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MPR to air Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein’s campus talk

EKheadshotThe lecture that Ezra Klein recently delivered at St. Olaf College will be broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio May 6.

The Washington Post journalist, blogger, and columnist visited St. Olaf April 24 to discuss “How Washington Really Works.”

Klein, the St. Olaf Political Awareness Committee’s spring speaker, talked about the impact that the lack of consensus and bipartisanship in Washington, D.C., is having on the U.S. and many countries around the world. His lecture was streamed and archived online.

Klein currently manages the Washington Post’s Wonkblog, a contributor-based forum that covers various facets of policy development. His own pieces for the blog tend to cover health care and budget policy. Additionally, Klein is a columnist for Bloomberg and is a contributing policy analyst for numerous outlets at MSNBC, including The Rachel Maddow Show and Hardball with Chris Matthews.

In 2010 The Week magazine named Klein Blogger of the Year for his coverage of the health care debate and Congress’ passage of the Affordable Care Act. In 2011 GQ magazine named him one of the 50 most powerful people in Washington and Time magazine labeled his blog as one of the 25 best financial blogs.

“Ezra does real analysis of issues: the kind of thing that you really need to know to make an informed judgment, but that’s all too rare even in financial journalism,” Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote for Klein’s bio in Time. “[He] was absolutely invaluable during the health care debate.”