National Journal’s Pershing is joining the WSJ as politics editor

Ben Pershing, the editor of the National Journal, is joining The Wall Street Journal as politics editor.

Washington bureau chief Paul Beckett sent out the following announcement on Wednesday:

All: I am delighted to announce that Ben Pershing is named Politics Editor of The Wall Street Journal.

Ben is currently editor of National Journal and has spent his career in political reporting and editing in Washington. His appointment comes at a particularly exciting time for our political coverage, with the 2020 race heating up and with the prospect of a larger-than-ever audience for our work thanks to the new partnership with Apple News announced earlier this week. Ben will oversee our coverage of the White House, Congress, national politics and related policy.

In his current role, Ben guides all coverage and journalism strategy for National Journal. He previously served as National Journal’s managing editor, running the day-to-day efforts of the newsroom, and as Washington editor, leading coverage of Congress and the White House.

Prior to that, Ben served for six years as a staff writer at The Washington Post. He covered Congress for the national staff, anchoring a popular blog and a weekly column on Capitol Hill, and has covered high-profile Senate and governor races in Virginia. Ben got his start in Washington with a decade at Roll Call, both as reporter and editor. Born and raised in Los Angeles—and still a rabid Dodgers fan—Ben is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. He lives in Washington with his wife, Beth, and two children.

In addition to Ben, we will be adding a number of reporters and editors to expand our formidable politics team, both here in Washington and around the country. Stay tuned for more on that.

Ben will join us next month, and will report to me. Please join me in welcoming Ben to The Journal.

Paul