Jeffery was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and was raised in Arlington, Virginia, and attended the Sidwell Friends School[3] (1985), before going to Carleton College (1989). She earned a master's degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1993.
Between 1993 and 1995, Jeffery was a staff editor and writer at Washington City Paper. She was a senior editor at Harper's Magazine (1995–2002), where she edited six articles nominated for a National Magazine Award, including essays by Barbara Ehrenreich that became Nickel and Dimed. While at Harper's, Jeffery also contributed occasional articles.[4]
In 2002, she was hired as deputy editor of Mother Jones, a position she held for four years before being promoted in August 2006 to co-editor-in-chief, along with Monika Bauerlein.[5] In May 2015, Jeffery became sole editor-in-chief and Bauerlein was named CEO.[6]
In their joint leadership at Mother Jones, Jeffery and Bauerlein aimed to put greater emphasis on staff-generated, daily news and original reporting. The magazine received a National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 2008 and 2010.[7] In 2012, Mother Jones broke the story about Mitt Romney's "47 percent" remarks, which were controversial prior to Barack Obama winning reelection. In 2013, Jeffery and Bauerlein were co-recipients of the PEN award for magazine editing.[8] In 2019, they received the I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence.[9]
Besides her work for Harper's and Mother Jones, Jeffery has also written articles and essays for Slate,[10] the Huffington Post, San Francisco magazine,[11] and the Chicago Reporter.
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