The Daily Wire
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Type of site | News, opinion, and media |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Owner | Bentkey Ventures, LLC |
| Created by | |
| Key people |
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| Employees | 115 (full-time)[1] |
| 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] It is the second most popular publisher on Facebook,[4][5][6] and produces podcasts such as The Ben Shapiro Show.[3]
History
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.[7] After the duo secured several million dollars in seed funding from the billionaire petroleum industry brothers Dan and Farris Wilks, The Daily Wire was launched in 2015.[7][8][9] Initially, The Daily Wire was supported mostly by advertisements.[1] Farris Wilks, a fracking billionaire,[10] manages Bentkey Ventures, LLC (formerly Forward Publishing, LLC), which publishes The Daily Wire.[9] The website's headquarters were in Los Angeles, California.[11] In September 2020, Shapiro announced that The Daily Wire headquarters would move to Nashville, Tennessee.[12][13][14]
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.[5] 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.[15] 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.[16]
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".[17] Its first original movie, Shut In, premiered in 2022.[18]
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.[19] The company, later filed a lawsuit, which was eventually brought before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court's verdict was declaring the mandates unlawful with a 6-3 majority vote.[20]
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.[21] 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".[22]
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.[23]
The Daily Wire's annual revenues exceeded $100 million for the first time as of early 2022, and it had 150 employees.[24] 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.[25][26]
As of April 2022, its paid subscriber base was reported as close to 600,000.[27]
Podcasts and radio
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.[28] 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.[29] 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.[30]
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.[31] It premiered March 19, 2021. Its episodes air weekly and are filmed before a live studio audience.[32] Notable guests include former president Donald Trump, UFC president Dana White, and U.S. Congressman Jim Jordan.[citation needed]
Entertainment
In 2020, The Daily Wire acquired the entirety of PragerU's content.[33]
On January 14, 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.[34]
In February 2022, the company acquired domestic rights to The Hyperions, a superhero comedy starring Cary Elwes. It premiered free on YouTube in March 10, 2022; afterward it moved to The Daily Wire site for on-demand viewing.[35][36]
Original films
The Daily Wire's first original film, Shut In, premiered on YouTube on February 10, 2022. It is directed by D.J. Caruso and stars Rainey Qualley, Josh Horowitz, and Vincent Gallo in his first film since 2013.[18]
On June 1, 2022, The Daily Wire released the Matt Walsh documentary What is a Woman?, available only to Daily Wire subscribers.[37]
Their next original film, Terror on the Prairie, a western set in Montana and starring Gina Carano, is planned to release to subscribers of The Daily Wire in summer 2022.[38]
Accuracy
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,[39] a misdated, exaggerated story that protesters were digging up Confederate graves,[40] a false allegation that Democratic congresspeople had refused to stand for a fallen Navy SEAL's widow,[41] and a report that Harvard University was segregating commencement ceremonies (because black students had planned an optional event).[42] The credibility checker NewsGuard assessed in 2021 that The Daily Wire "has sometimes misstated facts, especially about COVID-19" and "generally maintains basic standards of credibility and transparency — with significant exceptions".[43]
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.[44][45][46][47][9] In 2017, when scientists writing in Climate Feedback described several Daily Wire articles as inaccurate or lacking evidence,[44][45][46] The Daily Wire published corrections in two articles, after which the scientists assessed that the updated articles were still misleading.[48][49] 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.[50][10]
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.[51][52]
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.[53]
Relationship with Facebook
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.[54][55][56] 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.[57][58]
In July 2021, an article by NPR in a series on disinformation said that The Daily Wire had 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][59] 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".[59]
References
- ^ a b Fischer, Sara (January 19, 2021). "The Daily Wire is profitable, and eyeing entertainment". Axios. Retrieved September 13, 2021.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b Blake, Andrew (July 7, 2020). "Ben Shapiro stepping down as editor-in-chief of the Daily Wire". The Washington Times. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
- ^ a b c "About". The Daily Wire. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
- ^ a b c Parks, Miles (July 19, 2021). "Outrage As A Business Model: How Ben Shapiro Is Using Facebook To Build An Empire". NPR. Retrieved July 26, 2021.
- ^ a b "Partisan Publishers and Political Content" (PDF). NewsWhip. September 2018. Retrieved July 10, 2019.
- ^ McCool, Alice; Narayanan, Manasa (May 19, 2022). "The Daily Wire Spent Thousands of Dollars Promoting Anti-Amber Heard Propaganda". Vice News. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
- ^ a b Nguyen, Tina (December 9, 2018). "'Let's Make You Famous': How Hollywood Invented Ben Shapiro". Vanity Fair. Retrieved December 28, 2018.
- ^ Stevenson, Seth (January 24, 2018). "The Many Faces of Ben Shapiro". Slate. Retrieved December 28, 2018.
- ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference
:4was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b "The Toxic Ten: How ten fringe publishers fuel 69% of digital climate change denial". Center for Countering Digital Hate. November 2, 2021. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
- ^ Peters, Jeremy W (October 31, 2017). "In the Heart of 'The Resistance', California Conservatives Are Invigorated". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on November 22, 2017. Retrieved April 30, 2018.
- ^ Hineman, Brinley (September 15, 2020). "Ben Shapiro is moving to Nashville, and he's bringing The Daily Wire with him". The Tennessean.
- ^ Johnson, Ted (September 15, 2020). "The Daily Wire To Move Headquarters From Los Angeles To Nashville". Deadline Hollywood.
- ^ Concha, Joe (September 16, 2020). "Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire leaving California: 'Terrible governance has consequences'". The Hill.
- ^ "2019 Guide to Publishing on Facebook" (PDF). NewsWhip. March 2019. p. 4. Retrieved July 10, 2019.
- ^ "A Bounce For Ben Shapiro in March Says Podtrac". Inside Radio. April 24, 2019. Retrieved June 11, 2019.
- ^ Shapiro, Ben (January 3, 2020). "'Shapiro: Why The Daily Wire Is Getting Into The Entertainment Business'". The Daily Wire. Retrieved January 3, 2020.
- ^ a b Wiseman, Andreas (December 1, 2021). "Vincent Gallo Returns To Acting In The Daily Wire Movie 'Shut In'". Deadline. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
- ^ Ellefson, Lindsey (September 10, 2021). "Conservative Outlet Daily Wire Vows to Defy Biden Vaccine Order". TheWrap. Retrieved September 13, 2021.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Kimball, Spencer. "Biden administration withdraws Covid vaccine mandate for businesses after losing Supreme Court case". CNBC.
- ^ Al Khateeb, Zac (October 22, 2021). "Allison Williams joins Daily Wire after leaving ESPN over vaccine mandate". Sporting News.
- ^ Abdel-Baqui, Omar (October 25, 2021). "Former ESPN Reporter Allison Williams Who Left Over Vaccine Mandate Joins the Daily Wire". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
- ^ Italie, Hillel (October 13, 2021). "Daily Wire launches conservative book publishing imprint". AP News.
- ^ Fischer, Sara (February 8, 2022). "Exclusive: The Daily Wire says it's a $100M a year business". Axios. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
- ^ Fischer, Sara (March 30, 2022). "The Daily Wire says it's pouring $100 million into kids entertainment". Axios. Retrieved March 31, 2022.
- ^ "Daily Wire to make conservative kids' shows to rival 'woke' Disney". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved March 31, 2022.
- ^ Meek, Andy (April 9, 2022). "The Daily Wire, For The First Time, Reveals The Size Of Its Paid Subscriber Base". Forbes. Retrieved April 11, 2022.
- ^ Schwartz, Jason (March 29, 2018). "Ben Shapiro to take his podcast to radio". Politico. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
- ^ "Ben Shapiro Radio Show Expands To Three Hours Over The Air". Inside Radio. September 24, 2018. Retrieved June 16, 2019.
- ^ Potter, Chris (March 6, 2019). "The Ben Shapiro Show Experiences Explosive Station Growth and Ratings Success by Drawing Younger Listeners to Broadcast Radio". Westwood One.
- ^ Prestigiacomo, Amanda (November 4, 2020). "Candace Owens Is Joining Daily Wire". The Daily Wire.
- ^ Burack, Bobby. "CANDACE OWENS, DAILY WIRE LAUNCHING NEW LATE-NIGHT SHOW WITH LIVE AUDIENCE". Outkick.
- ^ "Entire PragerU Content Library Now Available At The Daily Wire". The Daily Wire. Retrieved February 19, 2022.
- ^ Wiseman, Andreas (January 4, 2021). "The Daily Wire Makes First Foray Into Film & TV With School Shooting Movie 'Run Hide Fight'; Right-Wing Site Developing Two TV Series". Deadline Hollywood.
- ^ Wiseman, Andreas. "The Daily Wire Buys Indie Superhero Comedy 'The Hyperions' Starring Cary Elwes; Watch First Trailer". Deadline.
- ^ "'The Hyperions' Starring Cary Elwes Debuting March 10 On YouTube". The Daily Wire. February 10, 2022. Retrieved March 3, 2022.
- ^ Graham, Jennifer (June 4, 2022). "Perspective: He asked 'What is a woman?' Most people couldn't answer". Deseret News.
- ^ Wiseman, Andreas (October 12, 2021). "Gina Carano Underway On First Project Since 'The Mandalorian': Daily Wire Western 'Terror On The Prairie' Also Stars MMA Fighter Cowboy Cerrone, 'Justified' Actor Nick Searcy, More". Deadline Hollywood.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:2was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ LaCapria, Kim (August 19, 2017). "FACT CHECK: Are Vigilante Protesters Digging Up Confederate Graves After Charlottesville Clashes?". Snopes.com. Retrieved October 30, 2021.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ LaCapria, Kim; Mikkelson, David (March 1, 2017). "FACT CHECK: Did Democrats Refuse to Stand for a Navy SEAL's Widow?". Snopes.com. Retrieved October 30, 2021.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ LaCapria, Kim (May 9, 2017). "FACT CHECK: Is Harvard University Segregating Graduation Ceremonies?". Snopes.com. Retrieved October 30, 2021.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Gregory, John (March 2022). "dailywire.com" (PDF). NewsGuard.
- ^ a b Johnson, Scott (September 21, 2017). "Daily Wire article misunderstands study on carbon budget (along with Fox News, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, Breitbart…)". Climate Feedback. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
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.
- ^ a b Johnson, Scott (May 9, 2017). "The Daily Wire makes wild claims about climate change based on no evidence". Climate Feedback. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
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.
- ^ a b Vincent, Emmanuel (February 28, 2017). "Analysis of 'Scientists: Here's What Really Causes Climate Change (And It Has Nothing To Do With Human Beings)'". Climate Feedback. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
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.
- ^ Valentine, Katie (October 30, 2021). "Coral cover in the Great Barrier Reef improved in 2021, but that doesn't mean the reef is 'growing quickly,' contrary to Daily Wire claim". Climate Feedback. Retrieved November 2, 2021.
The Daily Wire's claims misrepresent the findings of the AIMS report.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Vincent, Emmanuel (May 16, 2017). "Daily Wire updates its article, but it still conveys false information". Climate Feedback.
- ^ Johnson, Scott (March 7, 2017). "The Daily Wire corrects story analyzed by scientists, but it's still misleading". Climate Feedback.
- ^ Porterfield, Carlie (November 2, 2021). "Breitbart Leads Climate Change Misinformation On Facebook, Study Says". Forbes. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
- ^ Au, Hubert; Bright, Jonathan; Howard, Philip N (April 20, 2020). "Social Media Misinformation about the WHO, COMPROP Coronavirus Misinformation Weekly Briefing" (PDF). Oxford Internet Institute.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Au, Hubert; Bright, Jonathan; Howard, Philip N (April 27, 2020). "Social Media Misinformation and Lockdown Measures in Democracies, COMPROP Coronavirus Misinformation Weekly Briefing" (PDF). Oxford Internet Institute.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Gore, D'Angelo (April 19, 2017). "Carson Didn't Find HUD Errors". FactCheck.org. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
- ^ Hern, Alex; Waterson, Jim (November 7, 2019). "Facebook: we would let Tories run 'doctored' Starmer video as ad". The Guardian. Retrieved November 11, 2019.
- ^ Baragona, Justin (June 25, 2020). "The Shadowy Right-Wing Network Behind Ben Shapiro's Facebook Success". The Daily Beast. Retrieved July 18, 2020.
- ^ Smith, David (November 3, 2019). "How key Republicans inside Facebook are shifting its politics to the right". The Guardian. Retrieved November 5, 2021.
- ^ Legum, Judd. "Facebook allows prominent right-wing website to break the rules". Popular Information. Retrieved November 9, 2019.
- ^ Nelius, Joanna (July 2, 2020). "Facebook Confirms Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire Has Been Very, Very Bad". Gizmodo.
- ^ a b Mastrangelo, Dominick (July 19, 2021). "Ben Shapiro rips NPR following story critical of Daily Wire's business model". The Hill. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)