Monika Bauerlein

Monika Bauerlein is CEO of the Center for Investigative Reporting, the organization formed by Mother Jones' 2024 merger with CIR that also produces Reveal and More To The Story, having led Mother Jones as CEO since 2015 and as co-editor with Clara Jeffery before that.

Based in Oakland, CA Org Center for Investigative Reporting / Mother Jones Role Chief Executive Officer

Notable work and positions

Center for Investigative Reporting (Mother Jones / Reveal) — Chief Executive Officer (since 2024)
Mother Jones — former Chief Executive Officer (2015–2024); former Co-Editor (with Clara Jeffery)
City Pages (Minneapolis/St. Paul) — former Managing Editor and other editorial roles (1991–2000)

Biography

Monika Bauerlein's early career included work as an Associated Press stringer, an alternative-weekly editor, a Washington, D.C. correspondent, and a United Nations correspondent, along with a range of other jobs she has described in her own organization's official biography as including corporate trainer, sausage slinger and fishing-line packager. From 1991 to 2000, she worked at City Pages, the Minneapolis/St. Paul alternative weekly, including as managing editor.

Bauerlein joined Mother Jones around 2000 and served as the magazine's co-editor alongside Clara Jeffery, who is now its editor-in-chief. Under their joint editorship, Mother Jones won two National Magazine Awards for general excellence, the I.F. Stone Medal and the PEN/Nora Magid Award, expanded its Washington bureau to 12 people, and grew MotherJones.com's traffic more than tenfold through an overhaul of the organization's digital strategy. In May 2015, Bauerlein was promoted to chief executive officer of Mother Jones, with Jeffery becoming sole editor-in-chief. Under her tenure as CEO, Mother Jones grew its audience twentyfold, doubled the size of its staff, and established bureaus in both Washington and New York.

In 2024, Bauerlein led the merger of Mother Jones with the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), becoming chief executive officer of the combined organization, which produces Mother Jones' print, digital, social and video content alongside the public radio show and podcast Reveal, the podcast More To The Story, and the documentary film unit CIR Studios. She lives in Oakland, California.

Career highlights

1. CEO of Mother Jones, since 2015Promoted from co-editor to chief executive officer, overseeing a period in which the organization's audience grew twentyfold and its staff doubled in size.

2. Mother Jones–Center for Investigative Reporting merger, 2024Led the merger of the two organizations and became CEO of the combined newsroom, which also produces Reveal and More To The Story.

3. National Magazine Awards, I.F. Stone Medal, PEN/Nora Magid AwardRecognized, together with co-editor Clara Jeffery, for transforming Mother Jones from what PEN judges called “a respected indie publication to an internationally recognized powerhouse.”