user: Problem: Ezra Klein to Leave 'Washington Post' for New Venture

Image: William B. Plowman/Getty Images

Ezra Klein has announced that he will leave The Washington Post, joining a variety of high-profile journalists that have left mainstream media to launch their own ventures.

Klein confirmed his move in a tweet Tuesday morning. Doubt was cast on his future at the Post starting with a report in December from Michael Calderone of The Huffington Post, which stated that Klein was speaking with investors about leaving the newspaper to start a separate media outlet.

The move appeared all the more likely after the New York Times reported that Klein's proposal for a new venture at the Post included an eight-figure budget, and was consequently rejected by the paper's publisher and its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Thanks to the @WashingtonPost for five incredible years. An amazing newsroom and an amazing institution.

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) January 21, 2014

Melissa Bell and Dylan Matthews are also leaving The Washington Post to join Klein in the new venture.

In a memo from the Post that originally appeared on Poynter and was later acquired by Mashable, digital managing editor Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, deputy business editor David Cho and business editor Greg Schneider lauded Klein's achievements, noting that his ambitions had grown beyond his position at the newspaper.

When Ezra joined us in 2009, he was a wunderkind blogger with brash confidence and a burning desire to write a column in the print newspaper. As he leaves us, Ezra is still a brash wunderkind, but now his burning desire has a grander scope: He is looking to start his own news organization, an ambition that befits someone with uncommon gifts of perception and analysis. Ezra’s passion and drive will be missed, but we will take pride in watching him chart out his new venture.

Wonkblog, the policy-focused vertical that Klein oversaw, will continue to reside with the Post, according to economic policy correspondent Jim Tankersley.

Important programming note: @Wonkblog isn't going anywhere. #FF, and stay tuned for relaunch details.

— Jim Tankersley (@jimtankersley) January 21, 2014

The departure of Klein, Bell and Matthews for a new privately funded venture adds to the recent shift by big-name journalists to media entrepreneurs. Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg left All Things D to start Re/code; Glenn Greenwald stepped away from The Guardian for First Look Media; and Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Beck continue to operate their own private media entities.

Klein's exit and the tone of the memo underscore the growing reality that the profile and media power of some journalists are beginning to outgrow their value to the media companies that fostered their development.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Write a one or two sentence summary.

Summary: Ezra Klein has announced that he will leave The Washington Post, joining a variety of high-profile journalists that have left mainstream media.


Problem: Second member of Cuban 5 spy ring released from US prison, will be deported

MIAMI – A second member of the "Cuban Five" spy ring was released Thursday from a U.S. prison after spending more than 15 years behind bars.

Fifty-year-old Fernando Gonzalez -- known to U.S. authorities by his alias, Ruben Campa -- completed his sentence at 4 a.m. local time a prison in Safford, Ariz., Bureau of Prisons spokesman Chris Burke said.

Gonzalez was turned over immediately to immigration officials. He will be deported to Cuba as soon as possible, said Michelle Alvarez, spokeswoman for the Miami U.S. Attorney's Office. The timing of his departure wasn't immediately clear.

The five men, who are hailed as heroes in Cuba, were convicted in 2001 in Miami on charges including conspiracy and failure to register as foreign agents in the U.S. They were known as part of the "Wasp Network" sent by Cuba's then-President Fidel Castro to spy in South Florida.

Trial testimony showed they sought to infiltrate military bases, including the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command and installations in the Florida Keys. They also kept tabs on Cuban exiles opposed to the communist government in Havana and sought to place operatives inside campaigns of U.S. politicians opposed to that government, prosecutors said.

Havana maintains that the agents posed no threat to U.S. sovereignty and were only monitoring militant exiles to prevent terrorist attacks in Cuba, the best known of which was a series of bombings of Havana hotels that killed an Italian tourist in 1997. Cuban leaders regularly call for the men to be released.

Cuba announced a concert Saturday night at the University of Havana in honor of the five men, though it was not immediately clear whether Gonzalez would be in Cuba by then.

The Communist Party newspaper Granma published interviews Thursday with two of Gonzalez's friends back home. Rafael Hojas said the two knew each other as young students and crossed paths on international missions in Africa.

"I hope he spends as little time as possible in an immigration jail and can enjoy as soon as possible his mother, his wife, his family, and we'll see when we might be able to meet," Hojas was quoted as saying.

The Cuban Five have sometimes been linked to the case of American Alan Gross, who has spent four years in a Cuban prison after he was arrested while working covertly to set up Internet access for the island's Jewish community. He was working as a subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, which Cuba considers bent on undermining its government.

Cuba has suggested it might swap Gross for the Cuban Five -- now down to three -- but Washington has rejected any such deal.

Gonzalez was originally sentenced to 19 years but had his prison term reduced after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said he was wrongly labeled a supervisor of other spies for certain activities. Two others also had their prison sentences reduced by that same court order, including 55-year-old Antonio Guerrero, who is set for release in September 2017.

Rene Gonzalez, who is not related to Fernando Gonzalez, finished his prison sentence in 2011 but spent more than a year on probation in the U.S. until a judge allowed him to return to Cuba. Rene Gonzalez, a Chicago native, had dual U.S.-Cuban citizenship, and he renounced his U.S. citizenship after returning to Havana.

One of the five, Gerardo Hernandez, is serving a life prison sentence for murder conspiracy for his role in the 1996 killings of four "Brothers to the Rescue" pilots whose planes were shot down by Cuban fighter jets. The organization dropped pro-democracy leaflets over Cuba and assisted Cuban migrants trying to reach the U.S.

Write a one or two sentence summary.

Summary:

assistant: Another member of the Cuban Five spy ring is getting his release from a U.S. prison after spending more than 15 years behind bars.