How Far Will the "Build-Your-Own" Media Trend Expand?

If the publication stays true to its plan it makes sense as a new home for French amp8212 a NeverTrumperturnedspokesman for a coalescing branch of the conservative movement that has been billed albeit pejoratively as quotDavid Frenchismquot The term David Frenchism comes from Sohrab Ahmari the New York Post oped editor and now chief rival to French who criticized his approach to conservatism in a nowfamous essay Ahmari originally a Trump skeptic has come to prefer the more combative approach to conservatism that Trump champions The AhmariFrench fault line is now becoming the Rubicon by which conservatives are dividing themselvesBut couldn39t French have continued his work amp8212 and stumping for his version of conservatism amp8212 at National Review likely the country39s preeminent conservative publication Or if he wanted a change of scenery couldn39t he have joined the contributor ranks at any number of wellestablished publications or news networks including ones that lean left Of course he couldInstead French decided to keep up with the burgeoning trend in quotnew mediaquot which is of course to be at or close to the helm of a brand new publication rather than be a member of the ranks of a more established outlet This is of course what Weekly Standard cofounder Bill Kristol did within weeks of the publication closing He threw his weight behind the upstart publication The BulwarkA SlowGrowing Trend Hitting Its StrideWell before President Trump came onto the scene and created the divide in the conservative movement that would eventually sink The Weekly Standard and indirectly lead to The Dispatch and The Bulwark there was Ben DomenechDomenech who is now as famous for his marriage to Meghan McCain as he is for his media contributions resigned from The Washington Post due to revelations of plagiarism on his third day on the job He then was implicated in a paytowrite scandal that resulted in his published articles being taken down from other sites where he had written Instead of going on an apology tour and seeking to endear himself to other employers he decided to form his own site which would be called The Federalist Since its launch in 2013 The Federalist has become a major conservative publication as well as a favorite Twitter source of the PresidentIt was a similar story for Ben Shapiro When he parted ways with Breitbart following the Corey LewandowskiMichelle Fields armgrabbing incident in 2016 he could have deepened his ties with National Review or Newsweek He instead decided to devote the bulk of his efforts to The Daily Wire the upstart site Shapiro had cofounded the year before Presumably due to Shapiro39s comparative celebrity The Daily Wire was able to raise a respectable seed funding round courtesy of the Wilks brothersWhat these various news and commentary projects have in common is that they largely derive their credibility and brand from the individual personalities of their founders more than from a business model geographic area served or guiding mission And while the proliferation of these platforms as of late has largely taken place on the conservative side there have been a few on the left as well including Nathan J Robinson39s Current Affairs and Jacobin It39s possible that a Trumpstyle divide could take place on the left amp8212 in politics and media amp8212 with Obamatype Democrats and proSanders progressives lining up at opposing publicationsIn some cases editorial control might be the primary motivation in going off on one39s own as The Bulwark39s registration as a nonprofit implies In other cases for some editorsturnedentrepreneurs the desire to emulate the success of early conservative Internet pioneers such as Andrew Breitbart and Matt Drudge is probably among the guiding motivationsJudging by the 6 million that Goldberg and Hayes were able to cobble together to form The Dispatch a figure The Bulwark could not come close to matching these former editors amp8212 and likely David French amp8212 think their protestations of President Trump might be better rewarded at an outlet where they39re the ones signing the checksPerhaps more than anything this trend is indicative of the individualization of much of the news and commentary space which is epitomized by the growing tendency of supporting the work of individual authors via sites such as Patreon From there it is no small leap for those with sufficient name recognition to think they ought to bypass the chain of command and have their own outlet Of course this has not always succeeded as two former Breitbart editors Milo Yiannopoulos and Raheem Kassam learned the hard wayAlthough Goldberg and Hayes might seek to brand their position as quotcenterrightquot that39s a bit misleading In reality they are disgruntled neoconservatives who have been pushed to the edges of the conservative movement by a Republican Party that has tired of near decades of foreign conflict Whether or not they realize it they are more than anything masquerading their political activism for legitimate business amp8212 particularly given that the Republican voter base is progressively more opposed to sustained foreign intervention It39s an increasingly passamp233 ideology in search of a marketFor all the wellknown editors and writers looking to try their hands at being CEOs there39s plenty of competition including from platforms such as Medium And even if they are able to find a reliable audience it39s unlikely they will see the sort of returns the original business pioneers of conservative media didClick the social buttons to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE MEDIAVILLAGE CONTENT | BECOME A THOUGHT LEADERSHIP CONTRIBUTOR

How Far Will the "Build-Your-Own" Media Trend Expand?

Author

Publish date

Channel

Erich J. Prince

SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE MEDIAVILLAGE CONTENT | BECOME A THOUGHT LEADERSHIP CONTRIBUTOR

How Far Will the "Build-Your-Own" Media Trend Expand?

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

Erich J. Prince

Cookies