Juliet Eilperin will be the White House bureau chief at The Washington Post, the paper announced Wednesday.
Eilperin will serve as bureau chief for “the duration of Scott Wilson’s deployment as deputy national editor,” according to the announcement. In May, Wilson was named interim deputy national editor, replacing Anne Kornblut, who left to take a Knight Fellowship.
As White House bureau chief, Eilperin will “organize and coordinate” The Post’s coverage of the White House as President Obama finishes his presidency, according to the announcement. The appointment formalizes the responsibilities of the longtime Post reporter, who has led the paper’s White House report “for some time.”
Here’s the full announcement:
We’re delighted to announce that Juliet Eilperin will serve as White House bureau chief for the duration of Scott Wilson’s deployment as deputy national editor. In this role, Juliet will help organize and coordinate our coverage of the White House as President Obama plays out what he calls the fourth quarter of his presidency.
No one is better suited to this task – as a skilled reporter, as a benevolent force of nature, and as a peerless colleague.Since joining the White House team nearly two years ago, Juliet’s nimble and nuanced work has examined the culture of and everyday life within the West Wing, producing original stories on the demise of Tex-Mex Thursday at the White House Mess and the emergence of robots as part of the holiday decorations. She helped drive the Post’s dominant coverage of the flawed healthcare website rollout. And, with David Nakamura, she wrote one of the most sophisticated pieces about the president’s role in last November’s midterm debacle for Democrats.
In recent months, Juliet has emerged as one of the natural leaders of the White House team, so this announcement mostly formalizes what for some time has been the day-to-day practice of this stellar group.
Juliet joined the Post in 1998 to cover the House of Representatives, which put her in place for the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the first Republican Revolution on Capitol Hill. That led to her 2006 book, “Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship is Poisoning the House of Representatives.” What she witnessed may have helped inform her second book – on the hidden life of sharks, which she produced during her long run as one of the nation’s premier environmental reporters.
We’re thrilled she is taking on this expanded responsibility. Please join us in congratulating Juliet on her new role.
