Mary McNamara named assistant managing editor for arts and entertainment
Mary McNamara, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2015 for her television criticism, has been named The Times’ assistant managing editor for arts and entertainment.
McNamara, who joined The Times in 1990, has been an assigning editor for the Los Angeles Times Magazine, a feature writer for Life & Style and a reporter covering movies before becoming a television critic eight years ago.
In awarding her the Pulitzer last year, judges cited McNamara’s “savvy criticism that uses shrewdness, humor and an insider’s view to show how both subtle and seismic shifts in the cultural landscape affect television.” She also was a Pulitzer finalist for criticism in 2014 and 2013, and has won other awards for her criticism and feature writing.
McNamara, who is on Twitter at @marymactv, has demonstrated great range in her 26 years at The Times. She has covered the Oscars and the Cannes film festival, E3 and Comic-Con, and the construction and openings of the downtown Cathedral and the Walt Disney Concert Hall. She also has written revealing profiles of Oprah Winfrey, Robert Downey Jr., John Travolta and Mel Gibson among many others.
Before joining The Times, she was an editor at Ms. magazine and wrote for other publications, including Glamour, Mademoiselle and the New York Times. She is the author of the Hollywood mysteries “Oscar Season” and “The Starlet.”
McNamara is a native of Maryland and holds bachelor’s degrees in journalism and women’s studies from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
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