On this date in 1966, journalist Jonathan Larsen was born to Liv and Joseph Larsen in New York City. He has a younger brother. His son Jeremy is in college as of this writing in 2026.
He grew up New York City and then in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., “with no religious upbringing whatsoever,” Larsen says. “When I displayed concern as a child that the Tooth Fairy would be entering my room at night, I was informed by my mother that there is no Tooth Fairy. I also don’t believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny but nevertheless enjoy both holidays in the pagan spirit of their origin.” (Larsen email to FFRF)
He double-majored in English and philosophy at Tufts University in Massachusetts, where his faculty adviser for philosophy was Daniel C. Dennett, whose scholarship earned him a place among the “Four Horsemen” of literary atheism along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens. “[A]theism didn’t start off as a big preoccupation in my life, it’s only become so proportionate to the rise of politicized religion in this country,” Larsen told FFRF in 2026.
He worked on school publications and became editor-in-chief of the Tufts Daily. After graduation he worked as a reporter for a Brooklyn paper and for United Press International before being hired by ABC, where he wrote for “Good Morning America” and served as a writer-producer for “World News Now.”
Later landing at CNN, Larsen helped create and launch “Anderson Cooper 360” and “Greenfield at Large.” He worked for several years with anchor Keith Olbermann on “Countdown With Keith Olbermann” that started airing on MSNBC in 2003. He broke several national stories, including insider accounts of the politicization of President George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.
He helped launch Air America Radio, co-creating “Morning Sedition” with Marc Maron, co-producing “The Rachel Maddow Show” on radio and writing a blog titled Petty Larseny that he billed as “A foxhole for atheists and other thinkers.” He later worked with Chris Hayes to create his first show, “Up With Chris Hayes” that debuted in 2011.
As managing editor and executive producer of The Young Turks Investigates (TYY), Larsen delved deeply into the National Prayer Breakfast and discussed his reporting on FFRF’s Freethought Radio and “Ask an Atheist” TV show. He was named FFRF’s Secularist of the Week in January 2026 for his reporting on the breakfast and its ties to Christian nationalists: “For years, Larsen has provided the clearest and most unflinching coverage of the National Prayer Breakfast, an event that has long masqueraded as a harmless display of bipartisan faith while functioning as a shadowy hub for right-wing religious influence, elite networking and global theocratic ambitions.”
Larsen has also exposed how breakfast organizers and their allies have promoted extreme policies far beyond U.S. borders, including networks tied to anti-LGBTQ+ laws and attacks on reproductive rights. He has explored the role of the Fellowship Foundation (aka The Family) in U.S./Ukraine relations, its financial ties with Florida’s official legislative chaplain and how former Florida Democratic senator and NASA administrator Bill Nelson used NASA to benefit The Family, which has deep ties in Washington, D.C.
Larsen has two Substacks. One is JonathanLarsen.Substack.com, where he does original reporting. The other is a weekday-morning newsletter titled The Fucking News (TFN), which he describes as him aggregating, contextualizing and commenting rudely on the day’s news, often with a healthy dose of humor: “My goals with TFN are to screen out bullshit that doesn’t matter, help navigate bullshit that does, and surface bullshit you might not otherwise know about. … The two newsletters are what I live and breathe now.”
Though he encourages paid subscriptions, all TFN content is free: “It just means I hate paywalls. I despise the idea of cutting people off from journalism because they can’t afford it.”
He collects comic books and has written several, along with two Batman stories for DC Comics and a digital comic of his own, “The Endling” (about evolution).
