Type of site | News, opinion, and media |
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Headquarters | Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
Owner | Bentkey Ventures, LLC |
Created by | |
Key people |
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Employees | 115 (full-time) [1] |
Subsidiaries | Bentkey |
URL | dailywire |
Launched | September 21, 2015 |
Current status | Active |
This article is part of a series on |
Conservatism in the United States |
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The Daily Wire is an American conservative news website and media company founded in 2015 by political commentator Ben Shapiro and film director Jeremy Boreing. [2] [3] The company is a major publisher on Facebook, [4] [5] [6] and produces podcasts such as The Ben Shapiro Show . [3] The Daily Wire has also produced various films and video series. Its DailyWire+ video on demand platform launched in 2022, and its children's video platform Bentkey in 2023. The Daily Wire is based in Nashville, Tennessee.
Many Daily Wire stories repackage journalism from traditional news organizations while adding a conservative slant. [4] [7] Fact checkers have said that some stories shared by The Daily Wire are unverified, and that The Daily Wire sometimes misstates facts to advance a partisan view. [8] [9] [10]
The Daily Wire was conceived by Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing, who both worked for TruthRevolt, a news website that was formerly funded by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. [11] After the duo secured several million dollars in seed funding from billionaire petroleum industry brothers Dan and Farris Wilks, The Daily Wire was launched in 2015. [11] [12] [13] Farris manages Bentkey Ventures, LLC (formerly Forward Publishing, LLC), which publishes The Daily Wire. [13] Initially, the company was headquartered in Los Angeles, California [14] and supported mostly by advertisements. [1] In September 2020, Shapiro announced that The Daily Wire headquarters would move to Nashville, Tennessee. [15] [16] [17]
The Daily Wire became one of the leading news sites and publishers on Facebook in terms of engagement. In 2018, NewsWhip identified The Daily Wire as "by far" the top right-wing publisher on Facebook. [18] According to NewsWhip, The Daily Wire was the sixth-leading English-language publisher on Facebook in 2019 through the month of March. The site also had the second most articles among Facebook's 10,000 top stories. [19] In 2021, stories published by The Daily Wire received more likes, shares and comments on Facebook than any other news publisher, according to NPR. [4]
In April 2019, Podtrac ranked The Daily Wire's The Ben Shapiro Show the second most listened-to podcast in the U.S. for the month of March 2019, behind The Daily . [20]
In June 2020, Shapiro stepped down from his role as editor-in-chief, which he had held since the site's founding, and took on the role of editor emeritus. John Bickley was announced as the site's next editor-in-chief. [2]
In January 2021, Shapiro announced that The Daily Wire was beginning a studio for TV and films that would not promote leftist causes. [21] Its first original movie, Shut In , premiered in 2022. [22]
In September 2021, Shapiro and Boreing announced that The Daily Wire would defy U.S. President Joe Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for companies with more than 100 employees. [23] The company later filed a lawsuit, which was eventually brought before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court declared the mandates unlawful with a 6-3 ruling. [24]
In October 2021, The Daily Wire hired Allison Williams, who had resigned from ESPN because the company mandated that live-event staffers get the vaccine and she had decided against being vaccinated while trying to conceive another child. [25] The Daily Wire advertised the hire as "sports without the woke", with a banner that said "did not comply". Williams said she would explore issues "that may be too taboo for other media outlets". [26]
In 2021, The Daily Wire announced a new publishing imprint, DW Books, that would release books by Shapiro, Candace Owens, Gina Carano, and an officer who fired shots in the police killing of Breonna Taylor, among others. According to AP News, this "continues a trend of conservatives setting up channels outside of the New York [publishing] houses", after publishing houses canceled several books seen as promoting extremist views, or refused distribution when other imprints picked them up. DW Books planned to release books through Ingram Content Group starting in 2022. [27]
The Daily Wire's annual revenues exceeded $100 million for the first time as of early 2022, and it had 150 employees. [28] In March 2022, The Daily Wire announced plans to invest at least $100 million into children's entertainment content over a three year period in response to Disney's opposition to Florida's House Bill 1557. [29] [30] In June 2022, The Daily Wire launched DailyWire+, a video on demand platform featuring various Daily Wire content, including podcasts and video productions. [31] In June 2022, co-founder Jeremy Boreing said The Daily Wire had 890,000 paid subscribers. [32] In November 2022, Boreing stated that they have surpassed 1,000,000 subscribers. [33]
In January 2023, conservative commentator Steven Crowder revealed on his Youtube channel that he had received a term sheet from an unnamed conservative media company (later revealed to be The Daily Wire) that included a provision that, if he were to be demonetized or removed from platforms such as YouTube, Facebook or the iTunes Store, his salary would be cut substantially during that period. Crowder took immense issue with that provision, saying that it enforces policies that disproportionately target conservatives and claiming "Big Tech is in bed with Big Con." [34] CEO Jeremy Boreing later responded to Crowder's video, claiming that Crowder had misrepresented the terms of the contract and that the contract would have paid Crowder $50 million over four years. Furthermore, Boreing asserted that the stipulation was necessary to ensure profitability. [35] Other Daily Wire pundits such as Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, and Candace Owens also criticized Crowder for his actions, including secretly recording a phone call he had with Boreing and only releasing parts of the call selectively, including a quote from Boreing saying that up-and-coming conservative commentators need to be "wage slaves for a little bit" while they build their brand. [36] [37]
During the 2023 Israel-Hamas War, the organization faced significant infighting between staff members on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [38] [39]
In addition to its written content, the site produces several podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show , The Michael Knowles Show, The Matt Walsh Show, and The Andrew Klavan Show. [3]
The reach of The Ben Shapiro Show expanded in April 2018 when Westwood One began syndicating the podcast to radio. [40] In January 2019, Westwood One expanded Shapiro's one-hour podcast-to-radio program, adding a nationally syndicated two-hour live radio show, for three hours of Ben Shapiro programming daily. [41] As of March 2019 [update] , according to Westwood One, The Ben Shapiro Show is being carried by more than 200 stations, including in nine of the top ten markets. [42]
In 2020, The Daily Wire acquired the entirety of PragerU's content. [43]
On election day 2020, activist and former Turning Point USA communications director Candace Owens announced that she would move to Nashville, Tennessee, and join The Daily Wire with her own show, Candace. [44] It premiered March 19, 2021. Its episodes air weekly and are filmed before a live studio audience. [45] Notable guests include former president Donald Trump, UFC president Dana White, and U.S. Congressman Jim Jordan.[ citation needed ]
In March 2022, they started a YouTube channel called The Comments Section with Brett Cooper .
In 2022, DailyWire+ started airing The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast. [31]
The Daily Wire has created several documentaries, including the Matt Walsh documentary What Is a Woman? , released on June 1, 2022. [46] Convicting a Murderer is a 2023 American true-crime documentary series narrated and hosted by Candace Owens for The Daily Wire. Two other documentaries are the Candace Owens helm project The Greatest Lie Ever Sold and the Dr. Jordan Peterson project Logos and Literacy.
Daily Wire personalities Michael Knowles and Jeremy Boreing have performed a couple songs together, as a band with the name Smokey Mike & The god-king. [47]
In January 2021, The Daily Wire released Run Hide Fight , a feature-length drama about a mass school shooting. Its North American release was exclusive to Daily Wire subscribers. [48] In November, The Daily Wire launched Adam Carolla Truth Yeller, a comedy podcast filmed with a live audience, featuring comedian Adam Carolla. [49] [ third-party source needed ]
On February 10, 2022 The Daily Wire's first original film, Shut In , premiered on YouTube. It was directed by D.J. Caruso and starred Rainey Qualley, Josh Horowitz, and Vincent Gallo in his first film since 2013. [22] After acquiring domestic rights to The Hyperions , a superhero comedy starring Cary Elwes, the company premiered the film for free on YouTube on March 10, 2022. Afterward, it moved to The Daily Wire site for exclusive domestic on-demand viewing. [50] [51]
Terror on the Prairie , a western set in Montana and starring Gina Carano, was released to subscribers on June 14, 2022. [52]
On June 29, 2022, The Daily Wire launched the video on demand platform DailyWire+ featuring various Daily Wire podcasts and video productions, [31] and announced an animated preschool series titled Chip Chilla, which featured the voice of comedian Rob Schneider during its first season (Johnny Test voice actor James Arnold Taylor would replace him starting in Season 2). [53] On November 3, My Dinner with Trump, a cinéma vérité-style documentary featuring Donald Trump with 16 of his closest advisors, released exclusively on the platform. [54]
In November 2022, The Daily Wire announced that it will produce adaptations of Ayn Rand's 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged and Stephen R. Lawhead's series The Pendragon Cycle . [55] [56] The Pendragon Cycle began filming in September 2023, and is planned for release in 2024. The seven-episode series will be co-directed by Jeremy Boreing and will star Tom Sharp and the conservative YouTuber Brett Cooper. [57] On October 16, 2023 – the centennial anniversary of Walt Disney founding his company – Boreing announced a kids' content service called Bentkey, which launched that day. The service features some of the kids' content they had announced the prior year, including Chip Chilla. [58] Bentkey's first feature-length film was announced to be a live-action adaptation of Snow White , titled Snow White and the Evil Queen , starring Cooper as the titular character, in response to the upcoming 2025 Disney Snow White film. [59]
This section of tables may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject , potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral.(February 2024) |
Films
Title | Genre | U.S. release date | Platform |
---|---|---|---|
Run Hide Fight | Action thriller | January 14, 2021 | DailyWire+ |
Shut In | Thriller | February 10, 2022 | |
The Hyperions | Superhero comedy | March 10, 2022 | |
What Is a Woman? | Documentary | June 1, 2022 | |
Terror on the Prairie | Western | June 14, 2022 | |
The Greatest Lie Ever Sold | Documentary | October 12, 2022 | |
My Dinner with Trump | Documentary | November 3, 2022 | |
Lady Ballers | Comedy | December 1, 2023 | |
Snow White and the Evil Queen | Fantasy | 2025 | Bentkey |
Television series
Title | Genre | U.S. release date | Platform |
---|---|---|---|
What We Saw | Documentary | June 13, 2019–present | DailyWire+ |
Adam Carolla Truth Yeller | Comedy podcast | November 25, 2021–March 24, 2022 | |
The Enemy Within | Documentary | February 18, 2022 [60] | |
Fauci Unmasked | Documentary | March 16, 2022 [61] | |
Exodus | Documentary | November 22, 2022–May 3, 2023 | |
Convicting a Murderer | Documentary | September 8, 2023 [62] | |
Chip Chilla | Animated series | October 16, 2023 | Bentkey |
A Wonderful Day with Mabel Maclay | Live-action children's series | ||
Gus Plus Us | Puppet | ||
Kid Explorer | Live-action children's documentary | ||
Kid Fit Go! | Fitness | ||
The Pendragon Cycle | Fantasy | 2024 | DailyWire+ |
Mr. Birchum | Adult animation | ||
Kid Fit Chef | Cooking | March 16, 2024 | Bentkey |
Atlas Shrugged | Scripted series based on the novel | TBA | DailyWire+ |
In March 2022, co-CEO Jeremy Boreing opened a line of subscription-based shaving razors called Jeremy's Razors, openly competing against former Daily Wire sponsor Harry's Razors. [63] [64] In March 2023, Boreing started selling chocolate bars branded as Jeremy's Chocolate after Hershey's chocolate bars hired a trans woman to be a spokesperson for International Women's Day. [65]
Fact checkers have said that some stories shared by The Daily Wire are unverified, and that The Daily Wire sometimes misstates facts to advance a partisan view. [66] [13] [67] According to Snopes, "DailyWire.com has a tendency to share stories that are taken out of context or not verified", including an incorrect report on baby names in the Netherlands, [67] a misdated, exaggerated story that protesters were digging up Confederate graves, [68] a false allegation that Democratic congresspeople had refused to stand for a fallen Navy SEAL's widow, [69] and a report that Harvard University was segregating commencement ceremonies (because black students had planned an optional event). [70] The credibility checker NewsGuard assessed in 2021 that The Daily Wire "has sometimes misstated facts, including about COVID-19" but "generally maintains basic standards of credibility and transparency — with significant exceptions". [66] [ better source needed ]
Various articles by The Daily Wire have engaged in climate change denial by making false or misleading claims when they dispute the scientific consensus on climate change. [71] [72] [73] [74] [13] In 2017, when scientists writing in Climate Feedback described several Daily Wire articles as inaccurate or lacking evidence, [71] [72] [73] The Daily Wire published corrections in two articles, after which the scientists assessed that the updated articles were still misleading. [75] [76] In November 2021, a study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate described The Daily Wire as being among "ten fringe publishers" that together were responsible for nearly 70 percent of Facebook user interactions with content that denied climate change. Facebook said the percentage was overstated and called the study misleading. [77] [78]
The "Coronavirus Misinformation Weekly Briefing" by academics of the Oxford Internet Institute described The Daily Wire's coverage of COVID-19 lockdowns and the World Health Organization as examples of "junk health news" narratives in 2020. [79] [80] Multiple scientific studies have identified The Daily Wire as a fake news website. [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] Boston University and Forbes have described the website as far-right. [39] [86]
In April 2017, The Daily Wire incorrectly credited the Housing and Urban Development secretary, Ben Carson, with finding over $500 billion in accounting errors made by the Obama administration. FactCheck.org reported that the errors were discovered and published by HUD's independent inspector general before Carson became secretary. [87]
In October 2019, the investigative website Popular Information said that The Daily Wire had violated Facebook's policies by creating 14 anonymous pages promoting its content exclusively to boost engagement. [88] [89] [90] In response, Facebook temporarily demoted a network called Mad World News, which had a financial relationship with The Daily Wire, but issued no penalty to The Daily Wire besides a warning. [91] [92]
In July 2021, an article by NPR in a series on disinformation accused The Daily Wire of having found success on Facebook by turning "anger into an art form and recycled content into a business model". It cited among its examples Daily Wire stories on COVID-19 vaccines that disproportionately played up potential side effects. [4] [93] Shapiro responded on Twitter by asserting that the NPR story reflected "the establishment media's deep desire to keep people from clicking on stories they want to read". [93]
Media Matters for America (MMfA) is a nonprofit left-leaning watchdog journalism organization. It was founded in 2004 by journalist and political activist David Brock as a counterweight to the conservative Media Research Center. It seeks to spotlight "conservative misinformation" in the U.S. media; its methods include issuing reports and quick responses. Two example initiatives include the "Drop Fox" campaign (2011-2013) that sought to discredit Fox News' "fair and balanced" claims; and a 2023 report about X that highlighted antisemitism on the platform.
Newsmax Media, Inc. is an American cable news, political opinion commentary, and digital media company founded by Christopher Ruddy in 1998. It has been variously described as conservative, right-wing, and far-right. Newsmax Media divisions include its cable and broadcast channel Newsmax TV; its website Newsmax.com, which includes Newsmax Health and Newsmax Finance; and Newsmax magazine, its monthly print publication.
Benjamin Aaron Shapiro is an American lawyer, columnist, author, and conservative political commentator. He writes columns for Creators Syndicate, Newsweek, and Ami Magazine, and serves as editor emeritus for The Daily Wire, which he co-founded in 2015. Shapiro is the host of The Ben Shapiro Show, a daily political podcast and live radio show. He was editor-at-large of Breitbart News from 2012 until his resignation in 2016. Shapiro has authored sixteen books.
The Epoch Times is a far-right international multi-language newspaper and media company affiliated with the Falun Gong new religious movement. The newspaper, based in New York City, is part of the Epoch Media Group, which also operates New Tang Dynasty (NTD) Television. The Epoch Times has websites in 35 countries but is blocked in mainland China.
Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. It differs from disinformation, which is deliberately deceptive and propagated information. Early definitions of misinformation focused on statements that were patently false, incorrect, or not factual. Therefore, a narrow definition of misinformation refers to the information's quality, whether inaccurate, incomplete, or false. However, recent studies define misinformation per deception rather than informational accuracy because misinformation can include falsehoods, selective truths, and half-truths.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), formerly Brixton Endeavors, is a British not-for-profit NGO company with offices in London and Washington, D.C. with the stated purpose of stopping the spread of online hate speech and disinformation. It campaigns to deplatform people that it believes promote hate or misinformation, and campaigns to restrict media organisations such as The Daily Wire from advertising. CCDH is a member of the Stop Hate For Profit coalition.
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name derives from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities. Since 2006, Facebook allows everyone to register from 13 years old, except in the case of a handful of nations, where the age limit is 14 years. As of December 2022, Facebook claimed 3 billion monthly active users. As of October 2023, Facebook ranked as the 3rd most visited website in the world, with 22.56% of its traffic coming from the United States. It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s.
Breitbart News Network is an American far-right syndicated news, opinion, and commentary website founded in mid-2007 by American conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart. Its content has been described as misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist by academics and journalists. The site has published a number of conspiracy theories and intentionally misleading stories. Posts originating from the Breitbart News Facebook page are among the most widely shared political content on Facebook.
Parler is a now-closed American alt-tech social networking service associated with conservatives. Launched in August 2018, Parler marketed itself as a free speech-focused and unbiased alternative to mainstream social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. Journalists described Parler as an alt-tech alternative to Twitter, with its users including those banned from mainstream social networks or who oppose their moderation policies.
Jeremy Danial Boreing is an American screenwriter, director, producer, and political commentator. He was a member of Coattails Entertainment, a production company, with Kurt Schemper, Joel David Moore, and Zachary Levi from 2006 to 2010. Boreing was the producer and co-writer of the 2007 horror film Spiral with Moore, as well as the 2009 comedy film Etienne!. After the dissolution of Coattails, Boreing co-founded the independent film studio Declaration Entertainment with Bill Whittle. He was also a guest columnist for the conservative websites Big Hollywood and Newsbusters, and is a founder, contributor and co-chief executive officer at the conservative news and opinion website The Daily Wire.
Steven Blake Crowder is an American-Canadian conservative political commentator and media host.
The Federalist is an American conservative online magazine and podcast that covers politics, policy, culture, and religion, and publishes a newsletter. The site was co-founded by Ben Domenech and Sean Davis and launched in September 2013.
The Prager University Foundation, known as PragerU, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit advocacy group and media organization that creates content promoting conservative viewpoints on various political, economic, and sociological topics. It was co-founded in 2009 by Allen Estrin and talk show host Dennis Prager. Despite the name including the word "university", it is not an academic institution and does not confer degrees.
Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for conservative politics on high school, college, and university campuses. It was founded in 2012 by Charlie Kirk and Bill Montgomery. TPUSA's affiliate groups include Turning Point Endowment, Turning Point Action and TPUSA Faith. TPUSA has been described as the fastest growing organization of campus chapters in America, and according to The Chronicle of Higher Education, is a dominant force in campus conservatism.
The Western Journal, previously known as Western Journalism, is an American conservative news and politics website based in Phoenix, Arizona. It was founded by political consultant Floyd Brown in 2008.
Facebook has been involved in multiple controversies involving censorship of content, removing or omitting information from its services in order to comply with company policies, legal demands, and government censorship laws.
The Gateway Pundit (TGP) is an American far-right fake news website. The website is known for publishing falsehoods, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories.
Charles J. Kirk is an American right-wing political activist, radio talk show host, and internet personality who often espouses views rooted in conservatism. He founded Turning Point USA with Bill Montgomery in 2012, and has served as its executive director since. He is the CEO of Turning Point Action, Students for Trump, and Turning Point Academy, Turning Point Faith, president of Turning Point Endowment, and a member of the Council for National Policy. Kirk has written four books.
Candace Amber Owens Farmer is an American conservative political commentator, author, activist, and television presenter.
The Daily Wire's news stories regularly rely on accounts by other news organizations, which range from major news outlets such as ABC News and The Washington Post, to websites that NewsGuard has found to have published false and misleading content, such as conservative website PJ Media and the anti- abortion site LifeNews.com.
The website has also made inaccurate or unsubstantiated claims about climate change.
An October 2019 article headlined "KNOWLES: AOC Travels To Europe To Cry," made false claims about climate change.
An October 2019 article headlined "KNOWLES: AOC Travels To Europe To Cry," made false claims about climate change.
The website has also made inaccurate or unsubstantiated claims about climate change.
Scientists who reviewed the Daily Wire article found that it greatly misinterpreted the study by saying that it showed that climate projections have overestimated warming. This is incorrect.
The title of this Daily Wire article inaccurately claims that global temperature has not warmed over the past 19 years—in direct contradiction with observations—and the article provides no evidence in support of this bold claim.
This post at The Daily Wire, which has been widely shared on Facebook, claims that a recent study of variations in Earth's orbit recorded by 90 million-year-old rocks provides evidence against a human cause of current global warming. Scientists who reviewed the post found that it misrepresented the study's implications for modern climate change, as well as the timeframes that the study is relevant to.
The Daily Wire's claims misrepresent the findings of the AIMS report.
Just ten publishers are responsible for nearly 70% of user interactions with content that denies climate change on Facebook, according to a study released Tuesday by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which found that far-right news outlet Breitbart is the leading source of misinformation on the platform.... Following Breitbart and the Western Journal, the rest of the top ten outlets publishing climate change denial content according to the study are Newsmax, Townhall Media, the Media Research Center, the Washington Times, the Federalist Papers, the Daily Wire, Russia Today and the Patriot Post.