In These Times’ Youngest-Ever Staff Writer Will Oversee Occupy Coverage

As the Occupy movement gears up for spring street actions, In These Times’ new staff writer will guide expanded coverage at Uprising blog

CHICAGO, APRIL 25—In These Times is extremely excited to announce that Bhaskar Sunkara will help guide inthesetimes.com’s coverage of the Occupy movement. As one of the magazine’s six staff writers, Sunkara will blog at Uprising, lending his unique voice and experience to covering global protests against austerity and other movements for social and economic justice.

Just 22, Sunkara is the founding editor of Jacobin, a quarterly publication of politics and criticism. Launched online in September 2010, Jacobin’s popularity spurred a transition to print later that year. Over the past few months, Jacobin’s stature has only grown. Media outlets including the Washington Post, Slate and Gawker have mentioned Jacobin, especially in the wake of its acclaimed Occupy-themed “Phase Two” issue. The magazine’s unlikely success has even been discussed as a case study for the future of print in the digital age at journalism programs at Northwestern University and New York University.

“We welcome Bhaskar Sunkara,” says In These Times Editor & Publisher Joel Bleifuss. “His combination of thoughtful analysis, political passion and sly wit is exactly what is needed. We trust he will make you think and smile.”

Sunkara’s work has previously appeared in Truthdig, Alternet, Dissent, The New Inquiry, and New Politics. He brings years of experience as a writer, editor and publisher to his new role as Uprising’s blogger.

Commenting on his appointment, Sunkara said that he would like to push Uprising’s coverage “beyond documenting anti-austerity struggles toward rigorous, but always accessible, analysis and critique. For the first time in a generation, we’re witnessing the birth of large left-wing movements in the United States and Europe. Developments as exciting as this deserve to be covered with verve.”

Since taking the helm at Uprising, Sunkara has written about the New York Police Department’s disruption of Occupy activists’ “sleepful protest,” leftist French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, and the new New York-based Spanish-language publication IndigNación.

Read Sunkara’s work at Uprising here. And visit Uprising regularly for more coverage and analysis on the growing protest movements in the United States and around the world.