David Sirota

Sirota grew up outside Philadelphia and received a degree in journalism and political science from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, graduating in 1998.⁠[1]

After graduating he lived for five years in Washington, D.C., then for about two and a half years in Helena, Montana, before moving to Denver. Before becoming a journalist in 2006 he was press secretary to Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders, worked at the Center for American Progress, was a senior campaign aide to Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer and was a campaign adviser to Ned Lamont in Connecticut’s 2006 Democratic primary.⁠[1]

In the first episode of his podcast Master Plan he later recalled that, while working as an aide to then-Representative Sanders, he watched a bill promising to lower prescription drug costs pass with a loophole that was then used to kill the program before it took effect. “My innocence was gone,” he said.⁠[2]

Sirota’s first two books, Hostile Takeover (Crown, 2006) and The Uprising (Crown, 2008), were both New York Times bestsellers; his third, Back to Our Future (Ballantine, 2011), about how 1980s pop culture shaped present-day American politics and culture, became the basis in 2013 for the National Geographic Channel miniseries “The ’80s: The Decade that Made Us.”⁠[1][3]

From 2007 to 2015 he wrote a weekly newspaper column syndicated by Creators Syndicate, which ran in papers including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Portland Oregonian and the Seattle Times, with a combined daily circulation of more than 1.8 million.⁠[1]

From 2009 to 2012 he hosted a daily radio talk show in Denver, for most of that time solo-hosting the morning show on KKZN AM760.⁠[1]

In 2014 Sirota’s investigative series for PandoDaily on public broadcasting led a PBS flagship station to return a $3.5 million contribution from a hedge fund billionaire; PBS’s ombudsman called the reporting “important.”⁠[1]

The same year, his reporting on public pensions for PandoDaily and then for the International Business Times led the New Jersey state government to open a formal pay-to-play investigation and divest state holdings in a venture capital firm; his IBT reporting also led San Francisco officials to delay a proposed $3 billion investment in hedge funds.⁠[1]

He was Senior Editor for Investigations at IBT/Newsweek and an investigative reporter for Capital & Main. In 2014 he won Ithaca College’s Izzy Award and was a finalist for UCLA’s Gerald R. Loeb Award for financial journalism and Syracuse University’s Mirror Award.⁠[1]

In 2016 Sirota began working with First Look Media to help journalists develop their work into television shows, films and documentary series.⁠[1]

In 2020 Sirota took a temporary leave from journalism to serve as a senior adviser and speechwriter for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign.⁠[1][4]

The same year he founded The Lever, which describes itself as a nonpartisan, reader-supported investigative news outlet whose reporting, podcasts, videos and live events focus on politics, business and corruption.⁠[5]

In 2021 Sirota created and narrated Meltdown, an Audible Original podcast produced by Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex GibneyAlex GibneyAlex Gibney is an American documentary director and producer who founded Jigsaw Productions in 1982. He won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature for Taxi to the Dark Side and was nominated for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. His documentary Musk was selected for the 2026 Venice Film Festival and opened in U.S. theaters in October 2026.Open the full entry about the causes of the financial crisis, the bailout and their political consequences; it was named one of the best podcasts of the year by The Atlantic and Uproxx.⁠[6][1]

Director Adam McKay said he had wanted to make a film about climate change but struggled to find a workable premise until Sirota gave him the idea for the Netflix film Don’t Look Up. “David made a comment about how [the climate crisis was like] an asteroid [about] to hit the planet and no one cares — and it was perfect,” McKay said.⁠[4]

On February 8, 2022, Sirota and McKay were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Don’t Look Up; the two also won the Writers Guild of America’s 2022 award for best original screenplay.⁠[4][1]

At the time of the nomination he was the founder of The Daily Poster, a columnist for The Guardian and an editor-at-large for Jacobin magazine. Since 2022 he has hosted The Lever’s weekly podcast Lever Time.⁠[4][6]

On March 10, 2023, the day Silicon Valley BankSilicon Valley BankSilicon Valley Bank was a state-chartered commercial bank founded in California in 1983 and headquartered in Santa Clara. It was the principal subsidiary of the holding company SVB Financial Group, and its clients were concentrated among technology and life sciences companies and venture capital firms. In March 2023, after it announced a securities sale and a capital-raising plan, it suffered a massive run, was closed by California regulators, and was placed into receivership with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. U.S. regulators invoked a systemic risk exception to protect all of its deposits, its deposits and loans were then assumed by First Citizens, its parent entered bankruptcy reorganization, and the regulatory reviews and litigation that followed the failure continued into 2026.Open the full entry failed, Sirota found a 220-page PDF of eight-year-old congressional testimony and messaged his colleagues at The Lever that it showed the bank’s president “directly lobbying for less regulatory scrutiny,” and asked whether anyone was up for a story.⁠[7]

On August 13, 2024, The Lever launched the audio documentary series Master Plan, which starts from Lewis Powell’s August 23, 1971 memorandum to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and traces the rise of the New Right, linking it to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025; Sirota made it with producer Jared Jacang Maher and others.⁠[2][6]

“I think our series illustrates that corruption became intensified and really captured our whole political system through a series of specific decisions by specific people with a specific agenda,” Sirota said.⁠[2]

The first season of Master Plan won the 2025 National Press Club Award and a Signal Award.⁠[8][1]

In 2025 Lever Books published Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America, co-written by Sirota and Jared Jacang Maher and based on the podcast.⁠[3]

The Lever: Official website: https://www.levernews.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[5]

Personal website: https://www.davidsirota.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[9]

X: Public account: https://x.com/davidsirota (opens in a new window).⁠[9][5]