Newsmax Media, Inc. (or Newsmax.com, previously styled NewsMax) is an American cable news, political opinion commentary, and digital media company founded by
Christopher Ruddy in 1998. It has been variously described as
conservative,[10]right-wing,[18] and
far-right.[35] Newsmax Media divisions include its cable and broadcast channel
Newsmax TV; its website Newsmax.com, which includes Newsmax Health and Newsmax Finance; and Newsmax magazine, its monthly print publication.
The website has been described by The New York Times as a "potent force in conservative politics."[42] CEO Christopher Ruddy has attempted to position the network as a competitor to
Fox News, including by hiring former Fox News hosts
Rob Schmitt,
Greg Kelly,
Bob Sellers and
Heather Childers.[43][44]The Washington Post described Newsmax as "a landing spot for cable news personalities in need of a new home," citing the network's airing of
Mark Halperin and
Bill O'Reilly following their resignations from other networks due to sexual harassment allegations.[45]
After the
2020 United States presidential election, Newsmax published numerous
conspiracy theories made by President
Donald Trump and the Trump campaign about
voter fraud in the 2020 election, though the network never confirmed the veracity of the statements and accepted the election of
Joe Biden as duly elected president.[46][47][48] Newsmax later issued an apology and publicly retracted any voter fraud conspiracy allegations.[49] When asked about Newsmax's support of former President Trump, Ruddy stated, "We have an editorial policy of being supportive of the president and
his policies".[50]
In 2021, Newsmax was sued by
Dominion Voting Systems and
Smartmatic for promoting false claims that the companies had engaged in election fraud during the 2020 presidential election.[51][52] DirecTV dropped Newsmax from its lineup in January 2023, after the companies failed to agree on contract terms.[53][54] In response, forty-two House Republicans signed a letter to DirecTV executives attacking the removal as an act of "suppressing politically disfavored speech."[55] The two companies were able to resolve the dispute and DirecTV resumed broadcasting Newsmax on March 23, 2023.[56][57]
From its founding in 1998, Newsmax became known for its anti-
Clinton content.[50] However in the fall of 2007, Newsmax CEO
Christopher Ruddy published a favorable review of former president
Bill Clinton's book Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World[62] and a positive interview with him at Newsmax.com,[63] followed by a positive cover story in Newsmax magazine.[64]The New York Times said with reference to the event that politics had made "
strange bedfellows."[65] Bill Clinton also visited the Newsmax headquarters in West Palm Beach in 2010.[66] In 2014, Newsmax donated $1 million to the
Clinton Foundation and Ruddy has accompanied Clinton on foundation trips to Africa.[67][68]
In a January 2010 profile on the company, the Financial Times reported that the "rise of Newsmax" had defied the media trend and said that the Newsmax website was "one of the strongest conservative voices online". The paper said Newsmax had witnessed 40 percent growth rates per annum over the past decade, closing 2009 with $36 million revenues, up from $25 million the year before.[69] A 2010 New York Post story reported that the paper's long-time former
editor Kenneth Chandler would become Newsmax Magazine'seditor-in-chief. Earlier Ruddy had told Business Insider the company expected annual 2010 revenues to reach $50 million.[69]
A profile on Newsmax in The New York Times described the company as a "potent force in conservative politics" and noted the company's headquarters had become a must stop for Republican candidates seeking the party's 2012 nomination.[70]
Starting in April 2013, Newsmax.com and its affiliated sites drew 14.4 million unique visitors, leading comScore's News/Politics category over such sites as The Huffington Post Politics,
Fox News Politics,
CNN Politics,
NBCNews.com Politics, and
Politico in monthly viewership for two consecutive months.[71]
In March 2014, Newsmax was profiled in
Bloomberg Businessweek by correspondent
Karl Taro Greenfeld. The story detailed Newsmax's successful business model of targeting higher-incomed
baby boomers. The average age of a Newsmax online reader is 54.7 years of age. The profile detailed Newsmax's plans to launch a linear and
Over-the-top (OTT) content cable channel, and suggested their revenue model which sells "a smorgasbord of political, health, and financial information, self-help books, and even vitamin supplements" could make the company uniquely competitive in this arena.[6]
In November 2017, Politico reported that
Fox News, facing new competitors, was giving more favorable coverage to President
Donald Trump. In an interview, Newsmax CEO
Christopher Ruddy criticized
Fox News' hosts unwillingness to criticize President Donald Trump, telling Politico that "Newsmax is very supportive of the president, but we also will publish things that are critical of him time to time," Ruddy said. "Fox seems to have decided to become very closely aligned, which seems unnatural, and it doesn't seem consistent.[75]
Coverage of the 2020 United States presidential election
During the
2020 United States presidential election, President Trump began to promote Newsmax over its rival,
Fox News.[76][77][78][79] Trump's preference for Newsmax over Fox News became clearer after the latter became the first news outlet to call
Arizona for Democratic challenger
Joe Biden.[43] Newsmax has made their more conservative leanings a selling point to disaffected Fox News viewers, as well as employing Fox News alumni to join their lineup on
Newsmax TV, such as
Rob Schmitt and
Greg Kelly.[43][80][44]Emily VanDerWerff of Vox reported that the outlet "spent lots of time arguing that other media outlets jumped the gun in calling the election for Biden and that Trump still has a path to win this thing," and that it was one of the only networks that didn't call the election for Biden, citing the Trump campaign's legal challenges. However, she did write that "Newsmax doesn't go full arch-conservative" and "doesn't give airtime to QAnon paranoiacs."[47]
CNN's
Brian Stelter, in an on-air interview, asked Newsmax CEO
Christopher Ruddy why the network chose to air "election denialism" and "bogus voter fraud stuff," to which Ruddy replied that the network featured all points of view and argued that all of the other major news outlets who had reported Biden's election win were "rushing".[46]
In an interview with Variety, Ruddy stated that, "We are waiting for the states' certification and the electoral college, but we will at some point when that happens" and insisted: "We will be supportive of whoever the next president is."[81] He added "Newsmax would never become Trump TV. We have always seen ourselves as an independent news agency" but would be willing to Trump having a weekly show.[81] Ruddy says the company is "moderately conservative and we will continue to have a moderately conservative viewpoint on things – including the president."[81]
In a later interview with The New Yorker, Ruddy stated, "I do think that Donald Trump should concede when the certifications come in," he said, adding that he "would not support going to state legislators to overturn the electors."[82]
On November 15, 2020, The Wall Street Journal reported that Hicks Equity Partners, a
private equity firm with ties to a co-chair of the
Republican National Committee, was exploring a buyout of Newsmax. The Hicks group identified a team of executives who would manage the network, and had been talking to former
Fox News hosts including
Megyn Kelly.[84] Media analyst Michael Nathanson reported that if a competing network took 20% of Fox News' audience, it could sap about $200 million in annual profit from the company. In an interview with Variety, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy stated "we are not actively selling" the company though he had expressions of interests from investors. Regarding Hicks Equity Partners, Ruddy stated, "we have no deal with them."[81] Ruddy stated that "We would like to overtake Fox News in 12 months, and I think it's doable."[85]
Post-2020 United States presidential election
Newsmax promoted baseless[86][87][88] allegations that voting machine company
Smartmatic and its competitor
Dominion Voting Systems had conspired to rig the election against Trump. In December 2020, Smartmatic sent a letter to Newsmax threatening legal action and demanding "a full and complete retraction of all false and defamatory statements and reports."[89][90]
Days later, a Newsmax host stated the company "would like to clarify its news coverage and note it has not reported as true certain claims" made by Newsmax interviewees about Dominion and Smartmatic. Newsmax declared that it had "no evidence" of certain claims made on its programming, including the claim that the two companies have a business relationship, the claim that either company used each other's software, and the claim that either company "manipulated votes" in the 2020 American general election.[91][92] Newsmax also stated it had "no evidence" that Smartmatic software was used anywhere except Los Angeles during the 2020 election.[93] Newsmax additionally said viewers should be aware of "several facts", including that both companies have no relationship with
George Soros, and that "Smartmatic is a U.S. company and not owned by the Venezuelan government" or any other foreign entity.[94][95]
Dominion executive Eric Coomer sued Newsmax, other conservative media outlets, the Trump campaign and others for defamation in December 2020, asserting they falsely alleged he had acted to rig voting machines in association with
antifa. In April 2021, Newsmax published a retraction and apology on its website, saying it "found no evidence" to support the allegations against Coomer. In exchange, Coomer dropped Newsmax from his suit.[96]
Mediaite's Rudy Takala wrote that conservatives disgruntled with
Fox News could potentially be disappointed by Newsmax due to CEO
Christopher Ruddy's friendship with former Democratic President
Bill Clinton and positive remarks about a
Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.[97] Newsmax has previously donated $1 million to the
Clinton Foundation. When reached for comment, Ruddy said, "Like Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch and other business people, I have donated to the Clinton Foundation and a few Democrats, but over 90 percent of my political contributions have been to Republicans, including ones to President Trump."[97]
Jeffrey McCall, a journalism professor at
DePauw University, told Mediaite that "Ruddy is a pragmatist unlikely to allow his operation to be a fully ideological platform. Trump allies who want to bend the arc of media progressivism will need a much more comprehensive national strategy than just trying to take over one particular media outlet."[97]
Adweek reported that Newsmax's TV ratings grew tenfold in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared to the previous quarter. Its top two shows,
Spicer & Co. and
Greg Kelly Reports (at 7 p.m.), averaged 816,000 total viewers during the same November 7–18 interval.[98] Regarding coverage of the Biden administration, CEO Christopher Ruddy told Adweek "I think Newsmax's job is to be loyal opposition, to question the policies, the programs and the people that are coming into the Biden administration. We're going to take a very careful look at that. I think we were pretty fair with Barack Obama. We were tough on him, but we never called for his impeachment", he said.[99] Newsmax TV momentarily exceeded Fox News in viewership in December 2020, but lost viewers after the conclusion of the election cycle.[100][101] A
Pew Research Center study found that Newsmax's reach (10% of American adults) continued to trail Fox News's reach (43% of American adults) in March 2021.[102]
In July 2021, Vox noted that "Newsmax's effort to out-Trump the competition has been less successful since Trump left the White House for Mar-a-Lago. Newsmax's viewership is down more than 50 percent from January (from an average of about 300,000 viewers then to about 114,000 on July 18), and following a significant slump in December and January, Fox News has reestablished itself as not just the most-watched right-wing cable news network but the most-watched cable news network, period."[103]
In November 2021, a study by the
Center for Countering Digital Hate described Newsmax as being among "ten fringe publishers" that together were responsible for nearly 70 percent of Facebook user interactions with content that
denies climate change. Facebook disputed the study's methodology.[104][105][106]
Also in November 2021, Newsmax White House correspondent
Emerald Robinson falsely tweeted that the
Moderna COVID-19 vaccine contained
luciferase "so that you can be tracked." This echoed earlier false social media claims that the vaccine supposedly had satanic links due to "
lucifer" in luciferase and alleged references to "
666." Robinson's tweet began with the salutation "Dear Christians" and referred her over 400,000 followers to the
Book of Revelation; in a tweet days earlier, she equated vaccines with the
Mark of the Beast.[107][108][109] Twitter removed the tweet that day and suspended Robinson's account for seven days, citing "repeated violations of our
COVID-19 misinformation policy," as Newsmax sought to distance itself from her remark and removed her from the air pending an inquiry.[110][111] Robinson returned to Twitter after her suspension to continue spreading COVID-19 misinformation, causing Twitter to permanently ban her within hours.[112][113] Newsmax announced the next month that it would not renew Robinson's contract when it ended in January 2022.[114]
In May 2023 the "small conservative cable news channel saw its ratings surge" once again in response to actions by Fox News: "Fox’s decision to fire
[Tucker] Carlson." Newsmax's viewership during the prime-time spot vacated by Carlson more than doubled.[115] This increase surpassed the 2020 post-election surge and on a night-by-night basis they challenged CNN through the month to be the third-most-watched cable news channel (behind MSNBC and Fox).[116][117] On November 1, 2023, Newsmax placed its live content behind a paywall on YouTube ("Newsmax 2") while still offering a free streaming channel ("Newsmax+).[118][119]
Defamation lawsuits
In December 2020, Newsmax was included as one of the defendants in a
defamation lawsuit by Dominion executive Eric Coomer.[120] Coomer asserted that the defendants had characterized him as a "traitor" and that as a result he was subjected to "multiple credible death threats".[121][122][123] In April 2021, Newsmax published a retraction and apology on its website, saying it "found no evidence" to support the allegations against Coomer.[124]
In August 2021, Dominion sued Newsmax for "knowingly and continuously" promoting false election fraud narratives.[51][125] Newsmax said in a statement that it had "simply reported on allegations made by well-known public figures, including the President, his advisors and members of Congress", adding: "Dominion's action today is a clear attempt to squelch such reporting and undermine a free press".[125] The case is set to go to trial in September 2024.[126]
In November 2021, Smartmatic sued Newsmax for defamation.[127] In August 2023, a
Delaware judge rejected Newsmax's bid to narrow the alleged defamatory statements cited by Smartmatic.[128][129] The trial is set to begin on June 3, 2024.[130]
In March 2009, MarketWatch's
media critic Jon Friedman stated that "Newsmax has flourished because Ruddy has exhibited a stronger commitment to the bottom line than to presenting himself as an
ideologue."[5]
In 2010,
Nielsen Online said Newsmax was the most trafficked conservative website with approximately 4 million unique visitors monthly.[3]Alexa Internet statistics for Newsmax.com indicate that the readership consists mainly of Internet users over the age of 45, which aligns itself to the average age of Republican leaning voters, as gathered by
The Pew Research Center.[132][133]
Former President
Bill Clinton, who described Newsmax's
CEO Ruddy as a friend, made headlines when he visited Newsmax's offices during the summer of 2010.[66] When
Sarah Palin stopped by the office for an interview, U.S. News & World Report suggested the move was the clearest indication yet she was planning to run for
President.[134] According to the magazine, Newsmax is a major player in GOP politics, as seen during the 2012 primaries.[134] Visitors have also included Rep.
Michele Bachmann, Gov.
Tim Pawlenty, Sen.
John Thune, Gov.
Haley Barbour, Sen.
Mitt Romney, former Florida Gov.
Jeb Bush, and former Sen.
Rick Santorum, among others.[134]
An April 2010 cover story for Talkers Magazine featured Newsmax as a model of future media companies called "Media Stations" that offer their audience audio, video, digital, and even print content.[3]
In March 2014, Newsmax was profiled in Bloomberg Businessweek by correspondent
Karl Taro Greenfeld. The Bloomberg Businessweek story detailed Newsmax's successful business model of targeting higher-incomed
Baby boomers. The average age of a Newsmax online reader is 54.7 years of age. The profile detailed Newsmax's plans to launch a linear and
over-the-top (OTT) content cable channel, and suggested their revenue model which sells "a smorgasbord of political, health, and financial information, self-help books, and even vitamin supplements" could make the company uniquely competitive in this arena.[135]
In 2017, The Washington Post described the relationship Ruddy, though not a registered Republican, had with President
Donald Trump as a significant influence: "...with his dual role as a newsman and a close friend".[136]
In 2019, the Columbia Journalism Review reported, "There are currently about 15 to 20 conservative websites which attract at least one million unique visitors per month. Some are venerable right-wing reliables like National Review, The Washington Times, or Newsmax. Others, like
Infowars,
The Gateway Pundit,
Big League Politics, and
Breitbart, mine the far fringes of the right."[7]
The 2023 U.S. Trust in Media poll from YouGov and The Economist reports that Newsmax is the second-most trusted conservative news outlet for Republican voters, behind Fox News[137] (a finding supported by Rasmussen Reports[138]).
Newsmax Media publishes Newsmax magazine, which the company describes as "offering Americans the perspective they need on current events, politics, health, money, and lifestyle." The company reports a monthly readership of almost one million on their paid subscription products, including Newsmax magazine and multiple finance- and health-focused newsletters.[139]
In 2014, Newsmax Media announced they would be starting a new television news channel that would be marketed to compete with
Fox News Channel.[140][141] It was launched as
Newsmax TV in June 2014 with 8 hours of live programming daily, available through the Dish Network and
DirecTV as well as for free on the Newsmax website.[142][143]
Newsmax Adria
Newsmax Adria [
sr] was a partnership between Newsmax Media and
United Media that began operating in June 2020.[144] The new partnership operated in most of the former
Yugoslav countries.[145] It produced a newly retitled daily news bulletins Dnevnik Newsmax Adria on
Nova BH in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, and evening magazine program Pregled dana on
Nova S in
Serbia.[146][147] Alongside N1 and Nova S, Newsmax Adria acted as a rival to
Telekom Srbija and regularly reported Serbia's government corruption scandals.[148] It ceased production in October 2022.[149]
^
abcSantaniello, Beverly (April 2010).
"The rise of Newsmax". Talkers Magazine. Archived from
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^Rupar, Aaron (July 28, 2021).
"Why Newsmax is failing". Vox.
Archived from the original on September 4, 2022. Retrieved September 4, 2022. Instead, you would've had to turn to Newsmax, the right-wing cable news channel that's sticking to its old-school strategy of being the Trumpiest channel on TV.
^"How conservative media has grown under Trump". Columbia Journalism Review.
Archived from the original on January 26, 2021. Retrieved November 14, 2020. Some are venerable right-wing reliables like National Review, The Washington Times, or Newsmax.
^Moore, Roy L.; Murray, Michael D.;
Youm, Kyu Ho (September 30, 2021). Media Law and Ethics (6 ed.).
Routledge.
ISBN978-1-000-43983-0.
Archived from the original on September 5, 2022. Retrieved September 2, 2022 – via
Google Books. Also, a government cybersecurity official in charge of safeguarding the integrity of the presidential election sued the Trump Campaign, one of its lawyers and far-right media outlet Newsmax for libel, claiming they conspired to falsely assert widespread election fraud. [...] One Trump campaign lawyer said on far-right cable channel Newsmax: "He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out and shot."
^Delaney, Tim (May 6, 2022). The Diversity of Darkness and Shameful Behaviors.
Routledge.
ISBN978-1-000-58475-2.
Archived from the original on September 5, 2022. Retrieved September 2, 2022 – via
Google Books. It needs to be noted that on April 30, 2021, Newsmax (the far right wing news alternative to FOX News) apologized for airing false allegations that Dominion Voting Systems manipulated machines or tallies on Election Day to the detriment of Donald Trump.
^Norman, Bob (July 20, 2021).
"The right-wing media capital of America". Columbia Journalism Review.
Archived from the original on October 10, 2021. Retrieved October 1, 2021. Gaetz found a lifeboat in Newsmax, the far-right cable station...
^"Newsmax on Freeview". Advanced Television. Creative Media Centre. October 12, 2023.
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^Ruddy, Christopher (September 14, 2007).
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