Shear's reporting career began in 1989, when he was a junior in college and interned at the
Los Angeles Times Washington bureau covering hearings on Capitol Hill and other high-profile stories, including the trial of
Oliver North and the anniversary of cameras in Congress. After graduation, he worked briefly as a reporter for the
San Jose Mercury News before returning to full-time education to pursue a degree in public policy. He returned to reporting by first writing for
The Tampa Tribune before taking up a more permanent role as a metro reporter at
The Washington Post in 1992. He was part of the team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for coverage of the
Virginia Tech shootings. In 2010, Shear moved to the Washington bureau of
The New York Times as a political correspondent. He covered
Barack Obama's re-election campaign in 2012 and in 2013 returned to his role as a White House correspondent for the
Times. He covered the
2016 presidential election. After the election, Shear reported on domestic policy and President
Donald Trump. He also made regular appearances as a political commentator on radio and television. His book, ''Border Wars: Inside Trump's Assault on Immigration,'' co-written with
Julie Hirschfield Davis, was published by
Simon & Schuster in October 2019. == Personal life ==