''The Western Journal'', previously known as ''Western Journalism'', is an

American conservative ''The American Conservative'' (''TAC'') is a bimonthly magazine published by the American Ideas Institute. The magazine was founded in 2002 by Pat Buchanan, Scott McConnell and Taki Theodoracopulos to advance an anti- neoconservative perspect ...

news and politics website based in

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona. With over 1.6 million residents at the 2020 census, it is the ...

. It was founded by political consultant

Floyd Brown Floyd Gregory Brown (born March 10, 1961) is an American author, speaker, and media commentator. He is formerly the CEO of USA Radio Network. Brown founded the conservative website '' Western Journalism'' in 2008. Brown in his early career worke ...

in 2008.

History

''Western Journalism'' founder Floyd Brown also founded the political action committee Citizens United and served as executive director of the Young America's Foundation. The site was acquired by Liftable Media, Inc. in 2014, which also owns the political opinion websites ''Conservative Tribune'' and ''Liberty Alliance'', and the Christian website Liftable.com. It also owns and provides content to dozens of conservative Facebook pages. ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

'' reported that the site has grown from receiving 1,000 page views a day in 2009 to more than 1 million during 2016. In a 2016 story on how

fake news Fake news or information disorder is false or misleading information (misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and hoaxes) claiming the aesthetics and legitimacy of news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person ...

spreads on social media, ''

The Intercept ''The Intercept'' is an American left-wing nonprofit news organization that publishes articles and podcasts online. ''The Intercept'' has published in English since its founding in 2014, and in Portuguese since the 2016 launch of the Brazilia ...

'' reported that "Thanks to views sourced largely to referrals from

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

, Brown's websites now outrank web traffic going to news outlets such as the ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'',

CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio broadcaster CBS. It is headquartered in New York City. CBS News television programs include ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs ''CBS News Sunday Morn ...

, and

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

, according to data compiled by

Alexa Alexa may refer to: Technology *Amazon Alexa, a virtual assistant developed by Amazon * Alexa Internet, a defunct website ranking and traffic analysis service * Alexa Fluor, a family of fluorescent dyes * Arri Alexa, a digital motion picture ca ...

". The company changed its name in 2018 to ''The Western Journal'', hired trained copy editors, and introduced a corrections page. In 2018 the CEO of Liftable Media, which publishes ''Conservative Tribune'' and ''The Western Journal'', told

BuzzFeed News ''BuzzFeed News'' was an American news website published by BuzzFeed beginning in 2011. It ceased posting new hard news content in May 2023. It published a number of high-profile scoops, including the Steele dossier, for which it was strong ...

he would be contacting

True Pundit True Pundit is a far-right fake news website known for publishing conspiracy theories. According to ''The Atlantic'', True Pundit had "a well-known modus operandi, perfected during the 2016 U.S. election: running baseless stories and then aski ...

to demand it

cease and desist A cease and desist letter is a document sent by one party, often a business, to warn another party that they believe the other party is committing an unlawful act, such as copyright infringement, and that they will take legal action if the oth ...

"stealing the first 10 paragraphs or so of our content". ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' reported in 2019 that the site had more than 36 million readers and followers on

Reception

''Western Journalism'' previously stated it featured "conservative,

libertarian Libertarianism (from ; or from ) is a political philosophy that holds freedom, personal sovereignty, and liberty as primary values. Many libertarians believe that the concept of freedom is in accord with the Non-Aggression Principle, according ...

free market In economics, a free market is an economic market (economics), system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of ...

and pro-family writers and broadcasters" and seeks to provide "God-honoring" content. In practice, according to ''

'', this philosophy, in which "tradition-minded patriots face ceaseless assault by anti-Christian bigots, diseased migrants and race hustlers concocting

hate crime Hate crime (also known as bias crime) in criminal law involves a standard offence (such as an assault, murder) with an added element of bias against a victim (individual or group of individuals) because of their physical appearance or perceived ...

s," results in "a torrent of sensationalized, misleading, or entirely made-up stories, often aimed at

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

s and immigrants." Because of negative rulings by

fact-checking Fact-checking is the process of verifying the factual accuracy of questioned reporting and statements. Fact-checking can be conducted before or after the text or content is published or otherwise disseminated. Internal fact-checking is such che ...

sites and user trust surveys, ''Western Journalism'' was blacklisted by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

and

Apple News Apple News is a news aggregator app developed by Apple Inc., for its iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and macOS operating systems. The iOS version was launched with the release of iOS 9. It is the successor to the Newsstand app included in previous versi ...

, and by 2017 its Facebook traffic declined to near zero. In February 2019, ''The Western Journal'' published an article which alleged "Climate Change 'Heat Records' Are a Huge Data Manipulation." Scientists criticized the article, saying it was deceptive and that it contradicted existing research. ''The Western Journal'' subsequently retracted the article. In November 2021, a study by the

Center for Countering Digital Hate The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), formerly Brixton Endeavors, is a British-American 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 di ...

described ''The Western Journal'' as being among "ten fringe publishers" that together were responsible for nearly 70 percent of Facebook user interactions with content that denied

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

. Facebook disputed the study's methodology.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Western Journal, The Internet properties established in 2008 American news websites American conservative websites Climate change denial

History

Reception

See also

References

External links