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Alyssa Katz is a New York City-based editor and writer focused on the intersection of power, politics and policy. An accomplished driver of enterprise, investigative and explanatory coverage, she is also the creator of innovative news projects that help make information and insights accessible to broad audiences.

Katz is a founder of the New York Editorial Board, a project that interviews candidates and civic leaders, filling the gap left behind when the New York Times ended its editorial endorsements. Most recently editor-in-chief of the Forward, the national Jewish news and culture outlet, she was previously executive editor of The City Reporter, formerly known as THE CITY, a nonprofit newsroom producing in-depth reporting on New York City and its neighborhoods. 

At The City Reporter, she oversaw investigations of Mayor Eric Adams and members of his administration, uncovered campaign fundraising fraud that ultimately brought down New York’s lieutenant governor, exposed management-backed unions subverting organized labor, revealed the true identities of perpetrators in a deed theft scheme unknown until then even to their victims, and created the Meet Your Mayor quiz matching voters to candidates, which has since been replicated in newsrooms across the country.

A former member of the New York Daily News editorial board, where she wrote on issues that included local and national politics, real estate and development, MeToo, the justice system, fiscal affairs and mental health — and prompted Donald Trump and Google to each forfeit city tax breaks — Katz was previously editor of The New York World, a local news project based at Columbia Journalism School, and City Limits.

Katz has written about housing, consumer affairs, federal regulation, campaign finance and the intersection of business and government, including the books “Our Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us” (Bloomsbury, 2009) and “The Influence Machine: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Corporate Capture of American Life” (Spiegel & Grau, 2015)

She lives in Brooklyn and is a trustee of East Midwood Jewish Center.