Salena Zito

About the Author

Salena Zito is a veteran political reporter with more than 20 years of award-winning experience in print and broadcast journalism. With her trusty Jeep that shows 400,000 miles on the odometer and a refusal to travel on interstates, Zito is a reporter that harkens to an older generation of journalism, one that listens to the stories of everyday Americans in places far outside the artificial bubbles of Manhattan and the Beltway. This willingness to travel and listen made Zito one of the only journalists to understand the outcome of the 2016 election long before her peers. One of the last scribes of middle America, she famously identified the root cause of their failed coverage and underestimation of Donald Trump by concluding, “The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” Zito is currently a national political reporter for the Washington Examiner, a post she has held since 2016, and is a regular contributor for the Wall Street Journal. She was previously a columnist at the New York Post and The Atlantic. Throughout her career she was a reporter and columnist for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and the Pittsburgh Tribune Review where her columns were must reads for those seeking to understand the Pennsylvania political landscape. Her columns have been syndicated in more than 200 local, regional, and national newspapers nationwide. Zito was a CNN contributor for five years and remains a frequent broadcast guest for her insights on the American electorate.