Ana Marie Cox
Ana Marie Cox, The Original Voice of the Political Blog Wonkette, Time Magazine Columnist
The culture of political journalism and politics has changed remarkably – sometimes reluctantly – in the face of the massive technological, social and media revolution we’re experiencing. Ana Marie Cox is a product of that change: she’s a journalist who covers the White House via Twitter, who raised money to be on the campaign trail from readers, who openly mocks some of Washington’s most revered institutions (the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual dinner, for example) while managing to remain on the guest list for both society gatherings and Presidential Press conferences.
Because of her background in pioneering, irreverent and influential online publications (she was the editor of Suck.com and founded Wonkette.com), Ana has repeatedly been brought into established organizations to offer guidance in the best ways to approach new media. She is not embarrassed about admitting that most of these engagements did not end well. But the experience of trying (and mostly failing) to drag political journalism, kicking and screaming, into the era of social media, insta-polls, hash tag manufacturing and viral video has taught her the most common mistakes institutions make in confronting the new media environment.
Ana has proven her own adaptability with success in a variety of different settings. Wonkette.com – where she was the sole writer and editor – launched in January of 2004 and was on the cover of the New York Times magazine by September. On election night 2004, her hit count topped that of Drudge Report when she became the first online outlet to publish embargoed exit poll results. She has over a million “followers” on the social network Twitter – about the same number as Ashton Kutcher, Al Gore and Oprah Winfrey have. And when the magazine she covered the 2008 campaign for was sold, she raised over $13,000 online from readers who wanted her to continue her snarky-but-edifying, insider coverage of the last dramatic week of the election. Her guest host stint on The Rachel Maddow Show managed to beat Anderson Cooper in the ratings and this year she was voted “Most Likely to Make Headlines” in a poll of Washington media insiders.