Dorothy Rabinowitz facts for kids

Dorothy Rabinowitz is a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist and commentator.

She was born in New York City, and attained a bachelor's degree at Queens College. She worked toward a doctorate at New York University from 1957 to 1960, but did not graduate. She has worked as editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal since June 1990 and has been a member of their editorial board since May 1996. She is a regular panelist on the Journal Editorial Report.

Pulitzer Prize

Rabinowitz was awarded the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for a series of articles published in 2000 covering aspects of U.S. social and cultural trends. Previously, she had been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize three times, but in 2001 "she was not a finalist [but]... the Pulitzer board, which makes the final decisions, reviewed the jury's original three finalists and decided it wanted 'a broader choice.' The jury offered Ms. Rabinowitz as an alternate selection.".

She was previously nominated in 1996 for the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary and had been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1995 "For her writing about television", and in 1998 for "her tough-minded, critical columns on television and its place in politics and culture."

No Crueler Tyrannies

Rabinowitz wrote exposés of the dubious charges filed against the operators of day care centers and other individuals, notably that of a family named Amirault in Malden, Massachusetts and those in Wenatchee, Washington.

These exposés earned her a 1996 Pulitzer nomination, formed half of the articles cited for her 2001 Pulitzer win, and were the basis of her book No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times.

Political issues

On May 31, 2013, Rabinowitz claimed Citi Bike bicycle sharing program in New York City was "dreadful" and "totalitarian": when an interviewer asked if she understood the rationale for this program, she responded, "Do not ask me to enter the minds of the totalitarians running this government of the city." She described Mayor Michael Bloomberg as "autocratic" and "a practiced denier" and City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan as "ideology-maddened". She also warned that "the bike lobby is an all-powerful enterprise."