by senior contributor Brendan Kownacki
Photo credit: Brendan Kownacki
The politically savvy crowd of DC was not to be missed to celebrate the 15th anniversary of RealClearPolitics. The website, founded in 2000 by John McIntyre and Tom Bevan, had humble beginnings based out of Chicago and has since grown into a powerhouse of commentary, content and analysis in the political realm.
RCP Co-Founders, Tom Bevan and John McIntyre
McIntyre and Bevan met while attending college and were inspired to build out an idea before, but neither had media or publishing backgrounds. After seeing a gap in the marketplace during the early days of the internet, the duo wanted to create a central marketplace for news and analysis about politics, and the rest as they say, is history.
Bevan was humble about his thanks for employees past and present who helped make the jump into original content and spurred the growth of the site through the years. “We’ve really tried to make our mark in original content and reporting on politics and reporting.”
“It’s really improbable,” says Bevan of the rise of the site over the last decade and a half. “[We] weren’t involved in journalism, we weren’t involved in politics. I was in advertising, he was a trader, but we did have this passion for politics and elections.” An off-the-shelf webpage to aggregate what they thought were the best stories has now become hard-hitting commentary and analysis for astute players as well as all types of different original content that engages the RCP audience.
The fete gathered media, politicos, communicators and news junkies all to toast the task of outlasting and thriving during a time when dot-coms and news startups have come and gone by the dozen. There were sumptuous bites and cold cocktails all in the name of celebration.
Carl Cannon
“Print had a pretty good run,” joked bureau chief Carl Cannon. “We had the Gutenberg Bible up until the closing of National Journal Magazine.” Cannon quipped that it’s all about evolving with the times, and that we weren’t using paper in the early days because of aesthetics, “it was the best technology out there. It was better than papyrus.” He said that same attitude is taken on by RCP in using the best methods and technologies available to give the people what they want and how they want it.
Seems like a reasonable strategy. Cheers to 15 more years.
