He has been with the  Los Angeles Times since January 1990, except for seven months in 1998 when he served as chief political correspondent and columnist for U.S. News and World Report.      

Mr. Brownstein has twice been named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, receiving that recognition for his coverage of both the 1996 and 2004 presidential campaigns. The Pulitzer Board, naming him a finalist in 2005, cited " the clarity, consistency and quality of his political reporting during a presidential election year."      

Mr. Brownstein is also a political analyst for CNN, appearing regularly on the CNN programs Inside Politics and Lou Dobbs as well as on other CNN programs such as American Morning, Newsnight and Wolf Blitzer Reports. In addition he appears regularly on Meet the Press, and This Week with George Stephanopolous and previously appeared regularly on Face the Nation, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and Washington Week in Review. He has also been a repeat guest on Charlie Rose (where he has served as a substitute host), Nightline, the three network morning programs, CNBC, as well as C-Span.        

Mr. Brownstein is the author or editor of five books, including The Power and The Glitter: The Hollywood-Washington Connection, published in January 1991 by Pantheon Books. His most recent book, co-authored with Dan Balz, is: Storming the Gates: Protest-Politics and the Republican Revival (Little Brown 1996). His previous book, Reagan's Ruling Class: Portraits of the President's Too 100 Officials, co-authored with Nina Easton, was a Washington Post best- seller for five weeks in 1982. In 1980, he was editor and co-author of Selecting a President; he was also editor and co-author of Who's Poisoning America, published in 1981 by Sierra Club Books. His articles on politics, public policy, books and culture have appeared in a number of newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Vanity Fair, the New Republic, the Washington Monthly, The Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, the Times of London, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Sun-Times, Newsday, and the Miami Herald.        

From 1983 through 1986, he served as White House and national politics correspondent for the National Journal in Washington, D.C. From 1987 through 1989, he served as West Coast Correspondent for the National Journal and a contributing editor at the Los Angeles Times Magazine. In addition, during that period he contributed columns on politics to the Los Angeles Times Sunday opinion section. From 1979 through 1983, he served as the chief staff writer for Ralph Nader in Washington.          

Mr. Brownstein was born in New York City on April 6, 1958. He was graduated, with honors, from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1979 with a degree in English Literature. He is the recipient of several journalism awards, including the exceptional merit in media award from the National Women's Political Caucus and the journalist of the year award from the Los Angeles Press Club in 2005.        

In 1997, he was named by National Journal as one of the "25 most influential journalists in Washington."  In February 2001, Washingtonian magazine named him as one of Washington's 20 "best and most influential" journalists, writing "Brownstein writes groundbreaking stories frequently. Taken together, they constitute a running chronicle of the political history of our era. His instincts are uncanny." When Brill's Content magazine asked President Clinton in 2000 to name the "one journalist who generally gets it right, explains to you what the issues are, and what's going on in the country," he cited Brownstein.        

During the 2004 presidential campaign, the Columbia Journalism Review, the nation's most prestigious journalism magazine, ranked Brownstein first when listing "reporters who consistently rise above the superficial to do original and often insightful work." In its post-election review of campaign coverage, the CJR also cited Brownstein as the reporter and columnist who produced the most insightful work on the election, writing: "perhaps the most consistent performer was Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times. Given the luxury of wearing two hats -- reporter and columnist -- which he studiously kept separate, Brownstein often delivered to his readers breaking news as well as thoughtful insights."