Former Reasoner Radley Balko Headed to Wash Post From HuffPost

Check it out: Former Reason Senior Editor Radley Balko is
leaving the Huffington Post
for the Washington Post, where he’ll head up a blog covering
criminal justice, the drug war, and civil liberties.

From the editors of the Opinions section, via
Poynter.org:

We are delighted to announce that Radley Balko, one of the
country’s top criminal justice reporters, will be joining The
Washington Post’s Opinions section, where he will have his own blog
about criminal justice, the drug war and civil liberties.

Radley has made headlines for his groundbreaking stories and
investigations into the criminal justice system across America. His
work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Mississippi
Supreme Court. Radley’s dogged reporting in the Cory Maye case
helped get Maye freed from death row and later released from
prison, and his investigations into the controversial methods of
Mississippi pathologist Steven Hayne led to Hayne’s dismissal as
the state’s top medical examiner. His first book, “Rise of the
Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces,” has
been praised across the political spectrum, and hailed as a “must
read” and a “searing exposé…of police brutality.”

He was named Journalist of the Year in 2011 by the Los Angeles
Press Club, which said “Radley Balko is one of those throw-back
journalists that understands the power of groundbreaking reporting
and how to make a significant impact through his work. Time and
time again, his stories cause readers to stop, think, and most
significantly, take action.”

Radley comes to The Post from The Huffington Post, where he was
a senior writer and investigative reporter. He also writes about
the music and culture of Nashville, Tennessee, where he lives. A
graduate of Indiana University, Radley was previously a senior
editor at Reason magazine, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute
and an opinion columnist for FoxNews.com.

Radley will be joining us in January. Please join us in
welcoming him to The Post.

Fred Hiatt and James Downie
December 4, 2013

Interesting side question: Does this have any implication re:
old versus new media? That is, is this Empire Striking Back by
signing up figures who have made their bones in the swashbuckling
world of online activity? Or does the venerable Wash Post, now
owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, count as the new new media?

So perhaps this move actually means that the Huffington Post,
which is owned by AOL, which merged with Time Warner (and helped
kill it) is now officially the old media. Related: Jack Shafer’s
“General
Theory of Media Exodus.”

In any case, it will be exciting to see Radley Balko on a new
platform and bringing his signature issues and investigative chops
to a new audience. Read his Reason archive
and buy his book,
Rise of the Warrior Cop.

Here he is in August 2013, talking with Reason about the
militarization of police: