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Vox (website)

Vox (from Latin vōx 'voice') is an American news and opinion website owned by Vox Media. The website was founded in April 2014 by Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, and Melissa Bell, and is noted for its concept of explanatory journalism.[1] Vox's media presence also includes a YouTube channel, several podcasts, and a show presented on Netflix. Vox has been described as left-leaning[2] and progressive.[3]

Type of site

News and opinion website

English

  • Ezra Klein
  • Melissa Bell
  • Matthew Yglesias

Yes

Optional

April 6, 2014 (2014-04-06)

Active

History[edit]

Prior to founding Vox, Ezra Klein worked for The Washington Post as the head of Wonkblog, a public policy blog.[4] When Klein attempted to launch a new site using funding from the newspaper's editors, his proposal was turned down and Klein subsequently left The Washington Post for a position with Vox Media, another communications company, in January 2014.[4][5]


The New York Times' David Carr associated Klein's exit for Vox with other "big-name journalists" leaving newspapers for digital start-ups, such as Walter Mossberg and Kara Swisher (of Recode, which was later acquired by and integrated into Vox), David Pogue, and Nate Silver.[5] He described Vox Media as "a technology company that produces media" rather than its inverse, associated with "Old Media".[5] From his new position, Klein worked towards establishing Vox, including hiring new journalists for the site.[4] Klein expected to "improve the technology of news" and build an online platform better equipped for making news understandable.[5] The new site's 20-person staff was chosen for their expertise in topic areas and included Slate's Matthew Yglesias, Melissa Bell, and Klein's colleagues from The Washington Post.[5][6][7][8] Vox was launched on April 6, 2014, with Klein serving as editor-in-chief.[4][9]


Klein's opening editorial essay, "How politics makes us stupid", explained his distress about political polarization in the context of Yale Law School professor Dan Kahan's theories on how people protect themselves from information that conflicts with their core beliefs.[10][11]


In June 2016, Vox suspended contributor Emmett Rensin for a series of tweets calling for anti-Trump riots, including one on June 3, 2016, that urged, "If Trump comes to your town, start a riot." The tweets drew attention after violent anti-Trump protests took place in San Jose, California, on the day of Rensin's tweet.[12][13][14][15] Elizabeth Plank was hired in 2016 as a political correspondent,[16] and in 2017 launched her own series with Vox Media, called Divided States of Women.[17]


In September 2017, Klein published a post on Vox announcing that he was taking on a new role as editor-at-large, and that Lauren Williams, who joined Vox a few months after its founding, was the new editor-in-chief.[18][19] In late 2020, Klein, Williams, and Yglesias left the site. While Vox had been founded with prominent journalists, Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff said that their brands had mature, mainstream audiences that no longer relied on personalities.[20]


Swati Sharma was named editor-in-chief in February 2021. A managing editor of The Atlantic at the time of her appointment, she was expected to assume the position in March 2021.[21]

The Weeds is a twice-weekly podcast, hosted by Yglesias and immigration correspondent Dara Lind, focusing on U.S. national news with a focus on the fine details of public policy.[31][32][33] Senior politics reporter Jane Coaston was a regular co-host before joining the New York Times.[34]

roundtable

The Gray Area with Sean Illing (formerly the "Vox Conversations" podcast) is a weekly interview podcast in which Sean Illing and other hosts across the Vox newsroom interview guests in politics, media, science, and culture.

[35]

I Think You're Interesting is a weekly interview podcast about the arts, entertainment, and pop culture, hosted by Vox's "critic at large" .[31][36]

Emily St. James

Worldly (2017–21) was a weekly roundtable podcast focusing on U.S. foreign policy and international affairs, hosted by Vox foreign-and-security-policy writers Jennifer Williams, Zach Beauchamp, and Alex Ward; also previously hosted.[31][37]

Yochi Dreazen

The Impact is a weekly narrative podcast hosted by Kliff investigating the effects of policy decisions in practice.

[38]

Today, Explained is a daily podcast, hosted by Sean Ramaswaram and Noel King, providing short explanations of items in the news.[39][40][41]

[31]

Future Perfect is a weekly podcast, hosted by , exploring provocative ideas with the potential to radically improve the world, often discussing ideas associated with effective altruism.[42][43][44]

Dylan Matthews

Primetime is a short-run podcast hosted by Emily St. James. Season 1 (six episodes) focused on TV's relationship with the presidency and was released on a weekly schedule.[45]

[31]

Unexplainable is a weekly science podcast hosted by Noam Hassenfeld and a panel of experts exploring unanswered questions and the ways scientists are trying to answer them.

[31]

Land of the Giants is a weekly podcast hosted by Shirin Ghaffary and Alex Kantrowitz where each season covers a tech giant like , Apple, Uber, Netflix, and Amazon and their dominance in their respective technology sector.[31]

Google

Vox Quick Hits was a daily podcast consisting of short episodes covering topics in news, politics, and pop culture. Vox Quick Hits ended on September 10, 2021.

[31]

Controversy[edit]

In November 2022, it was reported by Reason magazine that Sam Bankman-Fried—founder of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX—had issued major grants to a number of predominantly left-leaning political media outlets including Vox.[65]

Readership[edit]

Vox received 8.2 million unique visitors in July 2014.[66] In October 2021, readership was estimated to be 19.7 million visitors.[67]


In a 2017 interview on Nieman Lab, Klein stated: "We watch our audience data pretty closely, and our audience data does not show or suggest to us that we are overwhelmingly read on one side or the other of the political sphere, which is good.[68]

 

Journalism portal

Vox Media

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Official website