# Ben Norton Ben Norton is an American journalist and commentator who founded and edits **Geopolitical Economy Report**, a website, YouTube channel and podcast about U.S. power, China and the global economy. After several years in Latin America he now lives in Beijing. He is best known for two things: his years as the second name on the masthead of [[The Grayzone]], and the public break with its founder that followed. ## Career Norton started as a staff writer at the progressive sites Salon and AlterNet, contributed to the media-criticism group FAIR, and reported for The Real News. He then joined [[Max Blumenthal]] at The Grayzone as assistant editor, and the two co-hosted the podcast *Moderate Rebels*. In those years he shared the site's signature positions: sympathetic coverage of the governments of [[Venezuela]], Nicaragua, [[Syria]] and [[China]], and deep suspicion of any reporting that could build a case for U.S. intervention. He left The Grayzone in January 2022, renamed his show *Multipolarista*, and later that year expanded it into Geopolitical Economy Report. He co-hosts a program there with Radhika Desai, a political scientist at the University of Manitoba. His subjects are [[De-dollarization]], the growth of [[BRICS]], China's economic model and what he calls the decline of the American empire. He was also among the left-wing hosts recruited to the audio app [[Callin]] in 2022. ## The break with The Grayzone The split became public in October 2023. Norton wrote that he had left because Blumenthal had taken the site sharply to the right in a bid for [[Donald Trump]]'s supporters, citing friendly ties to [[Tucker Carlson]] and attacks on the left. Blumenthal answered that Norton had not quit but had been fired, for publicly criticizing colleagues who opposed COVID lockdowns and vaccine mandates. The two then traded accusations over money and over control of their shared podcast. ## Why it's on the map Norton is the member of this cluster who went the other way. [[Glenn Greenwald]], [[Matt Taibbi]] and [[Jimmy Dore]] drifted toward right-wing platforms and audiences. Norton moved further into the state-aligned anti-imperialist left: he supports vaccines, works from China, and presents the rise of Beijing and its partners as progress toward a [[Multipolar World]]. His account of the split is also the most direct insider testimony that the pull toward the right inside [[Heterodox Media]] is real, since it comes from someone who shared nearly all of his old colleagues' views on foreign policy. Critics of both men would add that the quarrel was over audience and tone, and that neither changed his habit of taking the side of governments opposed to Washington. ## Connections - [[Heterodox Media]] · [[The Grayzone]] · [[Max Blumenthal]] · [[Callin]] - [[De-dollarization]] · [[BRICS]] · [[Multipolar World]] · [[China]]