John Dickerson

I love Blackwing pencils. Some of my books are delicate enough that I only write in the margin in pencil. In poetry books I use pencil because I usually change my mind about what I first think. When I wrote the book, I wrote a lot of it by hand with Blackwing pencils. To commemorate […]

The Hardest Job in the World, now a New York Times best-seller, can be purchased from these purveyors: Bookshop.org,  Hudson Booksellers.  IndieBound,  Powell’s,  Target,  Walmart, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Books A Million,   

All politics is local, as the saying goes, and eagle-eyed staffers at the Delphos Daily Herald found that to be true Monday. Reporters at the Ohio paper noticed their front page in my book, The Hardest Job in the World. “It is a big deal to have a book from such a well- known author […]

We often think of presidents as Supermen. In 1958 Jimmy Olson thought so too:

The Hardest Job in the World is now on sale and can be purchased from these purveyors: Barnes & Noble Amazon Books A Million,  Bookshop.org, Hudson Booksellers. IndieBound, Powell’s, Target, Walmart. June 10th: Slate Political Gabfest Live! 7:30 ET. Tune in here. June 11th: Adaptation of The Hardest Job posted on The Atlantic June 14: 9:00 a.m. CBS Sunday Morning […]

The dirt bike enthusiast Refuses to let these lightened quarantine streets escape The thin, high whine of his urgent enthusiasm. — John Dickerson (@jdickerson) May 17, 2020

Well this is encouraging to read:   “60 Minutes correspondent Dickerson takes an evenhanded and insightful look at the evolution of the American presidency… Drawing on illuminating interviews with former White House officials and presidential historians, Dickerson packs the book with intriguing arcana and colorful quotes…This entertaining history rises above the political fray to cast […]

I’m recording the audiobook for The Hardest Job in the World at home because all the studios are closed, due to Covd-19. I’ve had to build a tent fort in my bedroom using the curtains. It reminds me of my first bedroom. I had two beds. I stretched a sheet between them and made a […]

If you have ever lost someone you loved, you know the feeling of seeing the world through a bank teller’s glass. You observe other people laughing and enjoying their day, but you are apart from them, separated by a thick, bulletproof barrier. You wonder how they can savor that plate of pasta or play music […]

“When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property, and justly liable to the inspection and vigilance of public opinion; and the more sensibly he is made to feel his dependence, the less danger will there be of his abuse of power — The abuse of power, that rock on […]

I was not familiar with this quote: Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, […]

Yesterday I thought about an old friend very randomly. We are not in touch much– maybe once every two months. Ten minutes later she emailed me to check in. I wonder if friendships follow a time rhythm that is reciprocal.  You share a relationship with someone that reasserts itself at regular patterns and those patterns […]

Hello to all of you out there at the other end of this email list. When you write, you’re supposed to have your audience in mind. You draw some diagram of how much they are like you and how much they are not. This helps you discard writing that makes you chuckle by yourself in […]

In the absence of solutions from the institutions created to serve the public good.. A) How much private sector money is available to be donated to those economically hardest hit by Covid-19? B) How difficult would it be to create a system that a) collected from A b) evaluated need to discourage fraud and c) […]

About FDR:

A few weeks ago I asked people to suggest great speeches that were aimed at convincing skeptical audiences. Here is a brief list based on those responses (A lot of people mistook the request to mean “who is a person who made a good speech” (I’d love to know the convincing speech you’re thinking of!) […]

Buran Phillips is the pastor at Westminister Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, TN. I go there occasionally with my in-laws. I am a huge fan of his. I am posting one of his sermons here as an experiment to see if it is possible. If it works– which it appears to– I’ll keep doing it.  

The Hardest Job in the World is a book about the presidency as it is and not as we imagine it to be. I finished before Covid-19 hit, but one of its arguments is that the presidency is a job where the president must prepare for emergency shocks with high stakes long before they ever […]

Jim Lehrer has passed away. The longtime PBS newsman will be eulogized by those who knew him better, but my every interaction with him over the years left me better for it. I have thought more than once about Jim Lehrer: if you could have his talent and be that calm, decent and good a […]

The choir at St. Paul the Apostle in New York is a wonder. I always leave mass with one of their songs in my head. This week I recorded part of one because it so moved me. Here is a snippet: