Joe Schatz is POLITICO’s executive editor for platforms and operations. Schatz previously oversaw POLITICO's state-level policy and political coverage across the country from 2017 to 2020, and led the company's California expansion into Sacramento. Before that, he edited the POLITICO Pro Europe Brief. Schatz returned to POLITICO in August 2015 after two years in Myanmar, where he reported on the country formerly known as Burma for The Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor and Al Jazeera America.

Schatz first joined POLITICO in 2012 as tax editor, managing the launch of the Pro tax team. He spent nearly a decade at Congressional Quarterly, from 2000-2006 and 2008-2012, covering everything from the Wall Street bailout and debt ceiling crises to trade and the U.S.-China relationship, for which he received the National Press Club’s Sandy Hume award in 2010. In between stints at CQ, Schatz set up shop in a sleepier capital city — Lusaka, Zambia — where he worked as an Associated Press stringer from 2006-2008 covering southern Africa (and doing the thankless work of writing the occasional safari travel review) and taught journalism classes at a Zambian college.

Schatz graduated from Cornell University in 1998 with a degree in government and computer science and was an assistant sports editor on the Cornell Daily Sun. He has a master’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University. Schatz grew up in Acton, Mass., and got his first byline covering high school sports for the Acton Beacon. He lives in Washington with his wife and daughter and enjoys hiking, biking and traveling.