Marisa Kabas

Last updated
Marisa Kabas
Born (1987-09-04) September 4, 1987 (age 37)
EducationJournalism (2009)
Alma mater George Washington University
OccupationJournalist
Website thehandbasket.co

Marisa Kabas (born August 4, 1987 [1] [2] ) is an American independent journalist, former political strategist, and creator of the newsletter The Handbasket.

Contents

Career

She started off working in public relations before becoming a journalist. [3] She started freelancing for Today.com before moving to work at The Daily Dot . [3] Kabas has written freelance for MSNBC, the Huffington Post , The New Republic, [2] and Rolling Stone . [4]

She was the director of Crush 2020, a political action organization, [5] and a former political strategist. [6]

She started her newsletter, The Handbasket, in early 2022 [4] for personal writing and essays, before switching to reporting the next year. [2] The newsletter, free and named after the phrase "to hell in a handbasket," also has a paid subscription. [2] She began writing full-time in 2024 for her newsletter. [4]

The Handbasket wrote daily updates on George Santos' scandals, [7] and about The Kansas Reflector, which was raided by police in 2023.

Kabas broke the news that Trump's second administration ordered staff at the National Institutes of Health to stop travelling. [3] Days later, she broke the news that it was also was freezing federal grants, first posting on Bluesky about it. [2] Her scoops increased the amount of paid subscribers from 800 to 1,900. [4] The memo on federal grants was reversed two days after Kabas posted about it. [2] The Associated Press called it "a key moment for a growing cadre of journalists who work independently to gather and analyze news and market themselves as brands." [8]

Personal life

Kabas grew up on Long Island, [8] attended attended George Washington University, [3] and lives in Brooklyn, New York City. [2] She is Jewish and says a grandparent survived the Holocaust. [4] [3] Kabas has acromegaly caused by a tumor called pituitary adenoma, diagnosed in 2018, [5] and wrote extensively [6] about her treatment on the blogging website Medium. She had the tumor cells removed from her brain in early 2021. [5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kabas, Marisa (August 4, 2024). "as you may have heard (because i mentioned it 600 times) it's my birthday!" . Retrieved February 13, 2025– via Bluesky.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Bauder, David (February 2, 2025). "The power of independent journalism: From her Brooklyn apartment, she 'scooped' the nation's media". AP News . Retrieved February 13, 2025.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Biazzo, Sacha (February 5, 2025). "Q&A: Marisa Kabas on Scooping the World on the Federal Funding Freeze". Columbia Journalism Review . Retrieved February 13, 2024.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Perelli, Amanda. "How a journalist used her newsletter to break the story about a White House plan to freeze federal grants — and how she's building a business". Business Insider . Retrieved February 13, 2025.
  5. 1 2 3 Tien, Caroline (May 4, 2021). "Woman's Insane Hospital Bill Goes Viral on Twitter". Newsweek . Retrieved February 13, 2025.
  6. 1 2 Caron, Christina (July 29, 2021). "When Work Weighs You Down, Take a 'Sad Day'". The New York Times . Retrieved February 13, 2025.
  7. ↑ Rupar, Aaron (January 23, 2023). "Marisa Kabas on being fully immersed in George Santos's lies". Public Notice. Retrieved February 13, 2025.
  8. 1 2 Scire, Sarah (February 3, 2025). "An independent journalist doubled paid subscriptions after scooping everyone on the federal funding freeze". Neiman Lab . Retrieved February 13, 2025.
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