Quick Facts
Biography
Ben Collins is an American reporter from Massachusetts. He began working for the news division of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in 2018.
Early life and education
Collins is from the U.S. state of Massachusetts. His mother is a librarian. He attended Emerson College between 2006 and 2010. While enrolled at Emerson, he was a music columnist for The Berkeley Beacon, the college's student newspaper. During college, he was a roommate of Chris Hurst, with whom he co-hosted a radio show as an undergraduate.
Professional career
Early career and Esquire
Following his graduation from Emerson, Collins began his career at Slam before performing social media work for Hulu. Following his time at Hulu, Collins became a news editor of Esquire in 2013, where he remained for a year until he was hired by The Daily Beast.
The Daily Beast
Between 2014 and 2018, Collins worked in various roles for The Daily Beast as a senior news editor and technology reporter. While Collins was employed at The Daily Beast, Hurst's girlfriend Alison Parker was shot and killed on live television. Though Collins had not met Parker, the incident and its aftermath deeply affected him; he decided to pursue reporting about online conspiracy theories and the far right after that.
At The Daily Beast, Collins frequently reported alongside researcher Brandy Zadrozny, who had joined the publication in 2013. When offered an opportunity to work at NBC News in March 2018, Collins accepted it on the condition that he would be allowed to bring Zadrozny along to join him.
NBC News
In 2018, Collins and Zadrozny departed The Daily Beast to join NBC News. Collins has received special recognition from the 2023 Walter Cronkite Awards for Excellence in Television Political Journalism.
In December 2022, following controversial comments Collins made on social media that NBC says ran afoul of its social media standards, NBC temporarily suspended Collins from covering Elon Musk and Twitter.
In October 2023, Collins was criticized in Reason Magazine for rushing to conclusions in circulating unproven claims about the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion. Reason also stated that Collins' reporting on right wing figures often contained "basic errors".
