Whitney Matheson
Whitney Matheson (born April 21, 1977, in Fredericksburg, Virginia) is a pop culture writer. She was the author of "Pop Candy", a popular entertainment blog which was part of "USA Today" from 1999–2014. She also wrote entertainment and pop culture features for the newspaper. Matheson has delivered pop-culture commentary on several television networks, including VH1, E!, and G4 TV. Career. Matheson earned a journalism degree from the University of Tennessee in 1999, and joined "USA Today" and created "Pop Candy" that same year. "Pop Candy" began as a weekly online pop-culture column that covered television, movies , comic books, and music. During this period, Matheson also wrote a daily blog, "Hip Clicks". As her web audience grew, Matheson merged "Hip Clicks" and "Pop Candy "in 2005 to form the "Pop Candy" blog. During its tenure, "Pop Candy" was cited in "Wired," "Slate", "The Rough Guide to Blogging", and on many other entertainment blogs, including Stereogum, "Entertainment Weekly"'s PopWatch, and RollingStone.com. "Editor & Publisher" and "Mediaweek" awarded "Pop Candy" an EPpy award for the Best Entertainment Blog in 2008. In 2006, the Weblog Awards honored "Pop Candy" as the Best Culture Blog. On September 3, 2014, Matheson confirmed  that she had been laid off as part of a "USA Today" drawdown. Soon afterwards she was invited by former "USA Today" editor-in-chief Ken Paulson to serve as Journalist in Residence at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. On May 13, 2019, Matheson unveiled her digital children's book "We Make Comics", illustrated by Genevieve Kote. Personal life. Matheson lives in Brooklyn, New York. On her "Pop Candy" blog dated April 13, 2012, Matheson announced she and her husband Rhyne Piggott were expecting their first child. Their daughter was born later that year.