Background
In January 2021, press secretary of Joe Ricketts, American billionaire and CEO of TD Ameritrade living in Nebraska, announced the upcoming launch of a news outlet that he claimed would aim to report news "without opinion or bias". The first reports of the outlet's launch appeared in the Omaha World Herald , where Ricketts was noted as a sponsor of various conservative organizations. The press secretary later revealed the name of the outlet, "Straight Arrow News", and said its launch was expected before the end of 2021. He said Ricketts chose this name for the outlet to emphasize its reliability that he compared to a "straight arrow that hits the bullseye". [3] SAN was reportedly first registered in 2020 in Delaware. Responding to questions of the press, Ricketts did not specify how many people would work there, but stated that he intends to hire editors outside of Omaha, the city where SAN was founded. He also said his family members would not work for SAN. [4] [5]
In the weeks before the announcent of SAN's launch, the outlet posted job applications for news reporter, video editor and motion graphics designer. SAN was estimated to launch in February 2021. [6] Reportedly, Ricketts was motivated to create SAN after having a societal conversation with his liberal friend where they discussed why polite and fact-based discussions between people had become uncommon. [7] Ricketts was a CEO of other news websites, like DNAInfo, founded by him in 2009, and Gothamist, which was sold to Ricketts. He shut both websites down in November 2017 after their staff began forming labour unions. [5] [8]
Company
The official launch of SAN took place sometime in June 2021. [9] In 2022, SAN started the construction of its newsroom and bought several communication devices for content production, like intercom systems and IP interfaces. [10] [11] It was revealed that SAN started producing pre-recorded news segments in the studio, with SAN's anchors doing morning news updates. Clear-Com said SAN planned to expand its business to social media platforms, like Facebook Live, and film real-time broadcasts. [12]
At the end of April 2024, SAN released an updated version of its app for download. In 2025, SAN reported that the app had become more popular with user traffic in June 2025 increasing by 1,170% compared to June 2024. [2] On November 1, 2024, SAN said it had hired Ken Shapiro as its Chief Revenue Officer. Shapiro was a former Morning Brew editor and Fandom employee. SAN also said it received 100/100 score by NewsGuard , media-bias rating system. [13] In April 2025, SAN choose Derek Mead, former editor of ViceMagazine, for the position of Chief Content Officer. Joe Ricketts praised Mead, calling the man a "proven leader in the media space". [14]
In May 2025, Ken Shapiro said in an interview that SAN plans to increase its popularity 10 times by launching advertising campaigns using Google Ads and SEO starting in October 2025 and become self-sustaining company by 2027. [15] On June 4, 2025, website and app of SAN were relaunched again and received new features for better user experience. [16]
$9.9 million (yearly) [1]