Tom Whipple, who paved the way for VaNews, dies at age 86.
By David M. Poole, VPAP's Founding Executive Director
Tom Whipple, a retired CIA analyst whose daily news clipping service from 1996 to 2011 made him a beloved figure in Virginia political circles and whose creation later became VPAP’s VaNews, which today has a circulation of more than 22,000, died Monday, November 18 in Arlington. He was 86.
Whipple liked to joke that he had the distinction of being the only internet pioneer who never made a nickel off his innovation.
In 1996, Whipple began scouring the bare-boned websites of downstate newspapers as a favor for a neighbor, Bill Dolan, who was running for state attorney general. Whipple printed out articles he found interesting and tucked them into the plastic bag containing the Washington Post that had been delivered to Dolan’s house. It was hardly a clandestine CIA drop, but Dolan appreciated the intel.
Word spread, and soon Whipple began distributing articles via email to anyone who asked. Even though Whipple was married to a Democratic state senator, plenty of Republicans waited each morning for his email to land in their inbox.
Whipple rose each morning at 4:30 a.m. to compile the clips. His email went out without fail, seven days a week (though he once suspended the service for two weeks while traveling in Australia). He never charged for the service. For Whipple, it was a labor of love.
In February 2011, his wife, state Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple announced she would not seek re-election that November. Soon after, Tom Whipple let it be known that he was planning to wind down the clips.
VPAP joined the line of potential suitors with visions of monetizing Whipple’s list of 2,200 subscribers.
Though compiling news clips clearly was outside of VPAP’s mission, the Board of Directors didn’t hesitate. ”It was almost a no-brainer,” recalled Anne M. Gambardella, a lobbyist for the Virginia Auto Dealers Association who at the time chaired the VPAP Policy Committee. “We were all used to having those clips; we didn’t want them to go away.”
VPAP proved to be the best fit. The nonprofit would not pay Whipple for his list of emails, but agreed to keep the service free to the public. To offset costs, VPAP adopted a public radio model of appealing to readers for voluntary donations and creating noncommercial underwriting opportunities for day sponsors.
Later that year, on May 19, Tom and Mary Margaret Whipple were surprise guests at VPAP’s annual fundraising breakfast in Richmond. When the announcement was made, the crowd of his devoted readers rose to their feet for a sustained ovation.
Whipple later chuckled that people mistook him for some sort of journalistic savant. “Editors would call and ask if I knew job candidates,” he said in a 2013 profile in the Washington Post. “I knew more about Iraq than about Southwest Virginia! My only claim to fame was figuring out very early on that people would want this.”
On June 12, 2011, Whipple pushed send on his last bunch of clips. The next morning, VPAP took over the service. In his honor, we initially called the service the VPAP Whipple Report.
There was a common misconception that Whipple gave up the clips because he wanted to slow down. The truth was that by 2011 Whipple had started a second clipping service. This one focused on “peak oil” which coincided with his prediction that the earth’s supply of petroleum would soon decline.
After 15 months, VPAP decided that a more literal name was needed to attract new readers who had never heard of Tom Whipple. Thus, VaNews was born.
Whipple’s gift transformed VPAP. The clips helped expand our audience from a small group who were in politics for a living and provided a reason for people to come back to the site, day after day.
The last time I saw Tom was in December 2022 when he was undergoing treatment for cancer. I scheduled what I thought might be a brief bedside visit at his home in North Arlington. Tom answered the door and ushered me into the living room. He had plenty of news to share in his typical rat-a-tat pace. I hardly got a word in edgewise. Tom was still the font of news that we had all come to appreciate.
This is an edited excerpt from a forthcoming book with the working title of “The Virginia Public Access Project: How a Nonprofit Gained Bipartisan Trust in an Era of Political Polarization.” The University of Virginia Press is scheduled to release it in late summer of 2025.
Nov. 20, 2024
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