The Washington Post has announced the winner of its “America’s Next Great Pundit” contest. The winner of a three-month stint as an opinion columnist for the paper is Kevin Huffman, a Teach for America executive and Ohio native.
The two-month-long contest whittled 4,800 entries down to 10 contestants. Those finalists then had to compete in “challenges” designed to “test the skills a modern pundit must possess.” They had to write columns, blog on deadline, answer reader questions and participate in a videotaped discussion.
In a format familiar to the world of reality shows, the winner of each round, determined by the judges, automatically moved to the next round. Reader votes then determined who would be cut.
For the final round, Huffman and runner-up Zeba Khan, a social media consultant for nonprofits, each wrote a column. Huffman wrote a piece about Sarah Palin’s Facebook posts; Khan wrote about how health care reform would affect freelancers.
The final vote count was 4,622 to 4,062.
Part of Huffman’s appeal was, according to the Post, his humor:
Kevin Huffman tried for humor anyway. Several times over during the course of the contest. And most of those times, he was pretty successful at it — prompting a number of readers to comment that he made them laugh out loud.
Huffman is also “fluent in politics, comfortable delving into a range of topics and has a knack for teasing out fresh insights and drawing interesting connections,” the Post continues.
