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Nico Pitney (born 1981)[1] is an American journalist, editor and media executive who has helped lead several prominent left-leaning media outlets, including HuffPost and NowThis.

Life

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Pitney was born in Tokyo[1] and attended the University of California, Santa Barbara.[2] Pitney worked as Deputy Research Director at the Center for American Progress, where he helped found, and was Managing Editor of, their blog, ThinkProgress.[3] Pitney joined The Huffington Post in 2007 and served in a variety of capacities, including Politics Editor and DC Bureau Chief during the 2008 Presidential election, National Editor, Executive Editor, and Managing Editor of the Huffington Post Media Group.[2][3]

Pitney gained prominence during the 2009 Iranian election protests, where he liveblogged the protest for HuffPost by aggregating social media posts from Iranians, including videos and tweets.[4][5] According to Pitney, over 100,000 comments were left on the popular blog.[6] As a result, Pitney was asked by the Obama administration to be prepared to pose a question from an Iranian at a June 23, 2009 press conference at the White House. In a departure from typical press conference protocol, Pitney was called on second and asked Obama under what conditions the United States would accept the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While Pitney did not know if he would be called on to ask a question, and President Obama did not know what question would be asked, a number of critics, including members of the White House press corps charged that the question was an example of improper collusion between the White House and a journalist.[7][8][9][10][11] One of the most prominent critics was Dana Milbank of The Washington Post.[12] Pitney and Milbank engaged in a heated and personal debate on the CNN program Reliable Sources about the question,[13] and according to Pitney, Milbank whispered to Pitney during a commercial break "You're such a dick".[14] This incident spawned the Twitter hashtag #Dickwhisperer.[15]

Pitney left The Huffington Post in 2012 to travel the world and blog about his experience with his wife Karina Newton, former new media director for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.[16] In 2013, Pitney returned to The Huffington Post as head of product.[17]

In 2017, he joined NowThis where he served as Senior Vice President and News and Politics Director.[18][19] During his tenure, NowThis became the #1 most engaged news brand worldwide, amassing roughly 2.6 billion views monthly across social media platforms, according to Tubular Labs.[20] According to The New Yorker, Pitney led the newsroom and also hosted videos and conducted interviews with a number of leading politicians, including former president Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, and more.[21][22][23][24]

In February 2021, Pitney together with Faiz Shakir launched More Perfect Union, a nonprofit media and advocacy outlet modeled on ThinkProgress.[25] Shakir describes More Perfect Union, which creates video and graphics to support labor issues, as "ThinkProgress for a digital age."[26]

References

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  1. ^ a b Belonsky, Andrew (7 March 2008). "Nico Pitney Knows Politics". Queerty. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  2. ^ a b "Nico Pitney". LinkedIn. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  3. ^ a b "Nico Pitney". Huffington Post. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  4. ^ Flynt Leverett; Hillary Mann Leverett (2013). Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Henry Holt and Company. p. 265. ISBN 978-0-8050-9419-0.
  5. ^ Yahya R. Kamalipour (2010). Media, Power, and Politics in the Digital Age: The 2009 Presidential Election Uprising in Iran. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 113. ISBN 978-1-4422-0417-1.
  6. ^ Pitney, Nico (July 14, 2009). "Iran Updates (VIDEO): Live-Blogging The Uprising". Huffington Post. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
  7. ^ "HuffPost's Nico Pitney Asks Question About Iran At White House Press Conference (VIDEO)". Huffington Post. 2009-07-24. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
  8. ^ Calderone, Michael (June 23, 2009). "Obama calls on HuffPost for Iran question UPDATE". Politico. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
  9. ^ Phillips, Kate (June 24, 2009). "HuffPo's Question at Obama News Conference Sparks a Media Flap". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
  10. ^ Cooper, Matthew (Jun 24, 2009). "The Crucifixion of Nico Pitney". The Atlantic. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
  11. ^ Huffington, Arianna (23 June 2009). "Media Playground: Obama Calls on HuffPost, Michael Calderone Pouts, Ben Smith Calls Us Names, Dana Milbank Gets His Facts All Wrong". Huffington Post. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  12. ^ Milbank, Dana (June 24, 2009). "Washington Sketch: Welcome to 'The Obama Show'". Washington Post. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
  13. ^ "Media Unfair to Sanford?; Coverage of Michael Jackson's Death". Reliable Sources. CNN. June 28, 2009. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  14. ^ Pitney, Nico (28 June 2009). "Debating The Iran Question On CNN's Reliable Sources". Huffington Post. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
  15. ^ Garber, Megan (29 June 2009). "#Dickwhisperer: A History". Columbia Journalism Review. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  16. ^ Vamburkar, Meenal (8 May 2012). "Nancy Pelosi Taps ThinkProgress Editor As Director Of New Media". Mediaite. Archived from the original on 2013-07-10. Retrieved 2020-04-01.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  17. ^ Wemple, Eric (31 January 2013). "Nico Pitney returning to Huffington Post". Washington Post. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  18. ^ Patel, Sahil (6 March 2017). "NowThis to expand into investigative journalism and long-form video". DigiDay.
  19. ^ ""Nico Pitney" Linkedin". January 2022.
  20. ^ "NowThis Ranked No. 1 News Brand Across Mobile Globally, Cross-Platform By Tubular Labs - Groupnine". www.groupninemedia.com. Retrieved 2022-01-23.
  21. ^ ""We're in the Business of Stopping Thumbs": NowThis News and the Politics of Social Video". The New Yorker. 2019-10-10. Retrieved 2022-01-23.
  22. ^ Exclusive With President Obama On Why Midterms Matter | Op-Ed | NowThis, retrieved 2022-01-23
  23. ^ Why Bernie Sanders Isn't Worried About Overpromising | NowThis, retrieved 2022-01-23
  24. ^ Hillary Clinton Interview 2017 – EXTENDED INTERVIEW | NowThis, retrieved 2022-01-23
  25. ^ Smith, Ben (November 7, 2021). "Why the Media Loves Labor Now". New York Times. Retrieved November 13, 2021. More Perfect Union, a nonprofit news outlet .. quietly started in February. It is led, in part, by Faiz Shakir, the former manager of Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, and Nico Pitney, a former top editor at The Huffington Post and NowThisNews.
  26. ^ Markay, Lachlan (March 11, 2021). "Sanders' campaign chief aiming to push Biden leftward". Axios. Retrieved November 13, 2021. 'This is ThinkProgress for a digital age,' he said, with an emphasis on video and graphics that would be central 'if we were relaunching ThinkProgress in this modern environment.'
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