Matthew Yglesias (/ɪˈɡleɪsiəs/; born May 18, 1981[1]) is an American blogger and journalist who writes about economics and politics.[2][3] Yglesias has written columns and articles for publications such as The American Prospect, The Atlantic, and Slate. In 2014 he co-founded the news website Vox.
Matthew Yglesias | |
|---|---|
 Yglesias in 2008 | |
| Born | May 18, 1981 |
| Education | Harvard University (BA) |
| Occupation(s) | Blogger, journalist |
| Years active | 2002–present |
| Employers | |
| Relatives | Rafael Yglesias (father) |
In November 2020,[4] he left his position as an editor and columnist at Vox to publish the Substack newsletter Slow Boring. In the same month, he joined the Niskanen Center as a Senior Fellow.[5][6]
Early life and education
Yglesias's father Rafael Yglesias is a screenwriter and novelist, and he has a brother named Nicolas. His paternal grandparents were novelists Jose Yglesias and Helen Yglesias (née Bassine). His paternal grandfather was of Cuban and Spanish Galician descent, and his three other grandparents were of Eastern European Jewish descent.[7]
Yglesias went to high school at the Dalton School in New York City. He attended Harvard University, where he was editor in chief of The Harvard Independent and graduated in 2003 with a B.A. magna cum laude in philosophy.[8][9]
Personal life
Yglesias is married to Kate Crawford. Yglesias and Crawford met in 2008, and have one son together. Crawford now serves as editor for his Slow Boring newsletter.[10]
Career
Early career
Yglesias started blogging in early 2002, while still in college, focusing mainly on American politics and public policy issues, often approached from an abstract, philosophical perspective.
Yglesias joined the American Prospect as a writing fellow upon his graduation in 2003, subsequently becoming a staff writer. His posts appeared regularly on the magazine's collaborative weblog TAPPED.[11]
From June 2007 until August 2008, he was a staff writer at The Atlantic Monthly, and his blog was hosted on the magazine's website, The Atlantic. In July 2008, he announced that he would leave The Atlantic Monthly for the Center for American Progress where he wrote for its blog, ThinkProgress, because he missed "the sense of collegiality that comes from working with like-minded colleagues on a shared enterprise" and thought he could "help advance their mission."[12] On November 21, 2011, he left ThinkProgress to work as a business and economics correspondent at Slate's Moneybox.[13][14]
Vox
In February 2014, he left Slate and joined Vox Media to co-found Vox with Ezra Klein and Melissa Bell.[15] On November 13, 2020, Yglesias announced that he would no longer be writing for Vox.com.[16] Yglesias moved to Substack for editorial independence.[17]
Controversy
In 2013, Yglesias garnered controversy for his statements about the 2013 Dhaka garment factory collapse, with Yglesias arguing that the lower building standards that partially led to the factory's collapse make "economic sense"[18] in developing countries, later tweeting that "foreign factories should be more dangerous than American factories"[19][20] and "the current system of letting different countries have different rules is working fine."[21] His comments were widely criticized in The Daily Beast,[22] Time[23] and other outlets,[24][25] with The Guardian commenting that Yglesias is "confusing a person's human worth with their socio-economic status. That's wrong."[26] Yglesias later clarified some of his comments, but stood by his original position.[27]
Yglesias deleted his past Twitter feed in November 2018, after controversy over tweets which defended the motivation of protesters who gathered outside the house of Tucker Carlson. The tweets also expressed a lack of empathy for Carlson's wife, which caused outrage.[28][29][30]
Books
Yglesias authored the political nonfiction book One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger, released on September 15, 2020.[31] It was inspired by Doug Saunders' Maximum Canada.[32] According to an analysis by British digital strategist Rob Blackie, Yglesias was one of the most commonly followed political writers among Biden administration staff on Twitter.[33]
Andrew Sullivan, a fellow blogger, takes nominations on his blog for the Yglesias Award, an honor "for writers, politicians, columnists or pundits who actually criticize their own side, make enemies among political allies, and generally risk something for the sake of saying what they believe."[34][35]
Political views
In 2011, The Economist noted that Yglesias has been accused of espousing "left-leaning neoliberalism" in his writing.[36] In 2017, Vice listed Yglesias among a group of political writers who were attached with a "neoliberal shill" label in left-wing Twitter communities.[37] Yglesias himself embraced the "neoliberal shill" label in a 2019 podcast.[38]
In 2002, Yglesias was a strong supporter of invading Iraq, Iran and North Korea, calling the countries on his blog "evil" and stating that "we should take them all out", although he was critical of the term "axis of evil".[39][40] In 2010, he called his attitudes about the war a mistake.[41]
In or before 2010, Yglesias coined the term "pundit's fallacy" to denote "the belief that what a politician needs to do to improve his or her political standing is do what the pundit wants substantively."[42][43][44] In 2012, Yglesias stated that he voted for Mitt Romney when he won the office for governor of Massachusetts in 2002.[45]
Works
- Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats, Wiley, April 2008, ISBN 978-0-470-08622-3.[46]
- "Long Philosophical Rant about Spider-Man 2", Ultimate blogs: masterworks from the wild Web, Editor Sarah Boxer, Random House, Inc., 2008, ISBN 978-0-307-27806-7
- "The Media", The 12-Step Bush Recovery Program, Gene Stone, Carl Pritzkat, Tony Travostino, Random House, Inc., 2008, ISBN 978-0-8129-8036-3
- The Rent Is Too Damn High, Simon and Schuster, March 2012, ASIN B0078XGJXO
- One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger, Portfolio Penguin, September 2020, ISBN 978-0-593-19021-0.
