About Rick Bayan

Rick Bayan, founder-editor of The New Moderate

Born and raised in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the future founder of The New Moderate graduated with honors from Rutgers College. There he majored in history and gained his lifelong fascination with the rise and fall of civilizations (including ours).  Bayan picked up a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Illinois, where he discovered the works of vintage American iconoclast H. L. Mencken.

During his career as an award-winning advertising copywriter and copy chief — first at Barron’s and later at Day-Timers — Bayan authored Words That Sell (1984, revised 2006), now a standard reference work in its field. By night he wrote The Cynic’s Dictionary (1994) and created The Cynic’s Sanctuary, a popular website for the world’s disgruntled idealists.

When he turned 50, Bayan quit his day job to write full time. He first launched The New Moderate in 2007 as a three-way discussion of dozens of public issues (featuring liberal, conservative and moderate opinions on each). In 2009, as the U.S. grew even more polarized, Bayan relaunched The New Moderate as the full-fledged blog you see today. He writes every word of The New Moderate except for the comments.

Bayan serves on the board of Americans United to Rebuild Democracy and lives in Philadelphia with his young son, who shares his dad’s enthusiasm for history, model-building and classic Popeye cartoons.

Rick Bayan is available for interviews, speaking engagements, book projects, articles and essays, creative consulting, copywriting (he writes a mean sales letter!) and web content. You can reach him directly at rick@i-cynic.com.