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)

An app that combats texting while driving accidents

Jul 25, 2014
New tech is hoping to combat texting while driving and texting while walking accidents. Marketplace Tech host Ben Johnson explains

Mapping the city, statistic by statistic

Jul 21, 2014
The map, one of the central elements of navigation, has expanded in capability since the form has been translated to digital. Case in point, the MIT Media Lab’s “You Are Here” project is a collection of maps that visualize a variety of datasets over space. Things from bike accidents to coffee shops, graffiti reports, and […]

Tech IRL: The 'right to be forgotten'

Jul 11, 2014
Ben Johnson and Lizzie O'Leary discuss the EU's 'right to be forgotten'

Putting online testing to the test

Jul 7, 2014
Schools are preparing for standardized tests on computers. Not everyone is ready

Pop-up bus service looks to reinvent mass transit

Jul 3, 2014
A Massachusetts start-up uses data to create faster bus routes.

Tech IRL: A second life for pay phones

Jun 27, 2014
Cities try turning neglected telephones into wi-fi hotspots.