Michael E. Ross

Michael E. Ross writes from Los Angeles on politics, media, race and ethnicity, and American popular culture. He has been a reporter, critic and editor at various news outlets, including The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News and NBCNews.com; and an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His reviews, essays and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, The Times Book Review, NPR.com, Wired, Entertainment Weekly, the San Jose Mercury News, Konch, Salon, the San Francisco Chronicle, PopMatters, The Root, TheGrio, and other publications.

Formerly editor and producer of NBCNews.com's Race & Ethnicity section, he is author of the novel "Flagpole Days" (2003); "Interesting Times" (2004), a collection of political writing; and "American Bandwidth" (2009), a book of online writing bridging the 2004 presidential election and the first 100 days of the Obama administration. He also contributed to the anthologies "MultiAmerica" (1997), edited by Ishmael Reed; and "Soul Food" (2000), edited by Eric Copage. He blogs frequently on national affairs at Medium, Vocal, and Short Sharp Shock (personal blog), and publishes CulchaNews, a webzine on national and international pop culture and entertainment news.

He is developing several movie projects, including the pilot for a television series set in multicultural modern-day Seattle. His undercover police drama, The Color of the Day, was a semi-finalist in the 2020 Stage 32 Diversity Springboard Screenwriting Competition.