NBC News announced today that theGrio.com is expanding its editorial team and building out the site’s political coverage with the addition of Perry Bacon, Jr. as Political Editor. Bacon will be based at NBC News’ Washington bureau starting December 19, 2011.
Prior to joining NBC News, Bacon served as a national political reporter at the Washington Post, writing for both the paper’s website and its print edition. While at the Post, he wrote numerous front page stories on politics and policy, and authored the column “In Session” on Congress. His work has also appeared in TIME magazine, National Journal, and the Louisville Courier-Journal.
A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Bacon first worked in Washington on the Metro staff of the Washington Post, before joining TIME magazine’s Washington bureau. There, he covered the 2002, 2004 and 2006 elections, following in particular the campaigns of Howard Dean and John Kerry. He wrote about the 2006 midterm elections extensively, including a widely-read profile of then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
He moved back to the Post in early 2007, where he was one of the lead writers on the campaign trail, following a number of candidates throughout the race and writing influential pieces about then-Senator Obama, as well as on the importance of race and religion in the 2008 primaries. He interviewed nearly all of the major candidates in the 2008 race.
Since the 2008 election, Bacon has extensively covered the health care debate, the Tea Party movement and the rise of the Republican Party in the Obama era.
Bacon graduated with a degree in political science from Yale University.