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)

Smartphone: Enter stage left

Dec 12, 2016
How a play in New York is incorporating technology into its production.
Augmented reality allows audience members to see poppies growing around the stage. 
Courtesy of the Builders Association

Cyborgs: we're closer than you think

Dec 1, 2016
Codebreaker’s latest episode explores the “Augmented Self”
Ivan Mendoza, MD, associate medical director for the Jackson Medical Group's cardiology practice, holds the world's smallest pacemaker at a South Florida hospital in Miami, Florida.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Special preview: Codebreaker season two

Nov 16, 2016
This season on our tech podcast "Codebreaker," we're asking: "Can it save us?" In this special preview of the first episode, you'll hear about a toddler who saved her mother's life with Siri, a man whose mysterious ailment opened up a world of voice recognition technology and a dating service that wants to scan the faces of all your exes. Listen, decode, and decide: Can recognition software save us?
Faye Orlove

Encryption apps see growth after election

Nov 16, 2016
Signal, which features end-to-end encryption, has seen 400 percent growth since the election.
Signal uses end-to-end encryption so that no one can read your messages.
Open Whisper Systems

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto on Steel City as innovation hub

Oct 31, 2016
Uber chose Pittsburgh as the place to test its autonomous vehicles. How will it affect the city and its citizens?
An Uber driverless Ford Fusion drives down Smallman Street on September, 22, 2016 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

How scientifically plausible is 'Star Trek'?

Sep 5, 2016
A NASA scientist actually looked into it.
Photo of Leonard Nimoy as Spock from the television series "Star Trek."
NBC Television/Wikimedia Commons

The world's top Trekspert on the show's 50-year history

Sep 5, 2016
Writer Mark Altman joined us to talk about how realistic the science fiction series could be.
Mark Altman speaking at the 2015 WonderCon.
Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Why every generation should have its own 'Star Trek'

Sep 5, 2016
Brannon Braga, a showrunner, talked to us about his time working behind the scenes.
Showrunner Brannon Braga says there's no show out there like "Star Trek."
Cindy Ord/Getty Images for FOX

Diversity-focused accelerator works to create access

Sep 2, 2016
Startup 52 is a New York-based accelerator that wants to help entrepreneurs from untapped communities get noticed.
A pitch evaluation sheet at Startup 52 
Stephanie Hughes