John Avlon Biography
John Avlon is an American anchor/reporter working for CNN News where he serves as a fill-in anchor and a senior political analyst. He joined the network in January 2010 where he serves to date.
John Avlon Age
Avlon was born as John Phillips Avlon is 49 years old as of 2022. He was born on January 19, 1973, in Charleston, South Carolina.
John Avlon Height
Avlon stands at an approximate height of 5 feet 6 inches.
John Avlon Family
Avlon was born and raised in the United States by his loving parents Dianne Alexander (mother) and John Jeffrey Avlon (father). His father was an executive for real estate with various companies in Charleston, South, Carolina. He however manages to keep information regarding his siblings away from the limelight. An update will be availed once information regarding his siblings are out.
John Avlon Wife
Avlon is married to his beautiful wife Margaret Hoover who is a political commentator and host for PBS Firing Line. The duo tied the knot in 2012 and are proud parents of two children Jack Avlon a son who was born in 2013 and Toula Lou, a daughter who was born in 2015.
John Avlon Net Worth
Avlon has an estimated net worth of between $1 Million-$5 Million which he has earned through his successful career as a fill-in-anchor.
John Avlon Salary
Avlon earns an annual salary ranging from $ 45,000 – $ 110,500.
John Avlon Education
Avlon studied at Milton Academy in 1991 and graduated from Yale University where he earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and American Studies in the year 1996. He also received a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Columbia Business School.
John Avlon CNN
Avlon works with CNN News serving the station as a Fill-in Anchor and Senior Political Analyst. He kick-started his career working as the youngest speechwriter for Mayor Rudy Giuliani. John was later promoted to Chief Speechwriter and the Deputy Director of Policy.
Avlon also prepared the mayor’s addresses for the State of the City between 1999 and 2001. Asides from this, he also covered testimony to Congress on homeland security, and address to the United Nations General Assembly on counterterrorism. Avlon was also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He also happens to be an advisory board member of the Citizens Union of New York, the Theodore Roosevelt Association, and the Bronx Academy of Letters.
He joined The Daily Beast team in the year 2008 just a month after its launch. Avlon worked his way up through the organization starting as a columnist and moving on to become a political editor, executive editor, and then being managing editor. The year 2013 saw him become an editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast.
By the month of September 2014, the website reached a new record of 21 million unique visitors. This was a 60% year-over-year increase in readers and was accompanied by a 300% increase in the overall size of its social media community. In his time in leadership, The Daily Beast doubled its traffic to 1.1 million readers a day and won over 17 awards for journalistic excellence.
The month of May 2018 saw him announce his departure from The Daily Beast before moving to CNN as a Senior Political Analyst and Anchor. Barry Diller the chairman and senior executive of IAC issued a statement shortly after Avlon announced his departure stating that Avlon has been a superb editorial leader of the Daily Beast.
He further stated that John built a formidable newsroom and a culture of excellence and decency. He states that he wished him the best for the future and was greatly appreciative of his bringing Noah Shachtman on board as his deputy. This was so that they were in the position to continue the fine work of the Daily Beast.
John Avlon Television Career
Avlon has previously made appearances on a variety of television shows such as The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Real Time with Bill Maher, and The Daily Show. Asides from this, he was also on news programs on PBS, C-SPAN, CNN, and MSNBC.
He also created and hosted the “Wingnut of the Week segment” on CNN. A syndicated columnist named Kathleen Parker wrote that “Americans who are fed up with the Ann Coulter/Michael Moore school of debate and are in search for a person to accumulate a common-sense middle path may have found their voice in John Avlon.
John first made an appearance on television in the year 2005 on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart in order to discuss his book Independent Nation. He also credits this debut with the launch of his Television career. The month of June 2018 saw him move to CNN full-time as a Senior Political Analyst making daily appearances on New Day and as guest anchoring for programs that include the State of America and Reliable Sources.
Avoln’s segment, Reality Check” on CNN’s New Day was referred to as a “standout, and a welcome feature on television in a current era lacking in reality-bassed news coverage. The Digital News outlet Mediaite while referring to Avlon’s New Day segment stated that if one needed an unexpected perspective on the news of the day, John Avlon’s recurring segment “Reality Check” is a good hit.
He has also been interviewed in several documentaries which include HBO’s Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists, the forthcoming History Channel miniseries Washington, and 2010’s Gerrymandering. The month of September 2021 saw CNN announce the debut of the digital series “Reality Check with John Avlon: Extreme Beat.” This would help track the rise of extremist groups in America.
He hopes that the series can contextualize the history and development of these types of movements within American history saying that at the end of the day, a lot of things riff off older conspiracies. Avlon states that he thinks pulling out and drawing these connections may help people all of a sudden and have perspective on what they may have been sucked into. He explained that he added an additional lawyer and thinks he is a lot more than what one may get just by the daily thrust and parry of the news and chronicling the crazy.
John Avlon Writing Career
In the course of his career, he has also written many articles and essays. Asides from this, he has written the Newsweek cover story: “A 21st Century Statesman.” This was an article of the 28th of February 2011 about actor, activist, and director, George Clooney. This was based in part of Avlon’s trip accompanying Clooney, South Sudan, and witnessing the referendum for independence from the North after two decades of civil war.
Asides from this, his essay on New York, “The Resilient City”, written after the 9/11 attacks were selected to conclude the anthology Empire City: New York Through the Centuries(2002). The author of The Future Once Happened Here, Fred Siegel, praised it as “the single best essay written in the wake of 9/11.”
The year 2010 saw him publish Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America about the evolution of fringe political movements and their inroads into mainstream American politics. Bill Clinton commented that Wingnuts offers a clear and comprehensive review of the forces.
This was on the outer edges of the political spectrum that shape and distort the political debate. This was while shedding more heat than light and driving frustrated alienated citizens away from the reasoned discourse which can produce real solutions to their problems.
The year 2011 saw John co-edit the anthology Deadline Artists: American’s Greatest Newspaper Columns with Jesse Angelo and Errol Louis. This book earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly prior to publication. This trio edited and published a sequel in the year 2012, Deadline Artists 2: Scandals, Tragedies, and Triumphs. 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 and hoped that more siblings may follow.
In the Presidential Election of 2012, he was among the first reporters to suggest that Rick Santorum, rather than Mitt Romney and won the narrow Iowa caucuses (Santorum was declared the victor weeks after the elections night tally favored Romney).
The year 2013 saw him break the news that Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann was under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics. The ethics investigation is thought to have contributed to her decision not to run for re-election.
The year 2017 saw him publish Washington’s Farewell: The Founding Father’s Warning to Future Generations. His publisher released the book the day that President Barack Obama gave him a farewell speech. An American historian Richard Norton Smith said: It’s hard to tell which is more nearly perfect. His argument or his timing. During the wake of a disputing campaign, he 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.
The month of April 2018 saw him announce that he was working on a book on Lincoln planned for release in 2020, focusing on the final five weeks of Lincoln’s life and “his determination to reunite the nation through a radical new vision of winning the war by also winning the peace.”
His book titled Lincoln and the Fight for Peace was released in the month of February 2021. The filmmaker Ken Burns called the book a “Stunning accomplishment.” This is an essential reminder that the Civil War was the most important event in our country’s history and is very much part of who they are as a people and nation today.
Asides from this, he is an author and presidential historian Douglas Brinkley says the book, “Brilliantly illuminates the enduring legacy of America’s greatest president. Having erudition and elegance, he documents how Lincoln’s sage political wisdom has helped democracy flourish. After this, “The New York Times states that “These are not unfamiliar tales to students of Lincoln, but Avlon makes the retelling affecting and powerful. At this same time, he plays down the highly ideological Lincoln.”
The month of July 2018 saw Kirkus Reviews call his contribution to the anthology Fight for Liberty: Defending Democracy in the Age of Trump. He states that perhaps the best piece in the collection observes with considerable understatement that “America is living through a stark departure from its best political traditions.”
The Editorial approach
While serving as an Editor-in-Chief for The Daily Beast, he was cited for supporting and breaking content for the platform. Pulitzer Prize-winning Daily Beast national security reporter Spencer states that there is an explicit mandate from Avlon that they are not in the commodity news business. He further stated that they were to break news. Avlon stated that he is not in a position where, like at a lot of other places, he has to rewrite other peoples’ stories. He stated that it was a seemingly trivial observation but has a tremendous amount of impact.
John Avlon Political activism
The year 2010 saw him become a founding leader of No Labels, a 501(c)(4) citizens movement of Independents, Democrats, and Republicans whose mission is to address the politics of problem-solving. He also belongs to Reshape New York, a group that supports redistricting reform. Asides from this, he is an end partisan gerrymandering by “proposing independent impartial, and politically balanced citizens redistricting commission to draw fair boundaries through a process that allows for ample public input.”
The year 2011 saw Mayor Michel Bloomberg appointing 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. This includes voter registration and participation in outreach activities.
John Avlon Associations
Previously, he has also worked on the board of Governors for the Overseas Press Club and the board of directors for the House of Speakeasy. The National Society of Newspaper Columnists honored Avlon in the year 2011 for his online column in the Daily Beast. This citation read that while Avlon brings a reporter’s sensibility to his interviews and research, he infuses his accounts with witty judgments which contribute a strong, unapologetic perspective.
The year 2012 saw him win the NSNC award for the best online column. The year 2017 saw him being named “One of the Most Influential in News Media” by Mediaite. Asides from steering one of the more influential online media outlets in the country, he is also a trusted, grounded, and welcome voice on CNN (and Bill Maher) panels.
When he was eschewing hard partisan tribalism for a more centrist approach, he 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.
John Avlon CNN News
Avlon is working at CNN News where he works alongside other famous CNN News meteorologists, anchors, and reporters including;
- Jim Acosta
- Christiane Amanpour
- Becky Anderson
- Zain Asher
- Dana Bash
- John Berman
- Victor Blackwell
- Wolf Blitzer
- Kate Bolduan
- Pamela Brown
John Avlon Social Media Platforms
He is active on his social media accounts and is often seen posting on his Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. He has over 13.3K followers on Instagram, over 5.8K followers on Facebook, and over 90K followers on his Twitter accounts.