Emily Nussbaum

Nussbaum was born in the United States to mother Toby Nussbaum and Bernard Nussbaum, who served as White House Counsel to President Bill Clinton.^[5][6]

Nussbaum was raised in Scarsdale, New York, and graduated from Oberlin College in 1988.^[7][8] She earned a master's degree in poetry from New York University^[9] and started a doctoral program in literature, but decided not to pursue teaching.^[10]

After living in Providence, Rhode Island, and Atlanta, Georgia, Nussbaum began writing reviews of TV shows following her infatuation with the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer^[11] and posting at the website Television Without Pity.^[12][13][14] She began writing for Lingua Franca and served as editor-in-chief of Nerve.^[15] She also wrote for Slate and The New York Times.^[10]

Nussbaum then worked at New York magazine, where she was the creator of the "Approval Matrix" feature and wrote about culture and television.^[16] She was at New York for seven years and was the culture editor.^[17]

Since 2011, she has been a staff writer at The New Yorker,^[18] serving as the magazine's television critic from 2011 until 2019.^[19] She won a National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary in 2014 and the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2016.^[20] In 2025, she was named theater critic at The New Yorker.^[21]

Nussbaum is married to journalist Clive Thompson.^[22] They have two children.^[23] Nussbaum is Jewish.

• 2014: National Magazine Awards, Columns and Commentary. Honors political and social commentary; news analysis; and reviews and criticism^[24]
• 2016: Pulitzer Prize for Criticism^[25]

Books

• Nussbaum, Emily (June 25, 2019). I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-525-50896-0.^[26]
• Nussbaum, Emily (June 25, 2024). Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-525-50899-1.^{[27][28][29][30]}