NowThis News

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

"TestTube" redirects here. For the experimental feature page of YouTube, see YouTube § TestTube.

NowThis
FoundedSeptember 2012 (2012-09)
FoundersKenneth Lerer
Eric Hippeau
Brian Bedol
Fred Harman
Headquarters
New York City, New York, U.S.
WebsiteNowThisNews.com

History

NowThis News was founded by The Huffington Post co-founder and former chairman Kenneth Lerer and former Huffington Post CEO Eric Hippeau in September 2012.[8] 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.[9]

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 said that 68% of its audience were millennials between the ages of 18 and 34. It was announced that this funding would be used to launch more focused channels.[10] Between 2012 and 2014, the editor-in-chief was Edward O'Keefe, who previously was the executive producer at ABC News Digital. As of 2013, NowThis News produced about 50 segments per day and received about 15–20 million views per month.[11]

In 2016, NowThis joined with The Dodo, Thrillist, and Seeker to form Group Nine Media, which was acquired by Vox Media in February 2022.[12][13] On March 17, 2017, NowThis News took over the YouTube channel Seeker Daily (previously known as TestTube) as a campaign to launch the network on YouTube.[14] As of April 1, 2017, the channel had stopped posting videos to the channel. Former Channel 4 News head of digital Jon Laurence joined as deputy editor in January 2018.[15]

In June 2020, numerous accusations of sexual misconduct were levied at NowThis associate producer Jackson Davis after being retweeted by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.[16][17] NowThis News suspended Davis. Following an external investigation, he was removed from the company.[18]

In April 2023, it was announced that NowThis would be spun off as a separate company from Vox Media.[19]

Content

An analysis from BuzzFeed News found that NowThis News was the most popular left-leaning site on Facebook between 2015 and 2017; along with Occupy Democrats, it accounted for half of the 50 top posts on Facebook.[20]

According to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism NowThis News' videos are primarily emotion-driven in order to generate views and shares[21] and they have been accused of making partisan content.[22][23]

In 2015, NowThis News published a conspiracy theory that claimed CNN deleted a poll of Facebook users asserting that most participants thought that Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in the first 2016 Democratic Party 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." 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.[24]

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, while it remained on their Twitter.[25]

During the 2016 United States presidential election, NowThis News repeatedly claimed that Trump lied about Bill Clinton signing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) using videos posted on Facebook and YouTube. PolitiFact found that Bill Clinton signed the final version of the NAFTA as Trump had stated, and rated the claim false.[26]

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.[27]

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 1945.[28][29]

References
  1. Kampeas, Ron (October 27, 2016). "Bernie Sanders talks with a young progressive. Is the Jewish establishment listening?". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved April 27, 2019.
  2. Segers, Grace (August 25, 2018). "Beto O'Rourke says "nothing more American" than to stand up or take a knee for your rights". CBS News. Retrieved April 27, 2019.
  3. Valenzuela, Bryant (January 10, 2022). "The Weapon of the Century: Contemporary Politics Through the TikTok Algorithm". Harvard Political Review. Retrieved February 6, 2022.
  4. "Meet the company behind that viral Beto O'Rourke video". NBC News. November 6, 2018. Retrieved September 11, 2019.
  5. Ellis, Emma Grey. "Inside NowThis, The Upstart That's Owning Social News". WIRED. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
  6. Josh Sternberg (November 9, 2012). "Can NowThis News Crack Mobile Video?". Digiday. Retrieved April 3, 2013.
  7. "State of the News Media" (PDF). Pew Research Center. March 26, 2014. pp. 16–17.
  8. Jessi Hempel (December 5, 2012). "Will news bites for digital natives work?". Tech Fortune. Archived from the original on April 5, 2013. Retrieved April 3, 2013.
  9. Weissman, Cale Guthrie (February 21, 2018). "Here's An Abridged Timeline Of Digital Media's Pivot To Video". Fast Company. Retrieved February 22, 2018.
  10. Ha, Anthony (December 8, 2015). "Video News Startup NowThis Raises $16.2M Led By Axel Springer". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 8, 2015.
  11. Chernova, Yuliya (October 8, 2013). "Short-Video Startup NowThis News Says Journalism Isn't Dead". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved September 29, 2021.
  12. "Vox Media Completes Acquisition of Group Nine". Vox Media. February 22, 2022.
  13. Flynn, Kerry (December 13, 2021). "Vox Media is acquiring the conglomerate that owns NowThis and Thrillist". CNN. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
  14. "Seeker Daily Is Becoming NowThis". NowThis. March 17, 2017. Retrieved April 9, 2017 – via YouTube.
  15. "Jon Laurence". Channel 4. Retrieved January 9, 2018.
  16. Goforth, Claire (June 29, 2020). "AOC tweet leads to sexual misconduct allegations against NowThis producer". The Daily Dot. Retrieved September 29, 2021.
  17. Ellefson, Lindsey (June 29, 2020). "NowThis News Suspends Politics Producer After Accusations of Collegiate Sexual Misconduct Surface". TheWrap. Retrieved September 29, 2021.
  18. Ellefson, Lindsey (July 20, 2020). "NowThis News Politics Producer Out at After Investigation Into Accusations of Sexual Misconduct in CollegeTheWrap". TheWrap. Retrieved September 29, 2021.
  19. Mullin, Benjamin (April 12, 2023). "Vox Media Spins Off NowThis, the Viral Politics Site, a Year After Buying It". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
  20. 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 July 29, 2021.
  21. Kalogeropoulos, Antonis; Cherubini, Federica; Nic, Newman (June 29, 2016). The Future of Online News Video. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-907384-21-9. OCLC 987584014.
  22. Wilkerson, Heloisa Sturm; Riedl, Martin J.; Whipple, Kelsey N. (April 14, 2021). "Affective Affordances: Exploring Facebook Reactions as Emotional Responses to Hyperpartisan Political News". Digital Journalism. Routledge. 9 (8): 1040–1061. doi:10.1080/21670811.2021.1899011. ISSN 2167-0811. S2CID 234853464.
  23. Peacock, Cynthia; Hoewe, Jennifer; Panek, Elliot; Willis, G. Paul (March 4, 2021). "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. S2CID 228933046.
  24. Sanders, Katie. "No, Internet, CNN Did Not Delete Its Poll Showing Bernie Sanders Won the Democratic Debate." @Politifact, 19 Oct. 2015
  25. Shields, Mike (November 9, 2016). "CNN Isn't Happy NowThis Posted Its Election Coverage Clip to Facebook and Twitter". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved June 30, 2021.
  26. Emery, C. Eugene (August 11, 2016). "NowThis news site says Donald Trump wrong and Bill Clinton didn't sign NAFTA". PolitiFact.
  27. Specht, Paul (September 17, 2019). "PolitiFact - NC Democrats not at 9/11 event during GOP budget vote". Politifact. Retrieved June 30, 2021.
  28. Oster, Marcy (January 22, 2020). "College student's video blasting Trump says Anne Frank did not die in Nazi camp". Times of Israel. Retrieved June 30, 2021.
  29. "After Outcry, NowThis Removes Video of Student Claiming Anne Frank 'Didn't Die in a Concentration Camp'". The Algemeiner. January 17, 2020. Retrieved June 30, 2021.
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