Mike Hale is the assistant editor of the Arts & Leisure section of The New York Times. Born in Seoul, South Korea, he grew up in both America and Asia, moving between Iowa and the various countries where his father worked, including East and West Pakistan and Indonesia. He attended Stanford University, and spent three years after college working as a typesetter and paste-up artist (when publications were still pasted up.)

His first newspaper job was as features editor of the now-defunct Peninsula Times-Tribune in Palo Alto, Calif. He worked at the San Jose Mercury News for seven years, as a copy editor, copy desk chief, assistant entertainment editor and general assignment features and entertainment writer. He came to The New York Times in 1995 as a copy editor on the sports desk, and was an assistant weekend sports editor and the Arts & Leisure television editor before receiving his current assignment in 2003. He also edited three New York Times books, tracing the 1998, 1999 and 2000 Yankees seasons.

A member of AAJA since 1994, Mike is one of the New York chapter's representatives to the national board. (The other is his wife, Cheryl Tan, the senior fashion writer at InStyle magazine.)