Ezra Klein

Ezra Klein (born May 9, 1984) is an American progressive journalist, political analyst, New York Times columnist, and the host of The Ezra Klein Show podcast.

He is a co-founder of Vox and formerly served as the website's editor-at-large.

He has held editorial positions at The Washington Post and The American Prospect, and was a regular contributor to Bloomberg News and MSNBC.

Klein attended University High School, where he was a poor student and graduated in 2002 with a 2.2 GPA.

Klein worked on Howard Dean's primary campaign in Vermont in 2003 and interned for the Washington Monthly in Washington, D.C., in 2004.

"The media is as effective and important an agent for change as the legislative bodies, and I think it's where I'm happiest and most effective," Klein said.

In 2003, he and Markos Moulitsas were two of the earliest bloggers to report from a political convention, that of the California State Democratic Party.

Klein attended the University of California, Santa Cruz for two years before transferring to the University of California, Los Angeles, from which he graduated in 2005 with a BA in political science.

While at UCSC, he applied to write for City on a Hill Press but was rejected.

He said school was never a great fit for him academically or socially.

In 2006, Klein was one of several writers pseudonymously flamed by The New Republic writer Lee Siegel (posting as a sock puppet called sprezzatura).

By 2007, Klein's blog had gained a substantial following and was acquired by The American Prospect, where he served as an associate editor.

At The Washington Post, Klein managed Wonkblog, a branded blog that featured his writing on domestic policy.

On December 10, 2007, Klein moved his blog full-time to The American Prospect.

Klein's prolific blogging caught the attention of Steven Pearlstein, The Washington Post veteran business columnist.

"I was blown away by how good he was—how much the kid wrote—on so many subjects," Pearlstein said.

Pearlstein sent samples of Klein's work to managing editor Raju Narisetti.

A few weeks after he heard from Pearlstein, Washington Post foreign correspondent John Pomfret asked Klein to have lunch with him and financial editor Sandy Sugawara.

Narisetti hired Klein to be the Post's first pure blogger on politics and economics.

On May 18, 2009, he began writing at the newspaper.

In May 2011, when Bloomberg View launched, Klein became a columnist there in addition to his work at The Washington Post and MSNBC.

On March 14, 2013, The Week magazine reported that Klein was among those being considered to host MSNBC's yet-unnamed 8 p.m. weekday prime-time show that would replace The Ed Show.

Ultimately, the time slot was filled with All In with Chris Hayes.

In 2014, alongside fellow journalists Matt Yglesias and Melissa Bell, Klein co-founded Vox, a website for explanatory news owned by Vox Media.

He served as the editor-in-chief, and later as editor-at-large.

Klein announced he would be leaving The Washington Post in January 2014, with the intent to start a new media venture with several other veteran journalists.

The new media venture was later identified as the politics site Vox.

Klein had previously "proposed the creation of an independent, explanatory journalism website—with more than three dozen staffers" and an annual budget of more than US$10 million to remain at The Washington Post.

During negotiations, Post publisher Katharine Weymouth and new owner Jeff Bezos did not make a counteroffer.

Klein was editor-in-chief at Vox, later editor-at-large, and formerly wrote for and edited Wonkblog at The Washington Post.

He frequently provides political commentary on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell.

He is a former contributor to Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

In October 2015, Klein, along with Sarah Kliff and Matt Yglesias, launched The Weeds, a Vox podcast of detailed discussions on public policy.

Klein also hosts the podcast The Ezra Klein Show.

Klein is an executive producer of Vox Netflix series Explained, which debuted in 2018.

His first book, Why We're Polarized, was published by Simon & Schuster in January 2020.

Klein rose to prominence as a blogger who became well known for his in-depth analysis on a range of policy issues.

Klein also contributed articles to the site, hosted an associated podcast (The Ezra Klein Show), and worked as an executive producer for Vox's Netflix series Explained. In November 2020, Klein announced he would be leaving Vox to join The New York Times as a columnist and podcast host.

Klein is Jewish and was raised in in Irvine, California.

His father, Abel Klein, is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Irvine; his mother is an artist.