NowThis News

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NowThis
FoundedSeptember 2012; 9 years ago (2012-09)
FoundersKenneth Lerer
Eric Hippeau
Brian Bedol
Fred Harman
Headquarters
New York City, New York, U.S.
ParentGroup Nine Media
WebsiteNowThisNews.com

NowThis News is a progressive[1][2] social media-focused news organization founded in 2012.[3][4][5] The company posts short (in most cases 15 seconds long) news videos[6] and hyperpartisan content.[7][8]

History[]

NowThis News was founded by Huffington Post co-founder and former chairman Kenneth Lerer and former Huffington Post CEO Eric Hippeau in September 2012.[9]

NowThis originally focused exclusively on social media platforms such as Facebook, having announced in 2015 that it would not have a homepage. By 2018, it had changed this position.[10]

Behind the scenes of Joe Biden being interviewed on NowThis News in 2016.

On December 8, 2015, NowThis News raised $16.2m in Series D funding. By this time, the company has said that 68% of its audience were millennials between the ages of 18–34. It was announced that this funding would be used to launch more focused channels.[11]

Former Channel 4 News head of digital Jon Laurence joined as Deputy Editor in January 2018.[12]

The editor-in-chief is Edward O'Keefe who previously was the executive producer at ABC News Digital. NowThis News produces about 50 segments per day and receives about 15 to 20 million views per month.[13]

In June 2020, numerous accusations of sexual misconduct were levied at NowThis associate producer Jackson Davis after being re-tweeted by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.[14][15] NowThis News suspended Davis and, following an external investigation, removed him from the company.[16]

Content[]

NowThis News' videos are primarily emotion-driven in order to generate views and shares.[17]

An analysis from BuzzFeed News found that NowThis News was the most popular left-leaning site on Facebook between 2015 and 2017, and, along with Occupy Democrats, accounted for half of the 50 top posts on Facebook.[18]

In 2015, NowThis News published a conspiracy theory which claimed that CNN deleted a poll of Facebook users asserting that most participants thought that Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in the first Democratic presidential debate. NowThis News created a video titled "It looks like CNN is trying to help Hillary look good, even if that means deleting polls." However, PolitiFact found that CNN did not delete the poll in question and in fact displayed the results of the poll during its broadcast and also published the poll on its Facebook page. The claim was rated as "Pants on Fire" false by PolitiFact.[19]

After Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, NowThis News posted a clip of CNN commentator Van Jones giving a speech about the election results on their social media. The posted clip generated over 23 million views on Facebook, and NowThis News included its own logo in the upper corner, not CNN's. CNN accused NowThis News of violating their intellectual property rights and stated that video "was used without attribution or permission" and they were "exploring [their] options with regards to NowThis, Facebook and Twitter." NowThis News removed the clip from their Facebook, though it remained on their Twitter.[20]

During the 2016 presidential election, NowThis News repeatedly claimed that Donald Trump lied about Bill Clinton signing the North American Free Trade Agreement using videos posted on Facebook and YouTube. PolitiFact found that Bill Clinton did in fact sign the final version of the North American Free Trade Agreement as Trump had stated, and rated the claim false.[21]

In September 2019, NowThis News tweeted out that "Republicans in North Carolina used a 9/11 memorial to trick Democrats into missing a key vote," which was later shared by senator Elizabeth Warren. PolitiFact rated the claim false and discovered only one Democrat was at a 9/11 memorial during the time North Carolina Republicans held a controversial budget vote. NowThis News did not correct their claim.[22]

In January 2020, NowThis News removed a segment of a video they posted where a George Washington University student falsely claimed that Holocaust diarist Anne Frank did not die in a concentration camp (Frank died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in either February or March of 1945).[23][24]

References[]

  1. ^ Kampeas, Ron (October 27, 2016). "Bernie Sanders talks with a young progressive. Is the Jewish establishment listening?". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved 27 April 2019.
  2. ^ Segers, Grace. "Beto O'Rourke says "nothing more American" than to stand up or take a knee for your rights". CBS News. Retrieved 27 April 2019.
  3. ^ "Meet the company behind that viral Beto O'Rourke video". NBC News. Retrieved 2019-09-11.
  4. ^ "Inside NowThis, The Upstart That's Owning Social News". WIRED. Retrieved 4 November 2016.
  5. ^ Josh Sternberg (November 9, 2012). "Can NowThis News Crack Mobile Video?". Digiday. Retrieved 3 April 2013.
  6. ^ "State of the News Media" (PDF). Pew Research Center. March 26, 2014. pp. 16–17.
  7. ^ Wilkerson, Heloisa Sturm; Riedl, Martin J.; Whipple, Kelsey N. (2021-04-14). "Affective Affordances: Exploring Facebook Reactions as Emotional Responses to Hyperpartisan Political News". Digital Journalism. Routledge: 1–22. doi:10.1080/21670811.2021.1899011. ISSN 2167-0811.
  8. ^ Peacock, Cynthia; Hoewe, Jennifer; Panek, Elliot; Willis, G. Paul (2021-03-04). "Hyperpartisan News Use: Relationships with Partisanship and Cognitive and Affective Involvement". Mass Communication and Society. Routledge. 24 (2): 210–232. doi:10.1080/15205436.2020.1844902. ISSN 1520-5436.
  9. ^ Jessi Hempel (December 5, 2012). "Will news bites for digital natives work?". Tech Fortune. Archived from the original on 5 April 2013. Retrieved 3 April 2013.
  10. ^ Weissman, Cale Guthrie (21 February 2018). "Here's An Abridged Timeline Of Digital Media's Pivot To Video". Fast Company. Retrieved 22 February 2018.
  11. ^ Ha, Anthony. "Video News Startup NowThis Raises $16.2M Led By Axel Springer". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2015-12-08.
  12. ^ "Jon Laurence". Channel 4. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
  13. ^ Chernova, Yuliya (2013-10-08). "Short-Video Startup NowThis News Says Journalism Isn't Dead". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-09-29.
  14. ^ Goforth, Claire (2020-06-29). "AOC tweet leads to sexual misconduct allegations against NowThis producer". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 2021-09-29.
  15. ^ Ellefson, Lindsey (June 29, 2020). "NowThis News Suspends Politics Producer After Accusations of Collegiate Sexual Misconduct Surface". TheWrap. Retrieved 2021-09-29.
  16. ^ Ellefson, Lindsey (July 20, 2020). "NowThis News Politics Producer Out at After Investigation Into Accusations of Sexual Misconduct in CollegeTheWrap". TheWrap. Retrieved 2021-09-29.
  17. ^ Kalogeropoulos, Antonis; Cherubini, Federica; Nic, Newman (2016-06-29). The Future of Online News Video. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-907384-21-9. OCLC 987584014.
  18. ^ Silverman, Craig; Lytvynenko, Jane; Vo, Lam Thuy; Singer-Vine, Jeremy (August 8, 2017). "Inside The Partisan Political Fight For Your Facebook News Feed". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved 2021-07-29.
  19. ^ Sanders, Katie. “No, Internet, CNN Did Not Delete Its Poll Showing Bernie Sanders Won the Democratic Debate.” @Politifact, 19 Oct. 2015
  20. ^ Shields, Mike (2016-11-09). "CNN Isn't Happy NowThis Posted Its Election Coverage Clip to Facebook and Twitter". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-06-30.
  21. ^ Emery, C. Eugene. “Video Misfires Trying to Attack Trump Claim.” @Politifact, 11 Aug. 2016
  22. ^ Specht, Paul (September 17, 2019). "PolitiFact - NC Democrats not at 9/11 event during GOP budget vote". Politifact. Retrieved 2021-06-30.
  23. ^ Oster, Marcy (January 22, 2020). "College student's video blasting Trump says Anne Frank did not die in Nazi camp". Times of Israel. Retrieved 2021-06-30.
  24. ^ "After Outcry, NowThis Removes Video of Student Claiming Anne Frank 'Didn't Die in a Concentration Camp'". The Algemeiner. January 17, 2020. Retrieved 2021-06-30.

External links[]

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