Carl Cannon

Carl M. Cannon is the executive editor of PoliticsDaily.com. Previously, Carl was the DC bureau chief for Reader's Digest and for a decade before that, covered the White House for National Journal. Before coming to Washington during the Reagan presidency, he worked for six newspapers over a 20 year span, covering police, courts, politics, education, and race relations at newspapers in Virginia, Georgia, and his home state of California.

He has covered every presidential campaign and major political convention since 1984, was honored for his White House coverage by winning the prestigious Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting of the Presidency and in 2006 received the other top honor on the White House beat, the Aldo Beckman award for “excellence in presidential news coverage.” He is also a past president of the White House Correspondents’ Association.

In 2007, Carl was a fellow-in-residence at the Institute of Politics at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he taught a study group on the Press & the Presidency. He is a co-author of Boy Genius, a 2005 biography of White House aide Karl Rove and author of The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War, a 2003 book exploring how presidents and other American leaders have employed the language of the Declaration of Independence in times of national crisis. He and his father, Reagan biographer Lou Cannon, co-wrote Reagan's Disciple: George W. Bush's Troubled Quest for a Presidential Legacy, which was published last year. His book, co-written with California writer Patrick Dillon and published in 2009, is Circle of Greed: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Lawyer Who Brought Corporate America to Its Knees.

Carl’s first job in the news business was as a paperboy delivering the San Francisco Chronicle. He and his wife Sharon live in Arlington, Va., and have three children. His other passions include thoroughbred racing, fly-fishing in Montana, and playing baseball in an adult hardball league.