David McCraw

David McCraw serves as the senior newsroom lawyer for The New York Times.  He has been at The Times for more than two decades and currently holds the position of Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel. His team provides legal counsel to Times journalists on libel, leak investigations, newsgathering, and protection of confidential sources. He leads The Times’s effort to protect press freedom in the U.S. and abroad.

In addition to advising the newsroom, Mr. McCraw is one of the nation’s most prolific litigators of Freedom of Information cases. The Times Legal Department has brought more than 130 FOI cases in the state and federal courts over the past 15 years.

Mr. McCraw spent more than a decade leading The Times’s international security operation, helping to protect Times journalists working in high-risk areas, He has served as the crisis response manager when journalists have been kidnapped or detained abroad. 

He is the author of the book “Truth in Our Times: Inside the Fight for Press Freedom in the Age of Alternative Facts,” a first-person account of the legal battles that helped shape The Times’s coverage of Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, national security, and the rise of political partisanship in America.

Mr. McCraw’s pro bono work has focused on global press freedom and access to information. He has worked on pro bono projects in Yemen, Montenegro, Kuwait, Russia, and Cameroon and conducted workshops on freedom of information in South America, the Middle East, and Central and Eastern Europe. He is also a co-founder of the Journalism Refugees Education Fund, a nonprofit that helps exiled media workers and their families pursue higher education in the U.S. and Canada.

In 2023, Mr. McCraw’s legal team was honored with the Tony Mauro Media Lawyer Award from The American Lawyer for their advocacy on behalf of press freedom. In 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists awarded him the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award.