Janet Hook is a national political reporter for the Los Angeles Times in the Washington bureau. She has spent most of her career covering Congress and national politics, including the last three presidential campaigns and many midterm elections. She also worked in the Washington bureau of the Wall Street Journal and at Congressional Quarterly. 

She has received the Everett Dirksen Award for reporting on Congress, the Carey McWilliams Award for political reporting and the John S. Knight Fellowship for Professional Journalists.

Hook is a graduate of Harvard University with a B.A. in philosophy and government, and also spent a year studying at the London School of Economics. She is married to William Patterson, has two sons, and lives in Bethesda, MD.