Author and Political Analyst Ezra Klein to Discuss Polarization in Politics at Pitt Family Foundation Speaker Series on Feb. 23
Ezra Klein, founder and editor-at-large of Vox, author and policy analyst, will speak at the University of Arizona Law’s Pitt Family Foundation Speaker Series on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021. Klein, author of “Why We’re Polarized,” will talk about polarization in the political system with former Tucson mayor and University of Arizona Law Professor of Practice Jonathan Rothschild.
“The American political system – which includes everyone from voters to journalists to the president – is full of rational actors making rational decisions given the incentives they face,” writes Klein. “We are a collection of functional parts whose efforts combine into a dysfunctional whole.”
The Pitt Family Foundation Speaker Series is part of the Participatory Democracy Initiative at the University of Arizona. The Participatory Democracy Initiative is an interdisciplinary and community-engaged program of the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, the School of Government & Public Policy, and the School of Journalism.
When: Feb. 23, 2021, 12:15-1:15 p.m. (MST)
Who may attend: This event is free and open to the public
Background: Ezra Klein is founder and Editor-at-large of Vox—a platform dedicated to explaining the news. Launched in April 2014, Vox has grown at a startling rate: it now receives more than 20 million unique visitors monthly and leads Comscore's politics category. Vox was the first online-only news publication to land an interview with former President Barack Obama.
Klein is also a policy analyst for MSNBC where his commentary focuses on, as he describes it “domestic and economic policy-making, as well as the political system that’s constantly screwing it up.”
Prior to starting Vox, Klein oversaw The Washington Post’s “Wonkblog” and was a columnist for Bloomberg News.
In 2012, GQ named Klein to their “50 Most Powerful People in Washington” list saying, “as proprietor of the Post's ‘Wonkblog’, Klein has become a singular journalistic force” and Esquire named him to their “79 Things We Can All Agree On” list saying, “Ezra Klein gives economics columnists a good name.” In 2014, Vanity Fair named him one of the media's "new disrupters."