In high school, Barbaro wrote for Hamden Hall's official newspaper called The Advent, and he – along with classmate and future New York Times colleague Ross Douthat – also co-founded and ran the school's underground newspaper, La Verite. In high school, Barbaro aspired to be the New York Times' Jerusalem Bureau Chief. He graduated from Yale University in 2002 with a Bachelor's degree in history. While at Yale, he reported for the Yale Daily News and later became its editor-in-chief, overseeing a staff of nearly 100 student writers.
Career
2002–2016: Reporter
After his graduation from Yale, Barbaro joined The Washington Post in 2002 as a reporter covering the biotechnology industry. In 2005, he joined The New York Times, where he first covered Walmart extensively until 2007 for the Business section. Next, he covered New York City Hall and the American retail industry. Later, he became a national political correspondent for the Times. During the 2016 United States presidential election, Barbaro frequently wrote front-page articles and became one of the most prominent Times reporters covering Donald Trump and the election.
2016–present: Podcast host
''The Run-Up''
In August 2016, The New York Times launched The Run-Up, a twice-a-week political podcast hosted by Barbaro, that aired for the final three months before the presidential election in November.
''The Daily''
In February 2017, The New York Times released The Daily, a new news podcast hosted by Barbaro and the Times' first podcast to air five days a week. In its first year, The Daily attracted an audience of one million listeners a day. The podcast, which has 20–30-minute-long episodes, has experienced tremendous success and was the #1 podcast in the United States for every month of 2019. Despite The Times' several other podcasts, most of the newspaper's audio revenue is from The Daily, which attracts several million listeners every month.
Public image
Barbaro's success with The Daily and distinct appearance lead many to frequently compare him to Ira Glass, host and producer of This American Life. In the past few years since The Daily launched, Barbaro has received significant media coverage. He has made sold-out public appearances around the country, and a wide range of media outlets have interviewed him about The Daily, journalism, and politics. He has been featured on television shows such as Late Night with Seth Meyers, CBS This Morning, PBS NewsHour, in forums such as South by Southwest as well as on Vox's Recode Decode podcast and NPR's talk show 1A. The New Yorker also ran an article entitled: "An Appreciation of Michael Barbaro and The Daily." In November 2018, Liev Schreiber portrayed Barbaro on Saturday Night Live.
In October 2014, Barbaro married Timothy Levin, a fellow Yale graduate. Levin, eight years Barbaro's senior, is the founder of Bespoke Education, a tutoring and test prep company. In July 2018, it was reported that Barbaro and Levin had since divorced. In a June 2019 interview with Evening Standard, Barbaro mentioned that it "wasn't a coincidence" that he and his husband broke up shortly after The Daily launched. He said: “ was a massive change, and it exposed things to me about my life. It made me reflect on who I was. Anytime you go through a major life change it tests every relationship." After his relationship with Levin ended, Barbaro began a relationship with his coworker and The Daily executive producer, Lisa Tobin. They both report to the same boss, Sam Dolnick. A New York profile on Barbaro from January 2020 reported that Barbaro and Tobin are engaged and bought an apartment together in Brooklyn in 2019. Regarding Barbaro's sexual identity, the same article noted: " declines to define his sexual orientation or whether he considers it to have shifted."
