Monika Bauerlein is the co-editor of the magazine Mother Jones. (Clara Jeffery is the other co-editor.) Bauerlein was promoted to the position in August 2006, following the departure of Russ Rymer; previously she was the magazine's Investigative Editor. Bauerlein first came to Mother Jones in 2000, and she has focused on developing political and investigative reportage and has spearheaded the magazine's new investigative team and Washington bureau.
Together, Bauerlein and Jeffery have overhauled the website of Mother Jones, putting a much greater emphasis on staff-generated, daily news and original reporting. During their tenure, the magazine has won two National Magazine Awards for General Excellence and been nominated twice more. Mother Jones also broke the "47 percent" story about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, credited by some with having a significant effect on the 2012 US presidential election.
Bauerlein was born in Germany, but has lived in a several countries, including Italy, where her father, Heinz Bäuerlein, covered everything from cholera epidemics to papal conclaves. She came to America on a Fulbright scholarship and worked as a stringer for a variety of publications including Germany's Die Zeit and The Associated Press. Between 1991 and 2000, she was a writer, managing editor, and interim editor in chief at City Pages, which became the Village Voice sister paper in Minneapolis/St. Paul in 1997.