Big Changes At Vox As Co-Founder Ezra Klein, EiC Lauren Williams Depart News Site

Big changes are afoot at Vox, the online news and opinion site co-founded by Ezra Klein, Matthew Yglesias and Melissa Bell that is part of the larger Vox Media group. Klein, who held the title Editor-at-Large, is leaving to join the New York Times as an opinion page columnist and podcaster. Vox Editor-in-Chief Lauren Williams is also leaving to launch a new nonprofit startup, Capital B, focused on creating a news outlet to provide high quality journalism tailored to Black communities. Yglesias announced his departure last week to produce his own content on the Substack platform, joining an increasing number of high-profile journalists seeking an independent outlet free from editorial pressures.

Bell, Publisher for Vox’s parent company Vox Media, announced the changes Friday morning on the site. “After seven years of helping to expand our upstart into something so much bigger and more impactful than we ever could have imagined, Lauren and Ezra are each preparing for significant career moves,” she wrote.

Vox was formed in 2014 as a platform for in-depth political reporting, data-based journalism and policy analysis. Klein and Yglesias had both build audiences as young bloggers in the aughts, eventually moving into more established venues like The Washington Post, Slate and Atlantic Monthly and gaining visibility on cable news outlets. Bell was previously director of platforms at Washington Post. The site grew rapidly in size and footprint, earning Emmys and OMA awards along with a loyal readership, as well as expanding into other media such as videos and podcasts. The site’s traffic for October, 2020 was estimated at 34.7 million total visitors according to the metrics site SimilarWeb.

In her announcement of the changes to Vox, Bell emphasized a commitment to continued growth and excellence in the future. “We expect the next seven years to be even more propulsive and creative. That possibility is at its peak right now: We’re doing the best journalism we ever have, and doing it in more places and more formats than ever before. There’s a slew of new projects and partnerships coming, and we have a stronger, more diversified business than ever.”

Klein, who is pursuing a lifelong dream to write opinion columns for the New York Times, framed his departure as an evolution. “If I thought Vox were weak, or fragile, or in crisis, or it needed me, I wouldn’t do this. I wouldn’t even consider it,” he explained. “But one of the beautiful things of the past few years is seeing how much less needed I am, how many projects grow beautifully without me. And I know where our business is, and I know how many revenue lines we have, and how well we’ve weathered this year’s storm. This is a time of transition — out of the Trump era, out of the Covid recession, and into the next era of Vox.”

The high-profile departures follow a difficult summer that saw parent company Vox Media shed 6% of its workforce (about 72 employees) amid declining advertising revenues due to COVID-19. Vox Media owns other media properties including The Verge, New York Magazine, Eater, SBNation and Curbed in addition to Vox.

However, those days of retrenchment might be over. Bell announced the site will be hiring at least 10 key roles in the weeks and months to come, including a new Editor-in-Chief and a senior vice president focused on business development. She also announced Vox will be launching on OTT channels, with prospective partnerships with Netflix
NFLX
, YouTube Originals and HBO.

The shakeup at Vox comes a day after BuzzFeed acquired Huffington Post, signaling increasing consolidation and more heated competition in the arena of online news.