Kenneth T. Walsh

Chief White House Correspondent

Expertise: White House | Presidency | Vice presidency | Domestic policy | Foreign policy | National politics | Presidential campaigns and elections | Congress | Washington | News media

• Read articles by Kenneth T. Walsh

Background: Ken Walsh, having covered the White House full-time for U.S. News since 1986, is one of the most experienced and longest-serving reporters ever to cover the presidency. With an extensive contact list of Washington insiders, Walsh has both historical and contemporary perspective on events. He has written extensively about the rise of Barack Obama and how the 44th president is trying to become a "transformational" leader. Earlier, Walsh wrote the first newsmagazine cover story on George W. Bush, featuring him in 1998 as the new hope of the Republican Party.  Walsh covered the Bush presidency for its entire eight years.  Historian Douglas Brinkley has written of Walsh: "No journalist today covers U.S. presidential politics with the same bedrock self-assurance, analytical thought and literary aplomb as Ken Walsh."

Before joining U.S. News in 1984, Walsh was Washington correspondent, chief political writer, and political columnist for the Denver Post—a total tenure of eight years.  He worked for the Associated Press in Denver from 1972 to 1976.  Walsh is former president of the White House Correspondents' Association. He also has taught courses as an adjunct professor of communication at American University in Washington. A New York City native, Walsh received a bachelor’s in journalism in 1968 from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., and a master’s in communication in 1970 from American University in Washington, D.C.  Just after graduate school, he spent two years as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

Publications: From Mount Vernon to Crawford: A History of the Presidents and Their Retreats (2005) | Air Force One: A History of the Presidents and Their Planes (2003) | Feeding the Beast: The White House Versus the Press (second edition, 2002) | Ronald Reagan: Biography (1997)

Honors: The Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Coverage of the Presidency, 1992 and 1997 | Aldo Beckman Award, 1990 and 2007 | Fitzwater Prize for Leadership in Public Communication, awarded by Franklin Pierce College, 2006

Media appearances: Walsh appears more than once a week on national television including CBS’s Up to the Minute, CNBC’s Power Lunch, CNN’s Paula Zahn Now, CNN International, C-SPAN’s Newsmakers and Washington Journal, FOX News Channel’s Fox & Friends, Fox Weekend Live, and Studio B, theHistory Channel, MSNBC’s Headline News and Tucker,and PBS’s The Charlie Rose Show.  He has been interviewed on numerous public radio programs, including National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition With Liane Hansen, On Point With Tom Ashbrook (WBUR-FM, Boston), and The Diane Rehm Show (WAMU-FM, Washington, D.C.), as well as Public Radio International’s To the Point With Warren Olney (KCRW-FM, Los Angeles), and numerous syndicated and satellite radio talk shows.

Column: The Presidency, usnews.com/thepresidency