Michael Powell is a staff writer at The Atlantic. Previously, he was a national reporter at The New York Times, where he covered issues around free speech and expression and stories capturing intellectual and campus debate. He also covered presidential campaigns, reported on the economy, wrote the "Gotham" column for the Metro section, and for six years was the "Sports of the Times" columnist. He and two colleagues won the George Polk Award for reporting on a corrupt police detective—stories that led to more than a dozen exonerations, including freeing a man who had served 22 years for a murder he did not commit—and he was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking-news reporting on Eliot Spitzer. Before joining the Times, Powell worked for The Washington Post, where he covered the 2000 presidential campaign and later served as New York bureau chief.