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

American conservative Conservatism in the United States is a political and social philosophy based on a belief in limited government, individualism, traditionalism, republicanism, and limited federal governmental power in relation to U.S. states. Conservative ...

news and politics website based in

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) 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 1 ...

. 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 worked ...

in 2008.

History

''Western Journalism'' founder Floyd Brown also founded the Political Action Committee

Citizens United Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

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 human-interest website Liftable.com. It also owns and provides content to dozens of conservative Facebook pages. ''Newsweek'' 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 is false or misleading information presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue.Schlesinger, Robert (April 14, 2017)"Fake news in reality ...

spreads on social media, ''

The Intercept ''The Intercept'' is an American left-wing news website founded by Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Laura Poitras and funded by billionaire eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar. Its current editor is Betsy Reed. The publication initially reported ...

'' reported that "Thanks to views sourced largely to referrals from Facebook, Brown's websites now outrank web traffic going to news outlets such as the ''Wall Street Journal'', CBS News, and NPR, according to data compiled by Alexa". The company changed its name in 2018 to ''The Western Journal,'' hired trained copy editors, and introduced a corrections page. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

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

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

Controversy

''Western Journalism'' previously stated it featured "conservative, libertarian, free market 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 crimes," results in "a torrent of sensationalized, misleading, or entirely made-up stories, often aimed at Muslims and immigrants." Because of negative rulings by fact-checking sites and user trust surveys, ''Western Journalism'' was blacklisted by

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

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 vers ...

, 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) is a British non-profit organisation with offices in London and Washington, DC. It campaigns for big tech firms to stop providing services to individuals who may promote hate and misinformation, ...

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. 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

Controversy

See also

References

External links