Conservative media outlets have suffered through a tumultuous few weeks punctuated by infighting and public controversy, underscoring the difficulty some are having adjusting to the new levels of attention and scrutiny that comes with their elevated status in the age of Trump.
GOP majorities in Congress and Donald Trump’s presidency have been a boon for conservative media, which has benefitted from increased access to Washington’s power brokers and a White House that has gone out of its way to accommodate outlets that were once considered fringe.
But the transition from the edges of the media to its center can be difficult. Conservative media’s mainstream peers have greeted them with suspicion and hostility, often eager to highlight the newcomers’ stumbles or question their legitimacy.
In interviews with nearly a dozen key figures in conservative media, right-leaning reporters and editors spoke about their relative youth and inexperience and the need to professionalize and move on from the sensationalism that initially helped them attract readers.
They see their challenge as one that mirrors what the Republican Party as a whole is experiencing, as it makes the transition from being the opposition party to the party in power.
“I think there is a bit of an existential crisis,” said Lucian Wintrich, a 28-year-old gay conservative provocateur who is moving to Washington to be the White House correspondent for the Gateway Pundit blog.
“We’re having some growing pains as we try to expand our reach and become more mainstream and less sensationalist in our writing and journalism. It’s an interesting transition. You have publications that historically have not had much oversight suddenly needing to reevaluate how they do things.”
The millennial-focused conservative website Independent Journal Review (IJR) suspended three staffers last week, including creative director Benny Johnson — a former BuzzFeed reporter who had been a high-profile hire for the young outlet — for publishing a conspiracy theory about President Obama. The controversy provoked one of the site’s reporters to resign in frustration over the direction of the company.
Also last week, Breitbart News investigative reporter Lee Stranahan quit the publication after going public with his frustrations with the site’s political editor, Matthew Boyle, who has greater editorial control now that former chairman Stephen Bannon has become Trump’s chief White House strategist.
More (including autoplaying video of some dim blonde):
http://thehill.com/homenews/325728-conservative-media-struggles-with-new-prominence-in-trump-era
