POLITICO names Julia Marsh editorial director for California and Debra Kahn California policy editor

Announcement from Executive Editor, Platforms and Operations, Joe Schatz and Editor-in-Chief Matt Kaminski:

Team –

We’re thrilled to announce two important moves in our push to become the leading publication covering politics and policy in California.

It’s been clear since we launched our California expansion that the size and scope of our plans required a top editorial leader with a unique blend of journalistic authority, coverage vision, management experience and entrepreneurial spirit. As we interviewed a wide array of top-tier candidates within California and beyond to fill that role, it became ever more apparent that the most intriguing candidate was in our own ranks — and about 3,000 miles away from Sacramento.

Julia Marsh, who joined POLITICO in early 2021 from the New York Post and immediately transformed the impact of our New York City coverage, is moving west to head up our California operation as Editorial Director for California — the top editor overseeing our ambitious expansion in the nation’s most populous state and the world’s fifth largest economy.

Julia came to POLITICO just as New York Mayor Eric Adams was entering office, following a decade as legal correspondent, and then City Hall Bureau Chief, for the Post. (Ask Julia about her coverage of Hulk Hogan’s invasion of privacy lawsuit against Gawker media in 2016.) Julia instantly upped the ante for us in what has been POLITICO’s largest state operation, working closely and effectively with reporters (including former Bureau Chief Sally Goldenberg) to lead award-winning coverage of the new Adams administration that has clobbered the competition, and also playing a key role in coverage of statewide politics and policy.

A skilled and confident editor with an eye for the type of impact-driven and lively coverage that resonates with POLITICO readers — and, not incidentally, the type of tabloid experience that has served many past POLITICO editors and reporters well — Julia rapidly became a force in the broader POLITICO newsroom, playing a key role in leading our coverage of former President Donald Trump’s indictment by a Manhattan grand jury earlier this year.

But it wasn’t only Julia’s track record as a leader and a journalist that made her a compelling choice. It was also her fresh eyes and enthusiasm for the next chapter in POLITICO’s growth, and her own career.

Our California team was already steeped in the policy and politics of the Golden State, thanks to the strong work of editors Katy Murphy, Ben Fox and our reporting team. Since January, we've been steadily adding to that expertise and firepower, taking it to a new level — first with Chris Cadelago’s move from Washington back to Sacramento to be our California Bureau Chief and lead political reporter, and then with the addition of Rachel Bluth on health care, Melanie Mason in Los Angeles and Dustin Gardiner on Playbook. Julia brings a different experience (though she did once hike the Pacific Crest trail) and one that we think is perfect to turbo-charge what we’re doing in California. We’re convinced that Julia will serve as the perfect complement to — and leader of — this group of talented reporters and editors. She knows POLITICO and our model, understands how to create compelling journalism for an influential audience of state and national readers and is uniquely positioned to drive our coverage in California and work closely with editorial and commercial leaders in Rosslyn to drive forward this effort.

A graduate of Colorado College, Julia attended Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and worked for Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest daily newspaper, in Washington during the George W. Bush and Obama years, before joining the Post.

Julia will move to California in late August with her husband and two children, just as we launch our expanded California coverage. She will report to Joe and work closely with Ryan Hutchins, our Editorial Director for States, who has been instrumental in laying the grounding for our California expansion. Katy and Chris will both report to Julia, and so will the subject of our next announcement…

Debra Kahn, POLITICO’s deputy sustainability editor and a critical part of our California journalism for the past five years, will become California policy editor with a particular focus on our new California Climate newsletter launching next month.

Debra’s return to the growing California team is an exciting and very natural move: She was a founding member of the powerhouse Sacramento policy squad we launched in 2019 — joining us to cover environmental and energy policy after 13 years at a then-rival publication called E&E News. She immediately brought a sharp eye for the characters and political dynamics shaping policy in California, helped us establish credibility and a strong audience in California and worked as Bureau Chief for a year in Sacramento.

Debra then took the same sensibility to POLITICO’s new sustainability team in early 2021, expanding and leading the Long Game newsletter, our newsletter for executives, investors, policymakers that bridges the worlds of finance, technology, energy, agriculture and government, and our Pro sustainability coverage. Debra played a key role in the team’s tracking of the volatile politics around sustainable investing, including the rise of anti-ESG presidential candidates and legislation in statehouses around the country.

Debra will oversee the new California climate newsletter team but work with reporters across our California policy coverage, with a bias toward delivering exclusive and original news and insights to our readers. The political and policy climate story playing out in California is central to our coverage plans, and Debra is uniquely suited to drive coverage here.

A Maryland native and a graduate of the University of Maryland, Debra and her husband live in the Bay area.

Please join us in congratulating Julia and Debra.