Associate Editor at Vox Media

Aaron Rupar | Biography

Urban Dictionary announced a new verb, "Rupar," in the dictionary, which meant "To purposely mislead. To completely mischaracterize a statement or video by omitting context"

• By Ojasbi
• Update : May 09, 2022

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Aaron Rupar is an Assistant Editor at Vox Media Inc. He covers policy and national politics.

Short Bio

Aaron Rupar is a known face in the landscape of journalism. He has worked on firms such as Minnesota Premier Publication, Voice Media Group, State of Minnesota, Center for American Progress, Fox9, and Vox Media Inc. in capacities ranging from reporter, writer, social media manager to editor and many more.

Aaron Rupar Age And Birthday

Rupar has mentioned in his Twitter bio that his birthday falls on 21 October, while various sites claim that he was born on 4 October 1983 in the United States. 

He Has Degrees In Political Science, Government And Philosophy

Aaron Rupar received his bachelor's degree in Political Science, Government, and Philosophy from Hamline University in 2006. In an interview with Hamline's bulletin, Rupar noted that Hamline not only prepared him well for his career in journalism but also for other career ventures.

Successively, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in 2007 and graduated in 2010 with a Master's degree in Philosophy.

He Worked As A Teacher Assistant Before Starting Journalism Career

Rupar worked as a Teacher Assistant at Minnesota from September 2007 to May 2010 while simultaneously pursuing his Master's degree there. In December 2010, he began working as a Staff Writer for Minnesota Premier Publication and held the designation for a year. 

He then joined Voice Media Group as a Staff Writer in December 2011 and exited in October 2014. Then, Fox9 recruited him in November 2014 as a web reporter, social media manager, digital producer, and assignment desk editor positions, which he held until April 2015. 

After that, Rupar began working for the State of Minnesota from April 2015 to February 2016 as the House DFL digital media coordinator. He handled digital media and the company's social media accounts, developed videos and graphics, and facilitated social media plans, among other responsibilities. Then, from February 2016 to November 2018, he worked for the Center for American Progress as an Associate Editor. Subsequently, he landed a job as an Assistant Editor for politics and policy at Vox Media Inc. Later, in September 2021, he left Vox Media, Inc. to become an independent journalist.

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He Currently Writes A Newsletter On Substack

On 4 October 2021, Rupar took to Twitter to announce that he would be launching a newsletter named Public Notice on Substack on 5 October. He posted a series of connected tweets to explain his new project, which he also elaborated in a subsequent interview with Parker Molloy for his The Present Age podcast on 6 October.

Rupar said Public Notice Substack would be an extension of the coverage of US politics he had been doing for over five years. “I started, well, early 2016, so five and a half, going on six. Which is basically coverage of Trumpism, right-wing media, and where they fit into the broader sphere of American politics. As with any of these Substacks, I think things have a tendency to evolve as you go, and you get a sense of what works with your audience, what doesn't work, what sort of things people are interested to read more about. And so I'm viewing it, at least initially, as a more conversational and iterative version of the sort of writing I'd been doing at Vox, with at least three newsletters a week to begin with,” he informed.

Further describing the difference between working at Vox and working as an independent journalist, Rupar said, “When I was at Vox that was always... People love to own Vox, so it was like, oh, this Vox person. And now, it's so new that I'm independent that I'm not quite sure how that's going to work, if I have enough... If my brand is strong enough where people will still care or not. But yeah, when you're just doing a newsletter, it's kind of like, newsletter writer so and so. It doesn't quite have the same kick that, oh, Vox person or Media Matters person has.”

Aaron Rupar Twitter Engagements

Rupar is active on Twitter, engaging with political tweets, and he has more than 737 thousand followers on the platform.

On Ted Cruz's Family Vacation

A political scandal about the Texas Senate, Ted Cruz, was all over Twitter around February 2021. Twitter was flooded with reports that articulated Cruz's family vacation to Cancun, Mexico, while his state was coping with unplowed roads, power failures, ruptured pipes, and food scarcity. 

On 18 February 2021, CNN's Betsy Klein published Cruz's response to the Twitter uproars as wanting "to be a good dad" for his daughters who "asked to take a trip with friends" as their school was "canceled for the week." But, shortly after that, screenshots of text messages of Cruz's wife, Heidi Cruz, which were sent to her neighbors, surfaced on Twitter that indicated otherwise. She had asked the neighbors if they wanted to leave for Cancun for a week since Texas was experiencing extreme cold weather. She even provided information regarding flight and hotel capacity.

On 19 February 2021, Rupar posted a clip of Cruz's explanation that briefed that the trip was due to his daughter's urges and captioned it as, "Ted Cruz is still blaming his daughters."

On Trump's Impeachment Trial

Rupar has substantial tweet clips and threads about Trump on his Twitter handle. One such thread includes remarks on Former President Donald Trump's defense attorney team's argument at his impeachment trial in February 2021. Rupar responded to the trial by creating about 30 clip threads dated 12 and 13 February 2021. The clips contained captions consorting much to the defense team's emphasis on whereabouts, which refers to a person responding to an accusation by making a counter-accusation or raising an out-of-topic issue.

"Trump impeachment lawyers' "defense" of Trump was a buffet of whataboutism," read one of Rupar's captions. 

As a leftist, he also reacted to Michel van Der Veen, one of Trump's attorney's statements directed at Democrats. Der Veen spoke on how Trump was falsely named a Russian spy in the 2016 election and how Democrats claimed the 2016 election was hacked, to which Rupar responded, "Trump's lawyers are now using the impeachment trial to spread misinformation about Russia's 2016 interference campaign."

Furthermore, when Trump's attorneys stated that 75 million people voted for Trump, in an approach to using the point of wrong timing of retribution and disenfranchisement of such a huge number of voters as a defense, Rupar tweeted the numbers to be a lie. He concluded his thread on the impeachment trial by asserting, "Castor concludes Trump's remarkably short defense with a screed about "constitutional cancel culture."

On Atlanta Spa Killings

Around March 2021, Rupar's misleading video of Georgia police officer Jay Baker detailing the reason for the 8 Atlanta spa killings by suspect Robert Aaron Long had ended up provoking a Chinese propaganda site. 

Rupar shared a clip of Baker claiming that Aaron Long had a "really bad day" that led him to murder eight people, including six Asian women. Baker was originally relaying the suspect's exact statements, but Rupar's tweet framed Baker for speaking warmly about the white murder suspect. The situation ran viral in the press and brought forth accusations of racism. Baker was even accused as the case's spokesman.

The situation surged as a China-based media outlet China Xinhua News retweeted the news with the hashtag stop racism. Rupar's neglect of the context of Baker just articulating Long's phrasing was later chastised by mainstream and leftist journalists.

Cathy Young, a Russian-American journalist, wrote, "So this is the origin of the viral story: a Vox dot com journalist misrepresents a LE official's summary of what the suspect said to investigators as to his explanation. How many people even bothered to watch this clip, let alone the full video? Disgusting."

Siraj Hashmi, another journalist, responded to the Chinese media's retweet, "who knew that a deliberate attempt to mislead the public by (atrupar) would fuel Chinese Communist Party propaganda?"

Following the situation, Urban Dictionary announced a new verb, "Rupar," in the dictionary, which meant "To purposely mislead. To completely mischaracterize a statement or video by omitting context."

He Has One Child With His Wife

Rupar is married to Emily Kessler. The couple welcomed their first child, daughter named Mia, in May 2020. Rupar’s Instagram account mostly features the photos of Mia, while he also occasionally posts pictures of/with his wife. In one of the Instagram posts, he shared a picture of himself with his wife and daughter, captioning, “We tried to take a family new year photo with mixed results 😆 onward to 2022, and happy new year!”

Rupar’s wife is not much active on social media. However, in one of her Twitter posts dated 20 June 2021, she posted a couple of pictures of Rupar and Mia along with a tweet that reads, “@atrupar Parenthood is intense even without a pandemic, but Mia is so joyful. I see you in her more all the time, and how she’s changed you, and it feels like we’re growing more into our whole selves together. Happy Father’s Day, I love you, or as Mia would say dadaada da. ❤️”