Washington Post taps Ellison to cover democracy, politics and media

In this new role, based on the Democracy team, Sarah will write about the forces that contribute to a political culture in which Americans increasingly do not share a common set of facts, chronicling how polarizing messages are forged and amplified through influential cultural figures, politicians, traditional news organizations and new media platforms. She will illuminate how misleading rhetoric and disinformation drive public opinion and spill into the town square.

Sarah will go deep on themes such as the behind-the-scenes alliances between elected officials and media figures, what the advent of AI means for campaigns and elections, the profiteers pushing political disinformation, and how the absence of credible news sources upends local civic life.

Sarah is the ideal journalist to take on this ambitious role. She has long been regarded as one of the nation’s most incisive and impactful media writers. During a distinguished five-year run on the media team in Features, Sarah has helped lead our coverage of Fox News, the most watched cable news network in the nation, wrote revealingly about how The 1619 Project took over 2020 and took us into the imbroglio sparked by the Harper’s letter. Her profile work, including stories on Kimberly Guilfoyle and Mathias Döpfner, also stand out.

Before joining The Post, Sarah was a special correspondent at Vanity Fair. She spent a decade at the Wall Street Journal reporting from Paris, London and New York. She started her journalism career in the Paris bureau of Newsweek, where she covered Princess Diana’s death and was responsible for fetching office flowers in preparation for Katharine Graham’s visits. Sarah’s book, “War at the Wall Street Journal,” chronicles Rupert Murdoch’s unsolicited takeover of the Dow Jones news empire, owned for a century by the fractious Bancroft family.