Bill Boyarsky

Bill Boyarsky, political correspondent for Truthdig, is a lecturer in journalism at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication. Boyarsky was city editor of The Los Angeles Times when he retired in 2001.  Before that, he was a columnist, city-county bureau chief and political writer.  He was a member of reporting teams that won three Pulitzer prizes and has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists. In 2010, the Los Angeles Press Club honored Boyarsky’s original columns in Truthdig by naming the author the Online Journalist of the Year.

Boyarsky has also taught at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, California State University at Northridge and the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.  He was given a fellowship at Berkeley for research on his biography of the late California political leader Jesse M. Unruh, “Big Daddy: Jesse Unruh and the Art of Power Politics” (November 2007). He served as Vice President of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission (2003 - 2008).

Boyarsky’s latest book is “Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times” (September 2009). He is the author of four other books: “The Rise of Ronald Reagan”; “Ronald Reagan, His Life and Rise to the Presidency”; “Los Angeles: City of Dreams”; and “Backroom Politics.”  His wife, Nancy, was co-author of Backroom Politics.

Boyarsky is a columnist for the Jewish Journal and blogs for LA Observed.