Type | Daily newspaper (when Congress is in session) |
---|---|
Format | Compact |
Owner(s) | Nexstar Media Group |
Founder(s) | |
Editor | Bob Cusack |
Managing editor | Ian Swanson [1] |
Photo editor | Greg Nash |
Founded | September 1, 1994 |
Language | American English |
Headquarters | 1625 K St., NW, Suite 900, Washington, D.C., 20006 U.S. 38°54′11″N77°02′15″W / 38.90306°N 77.03750°W |
City | Washington, D.C. |
Country | United States |
Circulation | 24,000 print(as of December 2012) [2] [3] |
ISSN | 1521-1568 |
OCLC number | 31153202 |
Website | thehill |
The Hill is an American newspaper and digital media company based in Washington, D.C., that was founded in 1994. [4] [2]
Focusing on politics, policy, business and international relations, The Hill's coverage includes the U.S. Congress, the presidency and executive branch, and election campaigns. [5] Its stated output is "nonpartisan reporting on the inner workings of Government and the nexus of politics and business". [6]
The company's primary outlet is TheHill.com. The Hill is additionally distributed in print for free around Washington, D.C., and distributed to all congressional offices. It has been owned by Nexstar Media Group since 2021.
The company was founded as a newspaper in 1994 by Democratic power broker and New York businessman Jerry Finkelstein, [7] and Martin Tolchin, a former correspondent for The New York Times . New York Representative Gary L. Ackerman was also a major shareholder. [4] The name of the publication alludes to "Capitol Hill" as a synecdoche for the United States Congress and government generally. [8]
In 2012, James A. Finkelstein assumed control of the organization. [9] [1] [2]
In 2016, The New York Times reported that The Hill was "proceeding with ambitious expansion plans" to become a national brand publication, and its website traffic increased 126% over the prior year, and was above Politico's traffic for the period. [10]
Following the 2016 US presidential election, The Street reported that The Hill saw the largest increase in online political readership among political news sites, with an increase of 780%. CNN and Politico saw smaller increases over the period, [11] making The Hill "the fastest-growing political news site". [12] In 2017, The Hill was also cited by Twitter as one of the top 10 "most-tweeted" news sources. [13] A 2017 study by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University found that The Hill was the second most-shared source among supporters of Donald Trump on Twitter during the election, behind Breitbart News . [14] [15]
In 2017, The Hill hired John Solomon as executive vice president of digital video. [16] Solomon inserted material from advertisers into journalistic copy, leading to protests from The Hill's publisher. [17] In March 2018, he worked closely with associates of Rudy Giuliani, the personal lawyer of U.S. President Donald Trump, to promote the spurious Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory. [17] In May 2018, Solomon's role was changed to opinion contributor, although he was allowed to keep his original title. [18] In September 2019, he left The Hill. [16] A February 2020 internal review by The Hill concluded that there were multiple flaws in Solomon's 14 columns about Ukraine and the Bidens, including omitting important details and failing to disclose that the sources used by Solomon were his own attorneys Victoria Toensing and Joseph diGenova—both close associates of Trump and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. [19] [20]
As of 2018 [update] , The Hill was the second most-viewed US political news website and the third-most tweeted U.S. news source. [21]
In January 2019, CNN claimed Finkelstein interfered in the editorial independence of the paper by "keeping a watchful eye on the newspaper's coverage to ensure it is not too critical" of President Trump. [16]
In 2019, The Hill was ranked second among all US news sites for political readership, second to CNN, and ahead of Capitol Hill competitors such as Politico. [22]
In 2020, it was again ranked second for online politics readership across all news sites, behind only CNN. It remained ahead of Politico, Fox News, NBCNews.com and MSNBC TV. [23]
As of 2020, the newspaper claims to have more than 22,000 print readers. [2] The Hill is distributed for free in newspaper boxes around the U.S. Capitol building, and mailed directly to all congressional offices.
As of 2020, The Hill's YouTube channel had 1,100,000 subscribers, ahead of Politico, Axios, and Bloomberg Politics. In October 2020, The Hill's YouTube channel averaged over 1.5 million daily video views and more than 10 million per week; in September 2020 it received over 340 million video views. [24]
In 2021, The Hill was acquired by Nexstar Media Group for $130 million. [9] [25]
In 2022 The Hill made the news for censorship, when it refused to air a segment in its show Rising, and subsequently fired Katie Halper, for defending Rashida Tlaib calling Israel having an "apartheid government". [26]
In 2024 censorship was topic again, when Briahna Joy Gray got fired after rolling her eyes at the sister of a Hamas hostage during an interview. [27]
In June 2018, The Hill launched Hill.TV, a digital news channel. Four years later, the channel expanded to a 24 by 7 FAST streaming service and was rebranded as The Hill TV. [28] It is distributed by Haystack, LG, LocalNow, Plex, Roku, and Vizio. Programming includes Rising , a morning news program hosted by Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave four days a week (initially by Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton.) [29] [30] In May 2021, long-time hosts Ball and Saagar Enjeti announced they were departing in order to release their own independent project, Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar. [29] [31]
The National Press Club's annual Sandy Hume Memorial Award is named after staffer Sandy Hume, in recognition of his 1997 reporting in The Hill of an attempted Republican coup against then-speaker Newt Gingrich. [32]
Climate and energy reporters Sharon Udasin and Rachel Frazin were recognized with SEAL Awards for environmental journalism in 2022 and 2023. [33] [34]
Rudolph William Louis Giuliani is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 107th mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 1983 and the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1983 to 1989.
John Phillips Avlon is an American journalist, political commentator, and Democratic political candidate. He is a senior political analyst and anchor at CNN and was the editor-in-chief and managing director of The Daily Beast from 2013 to 2018.
The United States Capitol Police (USCP) is a federal law enforcement agency in the United States with nationwide jurisdiction charged with protecting the United States Congress within the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its territories. It answers to the Capitol Police Board and is the only full-service federal law enforcement agency appointed by the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States.
Victoria Ann Toensing is an American attorney, Republican Party operative and with her husband, Joseph diGenova, a partner in the Washington law firm diGenova & Toensing. Toensing and diGenova frequently appeared on Fox News and Fox Business channels, until diGenova used a November 2019 appearance to spread conspiracy theories about George Soros, leading to widespread calls for him to be banned from the network. In 2019, Toensing and diGenova began representing Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash in his efforts to block extradition to the United States under a federal indictment and became embroiled in the Trump–Ukraine scandal. The couple has worked with Rudy Giuliani in support of President Donald Trump beginning in 2018, and was named to join a legal team led by Giuliani to overturn the results of the 2020 United States presidential election in which Trump was defeated.
Krystal Marie Ball is an American political commentator and media host. She was previously a political candidate, as well as a television host at MSNBC, a regular contributor to The Huffington Post, and a co-host of The Hill's Rising along with Saagar Enjeti. In May 2021, Ball and Enjeti announced that they were leaving the show in order to launch their own independent project titled Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar. Ball is a co-host with her husband Kyle Kulinski on the podcast Krystal Kyle & Friends. She has made guest appearances on networks such as CNN, CNBC, Fox News, and programs including Real Time with Bill Maher.
John F. Solomon is an American journalist who was a contributor to Fox News until late 2020. He was formerly an executive and editor-in-chief at The Washington Times.
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