| I’m Tom Bevan, cofounder and president of RealClearPolitics. I hope you and your family are enjoying the holiday season.
Almost 25 years ago, my cofounder John McIntyre and I came up with the idea for RealClearPolitics.
Back in the 1990s, John and I were housemates in Chicago. I was working as an ad guy. John was an options trader. Both of us were political junkies. On Sunday mornings, we’d watch the news shows.
Those were the early days of the Internet. For the first time, you could read papers like the Boston Globe, LA Times, Washington Post, Miami Herald, and New York Times, on the same morning – from anywhere.
One day it dawned on us: there should be a one-stop shop website that pulls together the day’s must-read political news and opinion. While most news outlets had their partisan biases, we’d stay nonpartisan by showing the best viewpoints from all sides.
In the two decades that followed, much of the news has grown even more partisan and agenda driven—making RealClear’s unique editorial approach more needed than ever.
As we prepare to enter a big election year, RealClearPolitics is committed to being your premier source for honest political coverage and viewpoint diversity. And the RCP Poll Average continues to be the gold standard in poll aggregation, providing readers with a simple, accurate metric for tracking all the races that matter in 2024.
I need to level with you, though—the current economic environment is exceedingly difficult for online publishers. Many news organizations have recently been laying off staff. Some digital publications, including BuzzFeed News, have shut their doors entirely. To make matters worse, ideologically motivated activist groups, like the deceptively named “Global Disinformation Index,” have encouraged advertisers to pull their dollars from a number of news sites, including RCP.
RCP has never required a subscription or had a paywall. For most of our history, we’ve been able to rely on advertising as a vital source of revenue. But times have changed.
The nonpartisan news aggregation and original political reporting that appear on RCP and its sister verticals (Policy, Education, Energy, etc.) increasingly depend on the generosity of readers. Through RealClear Media Fund, you can make a tax-deductible gift to support the balanced news coverage you know and rely on.
There are only five days left in 2023. If you haven’t done so already, would you consider a year-end gift to help advance the mission of RealClear Media Fund?
I’m adding the donation link here for your convenience: https://www.realclearmediafund.org/donate/
Sincerely,
Tom Bevan
Cofounder
RealClearPolitics | 