Leavenworth joins WaPo as policy, politics and power editor on climate desk

We are delighted to announce that Stuart Leavenworth is joining The Post as the Climate & Environment department’s policy, politics and power editor. In this role, Stuart will supervise a team of reporters in the United States and overseas examining the biggest players influencing climate and environmental actions worldwide and the impact of those decisions on the planet and us.

Stuart comes to The Post from the Los Angeles Times. As an enterprise and environment editor, he led multimedia projects documenting the lethal toll of California heat waves, the U.S. radiation legacy in the Marshall Islands, and the human and financial costs of abandoned oil wells in California, among other topics. At the Times, which he joined in 2019, he regularly edited A1 stories on various calamities, including wildfires, earthquakes, the spread of extremist politics and the covid-19 pandemic.

In nearly four decades of journalism, Stuart has served in an array of roles, including three years as Beijing bureau chief and two years as national correspondent for McClatchy. His reporting and travels have taken him to more than 40 countries, which have ranged from Mongolia to Myanmar. Stuart has also worked at the Sacramento Bee, the (Raleigh) News & Observer and other newspapers. The California native stumbled his way into journalism via the UC Santa Cruz student paper and later received a master’s degree at Columbia Journalism School, where he met Micaela Massimino, his wife of 34 years.

Stories that Stuart has edited or reported have been recognized with top honors from the National Press Foundation, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Online Journalism Awards, Covering Climate Now, the News Leaders Association (Batten Medal for Coverage of Climate Change) and other organizations.

In his spare time, Stuart loves to cook, hike, backpack, bicycle, volunteer for community service and dream of getting his tennis game back.

He will start on Oct. 24 and move to Washington. Please join us in welcoming Stuart to The Post.