Walter Shapiro, Political Columnist With a Contrarian Streak, Dies at 77
By Sam Roberts, The New York Times
July 23, 2024
Walter Shapiro, a canny, penetrating and often contrarian political columnist whose career included stints as a presidential speechwriter, stand-up comic, professor, author and, as a recent college graduate, congressional candidate, died on Sunday in Manhattan. He was 77.
The cause of his death, in a hospital, was an infection related to his recent treatment for cancer, his wife, the journalist and author Meryl Gordon, said.
Mr. Shapiro’s lifelong passion for politics was piqued in 1962, when he was a high school student in Norwalk, Conn., and his mother gave him a copy of “The Making of the President 1960” by Theodore H. White. The next year, at 16, he took his first airplane flight to attend President John F. Kennedy’s funeral.
He began his career in journalism at Congressional Quarterly and went on to write for Washington Monthly, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, USA Today, The New Republic and Esquire. He later wrote for Salon, Yahoo News, Politics Daily and Roll Call.
As a political columnist, Mr. Shapiro was known to pierce the cacophony of snarky commentary, predictive polls and bloviating politicians.
“He was able to convey what was simultaneously ridiculous, ennobling, squalid and necessary,” James Fallows, a former editor of The Atlantic, who started working at Washington Monthly with Mr. Shapiro in 1972, said in an interview.
Walter Shapiro, stalwart political correspondent, dies at 77
He covered 12 presidential elections for leading magazines and newspapers, puncturing conventional wisdom with unconventional insight.
By Emily Langer, July 22, 2024
Walter Shapiro, a political reporter who covered 12 presidential elections for leading magazines and newspapers, puncturing conventional wisdom with unconventional insight and brightening the campaign trail with his inimitable wit, died July 21 at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 77.
He was being treated for cancer and contracted covid-19 and pneumonia, said his wife, Meryl Gordon.
Mr. Shapiro spent half a century in journalism, adapting himself over the years to the needs and readership of daily newspapers, weekly magazines and online outlets for political junkies.
He was on the staff of The Washington Post Magazine in the early 1980s, later joined Newsweek and then Time magazine, wrote columns for Esquire and USA Today and wrote for websites including Politics Daily. At the time of his death, he was a staff writer for the New Republic and a columnist for the Capitol Hill publication Roll Call.
