The Daily Wire
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.
Type of site
Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.
Bentkey Ventures, LLC
- Ben Shapiro (editor emeritus)
Jeremy Boreing (co-CEO)
Caleb Robinson (co-CEO)
John Bickley (editor-in-chief)
115 (full-time)[1]
September 21, 2015
Active
Documentaries
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.
Products
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]
Reception
Accuracy
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]
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]
Facebook criticism
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]
