Michael is the president of Freedom House, a non-partisan voice dedicated to supporting democracy. He oversees a unique combination of analysis, advocacy, and direct support to frontline defenders of freedom, especially those working in closed authoritarian societies. He previously directed the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Levine Institute for Holocaust Education, prior to which he led the museum’s genocide prevention efforts.

He spent the first 24 years of his career at The Washington Post, where he was national editor and then White House correspondent. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and he was formally a Marshall Memorial fellow at the German Marshall Fund and media fellow at the Hoover Institution. Michael is also a board member of the National Security Archive, a member of the Human Freedom Advisory Council for the George W. Bush Presidential Center, and a member of the Advisory Council of the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue.