Benny Johnson (journalist)

Benny Johnson is an American conservative political commentator and YouTuber, currently serving as chief creative officer at Turning Point USA, along with hosting ''The Benny Show'' on YouTube.

Johnson first rose to prominence as a staff writer at BuzzFeed, until he was fired following revelations that many of his published articles were plagiarized.

Johnson later joined the Independent Journal Review, where his work was also found to have been plagiarized.

Johnson was formerly the host of ''The Benny Report'' on Newsmax TV until 2023. Johnson was also formerly employed by ''The Daily Caller''.

Early life and education

Johnson grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and attended the University of Iowa. He majored in developmental psychology in 2009.

Career

In 2010, Johnson began contributing opinion pieces to the opinion website ''Breitbart''. In 2011 he was hired as a full-time worker for Glenn Beck's TheBlaze, a conservative media website. In 2012, Johnson became a staff writer at BuzzFeed.

In July 2014, BuzzFeed found 41 instances of plagiarism in Johnson's writings, comprising almost ten percent of his work. He was subsequently fired from BuzzFeed and apologized for the plagiarism. A few weeks later, he became digital director at ''National Review''.

In 2015, a few months after he was hired by ''National Review'', he joined the ''Independent Journal Review (IJR)'' as a creative content contributor. Later that year, ''IJR'' staffers accused Johnson of plagiarizing an article about then-House Republican Conference chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers. In late 2017, Johnson wrote an article containing the most controversial tweets of what he thought was the Boston antifa Twitter account, but what was a fake account intended to lampoon antifa. Initially an editorial note was added, and the article was later removed.

In 2017, Johnson was suspended by ''IJR'' after Johnson's involvement in an article which asserted that Judge Derrick Watson's partial blocking of Executive Order 13780 was connected to former President Barack Obama's visit to Hawaii. Johnson had been warned that ''IJR'' could potentially be promoting a conspiracy theory, but assigned the story anyway. Later that year, Johnson was demoted for violating ''IJR'''s company ethics; ''Business Insider'' reported that Johnson had been verbally abusive and driven numerous staffers away from the ''IJR'' due to his management style. Johnson and ''IJRs relationship was terminated in October 2017.

Johnson joined ''The Daily Caller'' in November 2017.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Benny (columnist)
American YouTubers
American political commentators
University of Iowa people
BuzzFeed people
Commentary YouTubers
Living people
News YouTubers
1987 births
21st-century American journalists
People involved in plagiarism controversies
Blaze Media people
Newsmax TV people
Iowa Republicans
American male journalists
People from Cedar Rapids, Iowa