Radley Balko

In 2011, The Week named Balko a finalist for Opinion Columnist of the Year. Also in 2011, the Los Angeles Press Club named Balko Best of Show Journalist of the Year, the judges saying:

In 2009, Balko's investigative report on expert witness fraud in a Louisiana death penalty case won the Western Publication Association's Maggie Award for reporting.

Balko blogs about criminal justice, the drug war and civil liberties for The Washington Post. Previously, he was a senior writer and investigative reporter for The Huffington Post, a senior editor at Reason magazine, and a policy analyst for the Cato Institute, specializing in vice and civil liberties issues. He writes on drug policy, police misconduct, obesity, alcohol, tobacco, and civil liberties. He also writes on trade and globalization issues and more generally on politics and culture. He was also a biweekly columnist for Fox News from 2002 until 2009. His work has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Playboy, TIME magazine, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Slate, Reason, Worth magazine, Canada's National Post, and the Chicago Tribune. He has appeared on CNN, CNBC, Fox News, MSNBC, and National Public Radio. He began writing an opinion blog at The Washington Post in January 2014.

Balko is an atheist. He earned a B.A. in journalism and political science in 1997 from Indiana University Bloomington.

Radley Balko (born April 19, 1975) is an American journalist, author, blogger, and speaker who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and writes about criminal justice, the drug war, and civil liberties for The Washington Post. Balko has written and published several books including The Rise of the Warrior Cop and The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist.