Daniel Golden is a senior special writer in The Wall Street Journal's Boston bureau, covering education. He joined the paper as a reporter in July 1999 and was named to his current position in August 2000.

Before joining the Journal, Mr. Golden spent 17 years with the Boston Globe. He began as a regional correspondent in 1981, and was a general assignment and investigative reporter before becoming a writer for the paper's Sunday "Focus" section in 1986. From 1988 to 1993, he was a writer for the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. He became a medical investigative reporter in 1993 and was a projects reporter from 1994 to mid-1998, when he received a John S. Knight Fellowship and studied at Stanford University. Before joining the Globe, he was a staff reporter for the Springfield (MA) Daily News from 1978 to 1981.

In 2002, Mr. Golden received first prize in the National Awards for Education Reporting in the series category for "The New Affirmative Action," which included a story about preference for Jewish applicants at Vanderbilt University. Mr. Golden won two National Headliner Awards while working at the Boston Globe: one in 1999 in the beat reporting category and the other in 1989 in the feature writing category. He was a special citation winner in both the 2000 and the 1999 National Awards for Education Reporting. His special citation in 2000 was for his Journal article "Fudge Factor," a page-one piece that showed that some Texas high schools were fudging class rank in order to qualify more of their graduates or the state university. In 1999, his citation was for his page-on Journal article, "Making the Grade." It examined the schools operated by the Defense Department for military dependents on military bases. Mr. Golden has received three first-place awards for investigative reporting in 1995 from the Education Writers Association, in 1993 from the Associated Press Sports Editors, and in 1990 from the Sunday Magazine Editors. He was honored with a first prize in magazine reporting from Sigma Delta Chi in 1989 and with a George Polk Award for business reporting in 1985.

Born in Toldeo, Ohio, Mr. Golden received a bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard University.