McKay Coppins

Last updated
McKay Coppins
McKay Coppins5188171.jpg
Born (1987-02-02) February 2, 1987 (age 37)
Massachusetts, United States
NationalityAmerican
Education Brigham Young University
OccupationJournalist
Known forReporting on politics, religion
Website www.theatlantic.com/author/mckay-coppins/

McKay Coppins (born February 2, 1987) is an American journalist, author, and staff writer for The Atlantic .

Contents

Career

Coppins began his career at Newsweek and broke the story that Jon Huntsman Jr., would resign his ambassadorship in China and run for President. [1]

Coppins joined BuzzFeed to cover the 2012 presidential race, becoming an important source on Governor Mitt Romney's Latter-day Saint (Mormon) faith. [2] In 2012, Coppins was one of the "30 under 30" media pundits in Forbes magazine [3] and also listed along with three other young BuzzFeed News journalists as one of Politico 's "ten breakout reporters of 2012." [4] He is a regular contributor to CNN and MSNBC. [5]

In the run-up to the 2016 presidential primaries, Coppins became embroiled in a public Twitter feud with Republican candidate Donald Trump after writing articles suggesting that Trump was running a "fake" campaign. [6] [7] [8] In November 2016, he announced he was leaving BuzzFeed to join The Atlantic as a staff writer.

In 2015, Coppins published The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party's Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House. [9] Walter Russell Mead favorably reviewed the book in Foreign Affairs , writing that it was "[w]idely sourced and compellingly written." [10] He has an acrimonious relationship with President Donald Trump after he called his presidential aspirations a "sham"; Trump in response called him a "dishonest slob". [11]

Coppins released a biography of Mitt Romney called Romney: A Reckoning on October 24, 2023. The book covers 25 years of American politics, based on 45 interviews with Romney and thousands of private emails, text messages, and diary entries. [12] [13]

Personal life

Coppins was raised in Holliston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Brigham Young University where he was editor of BYU's student newspaper, The Daily Universe . [14]

Coppins is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), in which he served a full-time mission, and he has often written about his faith. [14] [15] Coppins felt his background in the church helped him while writing about Mitt Romney, a fellow Latter-day Saint, as it helped Coppins "in understanding the elusive candidate as an actual person". [16] Coppins and his wife were married in 2009 and have four children. [17]

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References

  1. Coppins, McKay. "The Manchurian Candidate". Newsweek.
  2. "McKay Coppins, the Mormon on Mitt's trail". Politico. Retrieved 2016-01-28.
  3. "McCay Coppins, 25, Politics editor, Buzzfeed". Forbes . Archived from the original on December 31, 2012.
  4. Dylan Byers, "10 breakout political reporters of 2012", Politico (November 25, 2012).
  5. "Meet The Next Wave Of Political Pundits". Details . 31 (2): 48. November 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-10-25.
  6. "36 Hours On The Fake Campaign Trail With Donald Trump". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2016-01-28.
  7. "Trump Calls BuzzFeed Reporter 'True Garbage with No Credibility'". Mediaite . Retrieved 2016-01-28.
  8. Trotter, J.K. "BuzzFeed's Trump Takedown Drives Breitbart to the Brink of Insanity". Gawker. Archived from the original on 2016-02-05. Retrieved 2016-01-28.
  9. John Diaz. "'The Wilderness,' by McKay Coppins". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2016-01-28.
  10. Mead, Walter Russell (March 2016). "The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party's Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House by McKay Coppins". Foreign Affairs. Retrieved February 20, 2016.
  11. "How the Haters and Losers Lost" by McKay Coppins July 17, 2016
  12. Allen, Mile (2023-02-09). "Scoop: Mitt Romney reveals hundreds of emails to book author". Axios . Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  13. Mallon, Thomas (2023-10-19). "The Twilight of Mitt Romney". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2024-07-22.
  14. 1 2 "McKay Coppins as Mr. Buzzfeed and the 'Mormon Wikipedia'". The Daily Universe. 2014-11-14. Retrieved 2016-01-28.
  15. McKay Coppins, Why The Internet Hasn't Shattered My Mormon Faith, BuzzFeed News (July 22, 2013).
  16. Green, Lloyd (2023-10-29). "Romney: A Reckoning review: must-read on Mitt and the rise of Trump". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2024-05-01.
  17. Toone, Trent. "Atlantic journalist and BYU graduate McKay Coppins talks Latter-day Saint millennials", Deseret News , Utah, 2 October 2018. Retrieved on 21 February 2020.