John Phillips Avlon (born 1973) is an American journalist and political commentator who is editor-in-chief and managing director of The Daily Beast[2][3] and a CNN political analyst.[4] Avlon has also been a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun and chief speechwriter for former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
Avlon is the author of several books, including Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics (2004),[5] which critically appraises both traditional American centrism and the more recent radical centrism. He also wrote Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America (2010).[6] In January 2017, Avlon published Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning to Future Generations, in which he highlights the history and content of President George Washington's parting treatise to the American people in the context of the contemporary political climate.[7]
Career
Avlon started his career as the youngest speechwriter for Mayor Rudolph Giuliani[14]. He was promoted to Chief Speechwriter and the Deputy Director of Policy.[15] He prepared the mayor's addresses for the State of the City (1999 through 2001), testimony to Congress on Homeland Security, and address to the UN General Assembly on counter terrorism.[16][17]
Avlon has lectured at Yale University, NYU, the Citadel, the Kennedy School of Government, and the State Department’s visiting journalist program. He was Director of Speechwriting and Deputy Policy Director for Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign.[18]
He was also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.[19] He is an advisory board member of the Citizens Union of New York, Bronx Academy of Letters, and the Theodore Roosevelt Association.[20]
In 2013 Avlon became editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. By September 2014 the website reached a new record of 21 million unique visitors; it was a 60% year-over-year increase in readers, accompanied by a 300% increase in the overall size of its social media community.[21] In a column at the end of 2016, Avlon said that The Daily Beast had doubled its traffic from the previous four years and was reaching more than a million readers a day.[22]
Television
Avlon has made appearances on a variety of television shows such as, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert[23], The Daily Show[24][25], and Real Time with Bill Maher[26] as well as on news programs: MSNBC[27], PBS[28], CNN[29], and C-SPAN[30].
Avlon created and hosted the "Wingnut of the Week" segment on CNN.[31] Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker wrote that "Americans who are fed up with the Ann Coulter/Michael Moore school of debate, and are looking for someone to articulate a common sense middle path, may have found their voice in John Avlon."[32]
In a profile, author Stephen Marshall wrote “Avlon talks about politics the way ESPN anchors wrap up sports highlights.”[33] Avlon appeared as a commentator on Erin Burnett's OutFront throughout the 2012 election cycle as well as guest hosting in her absence.[34]
Writing
Avlon has also written numerous articles and essays. He wrote the Newsweek cover-story: "A 21st Century Statesman," (February 28, 2011), about actor, director and activist George Clooney. It was based in part on his accompanying Clooney to South Sudan to witness the referendum for independence from the North after two decades of civil war.[35]
His essay on New York, "The Resilient City", written after the 9/11 attacks, was selected to conclude the anthology Empire City: New York Through the Centuries (2002). Fred Siegel, the author of The Future Once Happened Here, praised it as "the single best essay written in the wake of 9/11."[36]
In 2010, Avlon published "Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America" about how fringe political movements have developed and are making inroads into mainstream American politics. Bill Clinton commented:
"Wingnuts offers a clear and comprehensive review of the forces on the outer edges of the political spectrum that shape and distort our political debate. Shedding more heat than light they drive frustrated alienated citizens away from the reasoned discourse that can produce real solutions to our problems."[37]
In 2011, Avlon co-edited the anthology Deadline Artists: America's Greatest Newspaper Columns with Jesse Angelo and Errol Louis.[38] The book earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly prior to publication.[39] The trio edited and published a sequel in 2012, Deadline Artists 2: Scandals, Tragedies and Triumphs.[40] An Opinion piece in The Washington Post described Deadline Artists as "one of the greatest collections of newspaper articles ever compiled" and saluted 'DA2' as "an equally superb sequel...may more siblings follow." [41]
During the 2012 presidential campaign, Avlon was among the first reporters [42] to suggest that Rick Santorum, rather than Mitt Romney, had won the razor-tight Iowa caucuses (Santorum was declared the victor weeks after the election night tally favored Romney).[43] In 2013, Avlon broke the news that Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann was under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics.[44] The ethics investigation is thought to have contributed to her decision not to run for re-election.
In 2017, Avlon published Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning to Future Generations. His publisher released the book the day that President Barack Obama gave his farewell speech. American historian Richard Norton Smith said:
“It’s hard to tell which is more nearly perfect—John Avlon’s argument or his timing. In the wake of a dispiriting campaign, Avlon finds in Washington’s Farewell Address a stunningly topical antidote to excessive partisanship and greedy self interest. His book is a stake through the heart of political extremism.” [45][46]
Editoral Approach
As Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Beast, Avlon has been cited for supporting original and breaking content for the platform. "There's an explicit mandate," said Pulitzer Prize winning Daily Beast national security reporter Spencer Ackerman "from John Avlon that we are not in commodity news business. We have to break news. I am not in a position where, like at a lot of other places, I have to rewrite other peoples' stories. It's a seemingly trivial observation but has tremendous amount of impact.”[47] Avlon has also been noted for guiding The Daily Beast's pluralistic non-partisan tone stating:
"Our commitment is to be nonpartisan but not neutral. And what means to me is to not be part of the predictable partisan cheerleading squad online. I think that's as much a long-term loser as being part of a commodity news crowd or a content farm approach to being a news site. We're going to hit both sides where appropriate. We're not going to toe any partisan line. We're going to have a range of columnists, from liberal to libertarian. But we're also not going to pretend there's a mythic moral equivalence between candidates or on any given issue. For me, the key quote for our times is actually an older quote from Daniel Patrick Moynihan who said that everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."[48]
Political activism
In 2010, Avlon became a founding leader of No Labels, a 501(c)(4) citizens movement of Republicans, Democrats and Independents[49] whose mission is to address the politics of problem solving.[50] Avlon also belongs to Reshape New York, a group that supports redistricting reform to end partisan gerrymandering by “proposing an independent, impartial and politically balanced citizens redistricting commission to draw fair district boundaries through a process that allows for ample public input.”[51]
In 2011, Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed Avlon to the New York City Voter Assistance Advisory Committee. The VAAC advises the New York City Campaign Finance Board on its voter engagement mandates, including voter registration and participation outreach activities.[52][53]
Honors
The National Society of Newspaper Columnists honored Avlon in 2011 for his online column in The Daily Beast; their citation read: "While [Avlon] brings a reporter’s sensibility to his interviews and research, he infuses his accounts with witty judgments that contribute a strong, unapologetic perspective."[54] In 2012 he won the NSNC award for the best online column.[55] In 2017 Avlon was named "One of the Most Influential in News Media" by Mediaite stating:
"Besides steering one of the more influential online media outlets in the country, John Avlon is also a trusted, grounded and welcome voice on CNN (and Bill Maher) panels. While eschewing hard partisan tribalism for a more centrist approach, Avlon has still been one of the most vociferous Trump critics in this new world. The Daily Beast continues to thrive with Avlon at the helm."[56]
Marriage and family
Avlon married Margaret Hoover in 2009, who kept her name.[8] After growing up in Colorado, where her father was a mining executive, she has been a political and media consultant in New York and a commentator on the Fox News Channel. She wrote American Individualism: How a New Generation of Conservatives Can Save the Republican Party (2011).[58] She is a great-granddaughter of President Herbert Hoover.[8] They have a son Jack, born in 2013, and a daughter Toula Lou, born in 2015.[59][60]
