David McCraw

David McCraw is the lead newsroom lawyer for The New York Times, where he has worked for 21 years and currently serves as senior vice president and deputy general counsel. In addition to advising the newsroom, McCraw is among the nation’s most prolific FOIA litigators, winning disclosure of records on drone strikes, Jeffrey Epstein’s death in custody, and FBI phone surveillance purchases. He has led access battles in cases including Dominion-Fox, Guantánamo tribunals, and the prosecutions of Michael Cohen and El Chapo. In 2023, his team won the Tony Mauro Media Lawyer Award. In 2019, he published his first book, Truth in Our Times: Inside the Fight for Press Freedom in the Age of Alternative Facts. McCraw teaches press law at Harvard Law School and has taught at NYU Law. He holds degrees from the University of Illinois, Cornell, and Albany Law School.