Ben Johnson

Former Host, Marketplace Tech and Codebreaker

SHORT BIO

Ben Johnson is the former host of Marketplace Tech and the podcast Codebreaker. He joined Marketplace in 2012 and became the host of Marketplace Tech in early 2014.

Ben started his career in journalism in 2003, working as a features and general assignment reporter for the Day newspaper in New London, Connecticut. While there, he won a regional award for feature writing and was recruited to write a weekly entertainment column for the Tribune Media Service. In 2006, Ben relocated to New York City to be an entertainment and music reporter at the Staten Island Advance newspaper, where he soon moved into hard news, working the cops beat and as a weekend city desk editor.

In 2010, he began to work as a freelance web producer at the Takeaway, a national radio show produced out of New York’s WNYC Radio in partnership with WGBH, The New York Times and the BBC. Ben went on to be a freelance radio producer at WNYC, serving as the digital editor for the Takeaway while also doing live and features reporting for the station on everything from Occupy Wall Street to New York's last functioning ship graveyard. While working at WNYC, Ben started blogging for Slate Magazine's breaking news blog, the Slatest.

In 2012, Ben left WNYC to manage a partnership between Slate and YouTube, producing daily breaking news videos and other content for SlateV, the magazine's video department. He also wrote regularly for Slate's Future Tense blog and drew the extreme ire of his fellow Radiohead fans by asking the band to stop touring.

Ben doesn't like to brag about it, but over the years, he has interviewed Jay Z, Hillary Clinton, Luciano Pavarotti, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, Josh Homme, Biz Stone, Guy Kawasaki, Col. Chris Hadfield, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Neil Young and more. He enjoys and engages in ’80s movie references, plus pie baking and high-fives. His Twitter feed has never been polluted by a subtweet. His interest in swimming knows no bounds, especially if there is a high dive and a high-five involved.

 

Latest Stories (245)

KAYAK adds features to compete with Google

Jul 3, 2017
A baseball pulls up trips to Chicago, home of the Cubs.
People on vacation at the beach. 
Eleftherios Elis/Getty Images

Kidnapping and extortion insurance — for your computer

Jun 30, 2017
Insurance companies are offering cyber polices for when your data is the hostage.
Rob Engelaar / Getty Images

Why this ransomware attack is more alarming than the last

Jun 28, 2017
Chester Wisniewski, senior security researcher with Sophos, talks to us about the latest cyber breach.
Is your computer safe?
Sean Gallup/Getty Images

How do Uber drivers feel now that Travis Kalanick is gone?

Jun 27, 2017
Harry Campbell, Uber driver and blogger at The Rideshare Guy, talks about how Uber's CEO's departure has affected drivers.
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick speaks onstage during an event at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in San Francisco, California last October.
Mike Windle/Getty Images for Vanity Fair

What's growing in the Silicon Desert

The startup scene is blossoming in Phoenix
Downtown Phoenix
Clare Toeniskoeter/Marketplace

Food startup Tovala finds a home in Chicago

May 17, 2017
The Windy City is becoming one of the top tech destinations in the U.S.
Working in Tovala's test kitchen, chef Alexander Plotkin plates one of the company's meals.
Jana Kasperkevic/Marketplace

The former Mormon who created a hacktivist website

Apr 28, 2017
Ryan McKnight believed his church needed greater transparency.
“Our goal is to promote transparency within the Mormon Church,” said Ryan McKnight, creator of MormonLeaks, a website where users post information anonymously about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Above, a line of people wait outside the Provo City Center Temple.
George Frey/Getty Images

How hacktivism intersects with the law

Apr 28, 2017
Activists are using technology, sometimes illegally, to promote social and political change. What kind of legal backlash do they face?
A demonstrator, and supporter of the group Anonymous, rests during a protest against corrupt governments and corporations in front of the White House in Washington, D.C.
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Founder of hacker group LulzSec explains the chaos of hacktivism

Apr 28, 2017
“Did I help the cause or did I hurt the cause?” asks Hector Monsegur, otherwise known by his hacker handle Sabu.
“When you're using hacking to disrupt a government without an understanding of all the consequences, that's when I start to feel like there's a lot more chaos than sense,” said Hector Monsegur, founder of the hacker group LulzSec and a director at Rhino Security.
Patrick Lux/Getty Images

Is ‘hacktivism’ a force for good … or chaos?

Apr 28, 2017
Hackers are 'the best parts of science and information sharing,' research scientist Chester Wisniewski told us. It's part of our special series.
“I am a proudly a hacker, and I get very irritated when hacker is used as a pejorative or to mean criminal activity, because I think hackerism represents our best,” Chester Wisniewski says.
KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images