor Cathleen Decker:

We are thrilled to announce that senior national correspondent Scott Wilson is taking on a new assignment covering the nation’s political and cultural fractures from the vantage of his native California.

In this role, Scott will be chronicling the public policies, politics and experiences in a region shaped by liberal ideology, part of our broader effort to unearth revelatory stories about parts of the country governed largely by one political party. This line of coverage will complement the work of a new Texas correspondent, who will pursue stories in a region shaped by conservative ideology.

Since becoming our West Coast correspondent in 2017, Scott has graced his beat with exceptional writing, deep reporting and smart analysis of the state and the American West; he has plumbed the region’s stresses and strains, from climate change to crime, from immigration to housing, from culture to politics. He was a member of The Post team that in 2020 was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for a series on the environmental carnage wrought by even minimal changes in the Earth’s temperature.

Before returning to writing, Scott served as national editor and deputy assistant managing editor for foreign news. He previously served as Jerusalem bureau chief, Middle East correspondent based in Amman, Jordan; Andean bureau chief based in Bogota; and White House bureau chief.

For his work covering the Obama administration, Scott received the 2011 Gerald R. Ford Journalism Award for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency and the 2012 Aldo Beckman Award from the White House Correspondents’ Association. For his overseas work, Scott received awards and citations from the Overseas Press Club and the Inter American Press Association.

Scott joined the Post in 1997. He is a graduate of Amherst College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he won the David Marcus Eibel Scholarship Award.

Please join us in congratulating Scott on his new beat, which begins immediately.