Clara Jeffery

Editor in Chief

Since taking the editorial helm at Mother Jones in late 2006, Clara and her co-editor, Monika Bauerlein, have won two National Magazine Awards for general excellence, relaunched MotherJones.com, founded an nine-person Washington bureau, given birth, and forgotten what it's like to sleep. It probably doesn't help she's on Twitter so much.

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Clara Jeffery is co-editor of Mother Jones, where, together with Monika Bauerlein, she has spearheaded an era of editorial growth and innovation, marked by the addition of an eight-person Washington bureau, an overhaul of the organization's digital strategy and a corresponding tripling of traffic, and the winning of two National Magazine Awards for general excellence. Before joining the staff of Mother Jones, she was a senior editor of Harper's magazine. Ten pieces that she personally edited have been finalists for National Magazine Awards, in the categories of essay, profile, reporting, public interest, feature, and fiction. Works she edited have also been selected to appear in various editions of Best American Essays, Best American Travel Writing, Best American Sports Writing, and Best American Science Writing. Clara cut her journalistic teeth at Washington City Paper, where she wrote and edited political, investigative, and narrative features, and was a columnist. Jeffery is a graduate of Carleton College and Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. Born in Baltimore and raised in Arlington, Virginia, she now resides in the Mission District of San Francisco with her partner Chris Baum and their three-year-old son, Milo. Their burrito joint of choice is El Metate.

Robots Gone Wild! (ABC Uses Science to Scare)

—By Clara Jeffery

| Thu Aug. 31, 2006 12:37 AM PDT

Ok, anything that gets the American public more interested in science is good. And yet, I really have to question the judgment of Neil de Grasse Tyson—the man who first demoted Pluto!; but on that front, people, deal—and other notable scientists for appearing on ABC's pseudo-scientific offering, "Last Days on Earth!"

Now, given that a huge chuck of TV programming on any given night is devoted to the grossly overstated threat from serial killers and pedophiles (more on that in a later post), people are probably relieved to confront threats they cannot hope to protect against. ABC has obliged with a Top Ten list of scary, scary threats to the planet, such as:

No. 8: Gamma radiation from nearby astral implosion. Anyone got the odds on that one?

No. 7: Black hole swallowing earth. What, does it just appear astern, like on the season premiere of "Deep Space Nine"?

No. 6: AI Gone Wild! Yes, indeedy, many Disney-owned film clips were pressed into service.

Number 5: Killer asteroid. Yawn.

Number 4: Still not entirely sure. "Many of our threats come from above. Only one comes from below…" i.e. some kind of geophysical meltdown that, according to ABC, "might" happen under Yellowstone. (You know, it is one thing to rope in media-sophisticated scientists interviewed in some kind of Truthiness studio setting to do your bidding. It is another thing to interview every law-enforcement official and EMT guy in Rapid City, SD, and ask: What could you hope to do if a giant cloud of ash swallowed your city?)

Number 3: Nuclear war. Wait, that's a real threat. Yet, while experts sanely noted the biggest risk still from U.S./U.S.S.R, most of the file footage was about Iran.

Number 2: Plague/Flu. Oddly, since 10 minutes earlier, ABC had made the point that only one threat "comes from below," plague is now shouted out to be the only threat "not sent from above." And wait, plague or flu could be weaponized! One biologist notes: "some people say, thank god that Ted Kaczynski was a mathematician, not a biologist." Snap!

Number 1: Wait for it…yes, it is global warming. And, though sensationalized and overly reliant on Al Gore (yet another indicator he's running, btw.), the segment was relatively smart.

Smart enough that it made me wonder if this whole show wasn't the product of some producers concerned about global warming asking themselves: How do we sell this to network brass/ advertisers? Wait! I know! A Top Ten list!

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Two Female Editors=Cat Fight? (What, Does Hype Stalker Work for Forbes?)

—By Clara Jeffery

| Thu Aug. 24, 2006 12:05 AM PDT

Ok, not to make too much of this, because, as best as I can tell, Hype Stalker practices a sort of "I wish I worked for Gawker" style of snark. But still, here's what the New York Press' columnist had to say about Monika and I becoming the co-editors of this magazine:

Does anyone really think that Mother Jones appointing two editors-in-chief (Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery) will actually work? (Cue the cat reorws and hisses!)

How about, Cue the misogynistic clichés?

Now, it is fair game to ask, how does a co-editorship work? (To which we say, among other things, it seemed to work just fine at The New York Review of Books for decades.) The question I have is, if the two editors in question were both men, or a man and a woman, would they be subjected to the equivalent of a "Chicks in Chains" stereotype? Or more to the point, bad writing?

Come what may, there will be no hair pulling in this big house. That's a promise.

And while I'm on the subject, the Forbes story, on which Liz has blogged (here and here), just gets better and better. Do not miss the side-by-side comparison of the mind blowingly Neanderthalish Michael Noer article on how career women make lousy wives (!!) with Forbes writer Elizabeth Corcoran's rebuttal, "Don't Marry a Lazy Man." Forbes notes the Noer article has prompted "a heated response, both inside and outside the building." Yeah, from among others, probably any woman, married or unmarried, who's got any personal or professional history with Michael Noer.

For more evidence on that front, follow the jump to a cached version of "The Economics of Prostitution"—another bit of (moldy) "academic analysis" by Noer that Forbes seems to have taken down from its website. Highlights include: "Wives, in truth, are superior to whores in the economist's sense of being a good whose consumption increases as income rises--like fine wine. "

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

MoJo's Ridgeway on C-Span, Talking Subpoenas and Impeachment

—By Clara Jeffery

| Tue Aug. 22, 2006 12:34 PM PDT

Washington Correspondent James Ridgeway will be on C-Span's "Washington Journal" tomorrow morning at 9:30 EST talking about the story he wrote for our hot-on-the-newstands Sept/Oct issue, "Sweet Subpoena : Nine Tough Questions for Congress." In it, Ridgeway details what kind of Congressional investigations might take place if the Democrats win back one or both chambers of Congress (and get some guts in the process). Here's the nine, short form:

Who lost Iraq?
Did Donald Rumsfeld order torture (if not, who did)?
Who Blew 9/11?
What did the airlines know, and when did they know it?
How wide is the domestic surveillance net?
Is Big Oil pulling an Enron?
Who's making money off your retirement?
Why is the morning-after pill not at your 7-11?

and the kicker:

Grounds for impeachment?

IDF Reservists Protest Lebanon Action

—By Clara Jeffery

| Mon Aug. 21, 2006 11:57 PM PDT

A couple of years ago, Gershom Gorenberg wrote a great piece for Mother Jones about the Israel Defense Force reservists known as "refusniks" because they refused participate in the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Now various groups of IDF reservists are protesting the war in Lebanon as well, as the New York Times reports:

[One] group of Israeli reservist soldiers who served during the recent fighting in Lebanon, angry about the conduct of the war, on Monday demanded the resignations of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and the army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz.

The reservists, most of whom have gone back to civilian life, say that their training was inadequate and that they were sent into Lebanon with unclear missions, inadequate supplies, outdated equipment and a lack of basics, like drinking water. They called for a national inquiry into how the war was waged.

Joe Scarborough Asks: Is Bush An Idiot?

—By Clara Jeffery

| Mon Aug. 21, 2006 11:11 PM PDT

Last week, I commented that Bush has lost the punditocracy. On Sunday, the Washington Post makes the point that even Bush's most ardent supporters in the media are jumping ship. Exhibit A is from Scarborough Country:

For 10 minutes, the talk show host grilled his guests about whether "George Bush's mental weakness is damaging America's credibility at home and abroad." For 10 minutes, the caption across the bottom of the television screen read, "IS BUSH AN 'IDIOT'?"

But the host was no liberal media elitist. It was Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman turned MSNBC political pundit. And his answer to the captioned question was hardly "no." While other presidents have been called stupid, Scarborough said: "I think George Bush is in a league by himself. I don't think he has the intellectual depth as these other people."
He showed a montage of clips of Bush's famously inarticulate verbal miscues and then explored with guests John Fund and Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. whether Bush is smart enough to be president.

While the country does not want a leader wallowing in the weeds, Scarborough concluded on the segment, "we do need a president who, I think, is intellectually curious."

"And that is a big question," Scarborough said, "whether George W. Bush has the intellectual curiousness -- if that's a word -- to continue leading this country over the next couple of years."

Actually, "curiousness" seems most apt.