Daniel Golden
Daniel Golden was a Boston-based senior editor and reporter at ProPublica.
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Journalist and author Daniel Golden was a Boston-based senior editor and reporter at ProPublica. Golden was instrumental in three Pulitzer Prizes, two as an editor and one as a reporter. He co-edited a ProPublica series on Latin American asylum-seekers caught between the U.S. government and the MS-13 gang, which won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. Before joining ProPublica in October 2016, he worked as managing editor for education and enterprise at Bloomberg News. There he edited a series about tax inversions — companies moving headquarters overseas to avoid taxes — that earned Bloomberg’s only Pulitzer Prize in 2015.
Golden won a Pulitzer as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal in 2004 for a series of articles on preferences for children and donors in college admissions. He expanded that series into a critically acclaimed national bestseller, “The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way Into Elite Colleges — and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates.” An updated edition was published in October 2019 with new reporting on the Operation Varsity Blues scandal.
Golden’s book, “Spy Schools: How The CIA, FBI, and Foreign Intelligence Secretly Exploit America’s Universities,” was published by Henry Holt in October 2017. Spy novelist John Le Carre praised it as “timely and shocking,” and former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano called it a “must-read.” He is the co-author, with ProPublica reporter Renee Dudley, of "The Ransomware Hunting Team," which was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in fall 2022. Amazon made it an "editor's pick" for best nonfiction of the year, and the New York Times described it as "brilliant."
Golden spent 17 years as a staff reporter at the Boston Globe, including a stint on its Spotlight team, and served as senior editor for investigations at Conde Nast Portfolio. Among other honors, he has won three George Polk awards, three National Headliner awards, the Sigma Delta Chi award, the Gerald Loeb Award, the Overseas Press Club award, the New York Press Club Gold Keyboard award and two Education Writers Association Grand Prizes. He was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for public service for a series exposing recruiting abuses by for-profit colleges. A Harvard College graduate, he was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford in 1998-99.
Local Newspapers Are Vanishing. How Should We Remember Them?
As smaller newspapers shrink or disappear, it’s easy to romanticize the role they played. But one reporter’s memories of the heyday of local journalism reveal a much more complicated reality.
The Newest College Admissions Ploy: Paying to Make Your Teen a “Peer-Reviewed” Author
A group of services, often connected to pricey college counselors, has arisen to help high schoolers carry out and publish research as a credential for their college applications. The research papers — and the publications — can be dubious.
Muzzled by DeSantis, Critical Race Theory Professors Cancel Courses or Modify Their Teaching
As fewer faculty members are protected by tenure, they’re finding it harder to resist laws that ban certain racial topics. Their students suffer the consequences.
How the FBI Stumbled in the War on Cybercrime
In this excerpt from “The Ransomware Hunting Team: A Band of Misfits’ Improbable Crusade to Save the World From Cybercrime,” the authors reveal how unprepared the nation’s top federal law enforcement agency was to combat online crime.
The Other Cancel Culture: How a Public University Is Bowing to a Conservative Crusade
With a rising national profile and donor base and relatively little state funding, Boise State University should be able to resist pressure by the Idaho Legislature. Instead the university, led by a liberal transplant, has repeatedly capitulated.
华裔科学家钱卓：无国可归的才情
发现自己受到学校和美国政府的调查后，著名科学家钱卓（Joe Tsien）决定留在中国避风头。他说自己是针对亚裔种族歧视的受害者，但他的故事并非这么简单。
A Visionary Without a Country
Celebrated scientist Joe Tsien retreated to China after his university and the U.S. government began investigating him. He says he’s a victim of anti-Asian discrimination, but key parts of his story don’t add up.
The Colonial Pipeline Ransomware Hackers Had a Secret Weapon: Self-Promoting Cybersecurity Firms
Five months before DarkSide attacked the Colonial pipeline, two researchers discovered a way to rescue its ransomware victims. Then an antivirus company’s announcement alerted the hackers.
The Trump Administration Drove Him Back to China, Where He Invented a Fast Coronavirus Test
A federal crackdown on professors’ undisclosed outside activities is achieving what China has long struggled to do: spur Chinese scientists to return home. In this crisis, it’s costing the U.S. intellectual firepower.
The Benefits of Being Joe Biden’s Brother
Jim Biden has been at his brother’s side at nearly every critical junction in Joe’s life. He’s also repeatedly tapped into Joe’s political network for help with his finances, and used Joe’s fame to promote his business ventures.