Clara Jeffery (born August 25, 1967, in Baltimore, Maryland) is a co-editor of Mother Jones magazine . (Monika Bauerlein is the other co-Editor.) Jeffery was promoted to that position in August 2006, previously she was the magazine's Deputy Editor, a position she had held for four years. Prior to that Jeffery was a Senior Editor at Harper's magazine (1995–2002), where she edited six articles nominated for a National Magazine Award, including essays by Barbara Ehrenreich that became Nickel and Dimed, and several anthologized in the "Best American" series.
Together, Jeffery and Bauerlein have overhauled Mother Jones magazine's website, putting a much greater emphasis on staff-generated, daily news and original reporting. The magazine has received a National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 2008 and 2010 along with numerous other accolades . In 2012 Mother Jones magazine broke the story about Mitt Romney's "47 Percent" remarks, which are widely regarded to have helped Barack Obama win reelection.
In 2002, Jeffery wrote an article on the Salton Sea for Harper's, "Go West Old Man: Where the American Dream Goes Down the Drain," which received an honorable mention in Best American Science and Nature Writing. She has also written for Slate, the Huffington Post, San Francisco Magazine, and The Chicago Reporter.
Between 1993 and 1995, Jeffery was a staff editor and writer at Washington City Paper.
Jeffery grew up in Arlington, Virginia, and attended the Sidwell Friends School ('85), before going to Carleton College ('89). She got a Master's degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1993.