Reared in socially progressive Los Angeles, Drew Gowing rebelled, as was the form, by dropping out of the prestigious University of Southern California after a semester to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) on a full-time, two-year missionary assignment in Canada. Returning to the U.S., he transferred to Brigham Young University to read philosophy and earn the distinction Bachelor of Arts.
He began his career as an intern on the Senate Labor and Human Resource Committee in Washington, D.C., and ultimately cut his teeth in the press rooms on Capitol Hill. In the nation's capital, communications and political science combines into the incontrovertible truth that publishing ensures, supports, and shapes the world of politics.
In the United States Congress, Gowing went on to serve a Congressional Press Secretary. Commissioned to align policy initiatives with public perception, Gowing began each day by curating local, national, and foreign headlines into a morning briefing. News distribution began by sourcing, fact-checking, cross-referencing, and balancing without bias those narratives for a diverse constituency. Spiral bound briefing booklets were delivered to congressional staffers prior to their arrival in the office, and a handwritten synopsis of the daily news summery began: “Citizens of the World.”
A candidate for the JD/MPP in Law and Public Policy, Gowing went on to Boston University and Global Management Consulting whereto advise the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. However, during the 2008 election year, three contingents to his past coincided when the LDS Church collected over $20+ million to promulgate the State of California’s Proposition 8. Herewith, Church, State and Law collided in what is described as the only instance in US history where civil and pre-existing rights were taken away from a specific and targeted minority.
At the dawn of the Digital Revolution, Gowing was coincidentally tapped to edit a not-for-profit political exposé in 2008. Whereupon he returned in earnest to public life to devote what he calls his "second act" to its service. Mr. Gowing is the inaugural editor of Charlatan Magazine: The Exposé of Politics & Style.