NowThis News

NowThis News is a progressive[1][2] social media-focused news organization founded in 2012.[3][4][5]

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

History

NowThis News was founded by Huffington Post co-founder and former chairman Kenneth Lerer and former Huffington Post CEO Eric Hippeau. The company was started in September 2012.[6]

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 backed down from this position.[7]

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.[8]

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.[9] As of April 1, 2017, the channel had stopped posting videos to the channel. On September 8, 2017, NowThis rebranded the channel as NowThis World, following the same format as Seeker Daily and bringing back some former hosts.[10]

On May 4, 2017, NowThis News relaunched the YouTube channel SourceFed Nerd as NowThis Nerd,[11] having acquired and subsequently terminated it previously. On July 3, 2017, NowThis Nerd released a video confirming that they are reverting the channel back to SourceFedNerd and deleting the content they had made since the change. As such, SourceFed Nerd now lives as an archive of the original content and NowThis Nerd has become its own separate channel.[12]

Former Channel 4 News head of digital Jon Laurence joined as Deputy Editor in January 2018.[13]

Controversies

In 2015, Politifact found that NowThis News was the propagator of a false conspiracy theory which claimed that CNN deleted a poll of Facebook users which found 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 left it up on its Facebook page. The claim was rated as "Pants on Fire" false by Politifact.[14]

During the 2016 presidential campaign, 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. However, Politifact found that NowThis News's claims were false, and Bill Clinton did in fact sign the final version of the North American Free Trade Agreement as Trump had stated.[15]

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. 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.
  7. Weissman, Cale Guthrie (21 February 2018). "Here's An Abridged Timeline Of Digital Media's Pivot To Video". Fast Company. Retrieved 22 February 2018.
  8. Ha, Anthony. "Video News Startup NowThis Raises $16.2M Led By Axel Springer". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2015-12-08.
  9. "Seeker Daily Is Becoming NowThis". youtube.com. Retrieved 2017-04-09.
  10. "We're Back! (What Happened?)". youtube.com. Retrieved 2017-09-08.
  11. "Welcome to NowThis Nerd". youtube.com. Retrieved 2017-05-04.
  12. "Sourcefednerd's Real-Time Subscriber Count – Social Blade YouTube Stats | YouTube Statistics". socialblade.com. Retrieved 2017-05-04.
  13. "Jon Laurence". Channel 4. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
  14. Sanders, Katie. “No, Internet, CNN Did Not Delete Its Poll Showing Bernie Sanders Won the Democratic Debate.” @Politifact, 19 Oct. 2015
  15. Emery, C. Eugene. “Video Misfires Trying to Attack Trump Claim.” @Politifact, 11 Aug. 2016
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