Ross Barkan (born October 22, 1989) is an American journalist and writer.
Barkan covered New York City Hall and national politics for the New York Observer from 2013 to 2016. In April 2016, he rose to prominence after resigning from the Observer over the newspaper's close relationship with Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate. The Observer's executive editor, Ken Kurson, revealed in a magazine interview he advised Trump on a speech the candidate delivered before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Announcing his resignation the day after the Observer endorsed Trump in the New York Republican primary, Barkan later told CNN "a line had been crossed and I thought it was time for myself to depart."
As a freelance reporter, Barkan has contributed to the Village Voice, The Guardian, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Reuters, Esquire, New York Daily News, Daily Beast, the Los Angeles Review of Books and the Columbia Journalism Review. He covered the 2013 New York City mayoral race, including Anthony Weiner's campaign, and the 2016 presidential race. Before the Observer, he was a staff reporter at the Queens Tribune.
Barkan has published fiction in Post Road, Boston College's literary magazine, and literary criticism in the Iowa Review, Harvard Review, The Rumpus. and The Brooklyn Rail.
Barkan grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and attended Stony Brook University.