Rick Berke

Notable work and positions

STAT - Co-founder and Executive Editor (2015-present)
Politico - Executive Editor
The New York Times - Chief Political Correspondent; Assistant Managing Editor

Biography

Rick Berke (Richard L. Berke) is the co-founder and executive editor of STAT, a national media company covering health, medicine and the life sciences that he helped launch in Boston in early 2015 as its first employee. He began his career as a reporter at the Baltimore Evening Sun before spending most of his career at The New York Times, where he served as chief political correspondent for more than a decade and covered Congress, the White House, media and national drug policy. As an editor at the Times, he served two tours as assistant managing editor for news, and also held the titles of assistant managing editor for features, Washington editor, national editor, political editor and video content editor. Before launching STAT, he was executive editor of Politico. STAT, founded with Boston Globe owner John Henry, first attracted broad attention for its early reporting on the COVID-19 outbreak in January 2020 and drew nearly 30 million unique visitors in the first three months of that year. Berke is a longtime member of the senior advisory committee at Harvard University's Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government.

Career highlights

• Co-founding of STAT 2015 · Built a health and science media company from a single employee into a nationally read publication.
• Early COVID-19 coverage 2020 · STAT was among the first outlets to report on the emerging outbreak, drawing a surge of readership.