John Ellis is the founder and editor of News Items, a daily newsletter that covers global politics, financial news, advanced technologies and science. He has been in and around the news business for virtually all of his adult life, working for NBC News (as a political analyst), The Boston Globe (as a columnist), CNBC, Fox News, and Newscorp. In 2016, he launched News Items as a morning brief for executives and editors at Fox and Newscorp. In 2018, News Items became The Wall Street Journal CEO Council's morning newsletter. He restarted News Items as an independent newsletter in August of 2019.

Ellis is a graduate of Yale University (class of 1976) and was the Appleman Fellow at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard’s JFK School of Government (1989-1990). He also was a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics (1991-1992) and a Senior Fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (2002-2004), focusing there on “future threats.” He was awarded The Outstanding Civilian Service Award by the US Army for his work at West Point.

Ellis is married to Susan Smith Ellis. They have two children: Caroline, an attorney and Jack, a music industry agent and talent scout.