Matthew Yglesias

Matthew Yglesias (/ɨˈɡleɪsiəs/; born May 18, 1981) is a liberal^[1][2] American writer. He writes about economics and politics.

Life

Matthew Yglesias's father Rafael Yglesias is a screenwriter and novelist (and the son of novelists Jose Yglesias, of Cuban and Spanish descent, and Helen (née Bassine), daughter of Jewish Polish immigrants).

Yglesias went to high school at The Dalton School in New York City and later attended Harvard University where he studied philosophy.^[3] He graduated magna cum laude in 2003. He was editor-in-chief of The Harvard Independent, a weekly newsmagazine, and also wrote for several other campus publications.

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. He was one of the supporters of the Iraq war. 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.^[4] His personal blog has been hosted, at various times, on Blogger, Typepad, Josh Marshall's TPMCafe, and at matthewyglesias.com. 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".^[5] On November 21, 2011, he left ThinkProgress to work as a business and economics correspondent at Slate's Moneybox.^[6][7] He does not have a degree in economics.^[8]

He has also written for mainstream publications such as the New York Times Magazine, and has made occasional appearances on radio and television as a political commentator. He is a regular contributor to BloggingHeads.tv.^[9] Yglesias is often referred to in the blogosphere as Big Media Matt, a semi-affectionate nickname coined by Duncan Black after his recruitment by the American Prospect.^[10]

Andrew Sullivan 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."^[11] Yglesias is also somewhat infamous for the often poor spelling of his blog posts, a weakness to which he frankly admits.^[12] The Yglesias Award, just like the Dick Morris Award and the Moore Award, give every appearance of being serious awards for their various categories, as judged by their descriptions and their lists of nominees.^[13]

Yglesias states that he voted for Mitt Romney when he ran for Governor of Massachusetts.^[14]

In February 2014, he left Slate and joined Vox Media to work on Vox.com with Ezra Klein.^[15]

Criticism

Matthew was criticized after he published an article in Vox describing how the birth of his first child changed some of his political views. In the article he stated that after watching his wife carry their first born son to term and give birth, his pro-choice views were increased "tenfold."^[16]

Awards

• 2007 The Hillman Prize, for "Tapped", The American Prospect

Works

• The Rent Is Too Damn High, Simon and Schuster, March 2012, ASIN B0078XGJXO
• 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.^[17]
• "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

References

External links

• Slate Moneybox column
• Yglesias' old The Atlantic blog
• Yglesias' old Center for American Progress blog
• TAPPED
• Video debates featuring Yglesias on Bloggingheads.tv