Raw Story

Raw Story (also stylized as RawStory) is an American progressive news website. It was founded in 2004 by John K. Byrne and is owned by Byrne and Michael Rogers.

Raw Story

Logo
Homepage in July 2021
Type of site	Online newspaper
Available in	English
Founded	2004; 19 years ago (2004)
Owner	Raw Story Media, Inc.
Key people	John K. Byrne (Founder, Chairman, CEO) Michael Rogers (Vice Chairman) Roxanne Cooper (Editor & Publisher) Dave Levinthal (Editor-in-Chief) Adam Nichols (Executive Editor) Brad Reed (Managing Editor) ^[1]
URL	www.rawstory.com
Commercial	Yes

History

Byrne, the former editor-in-chief of The Oberlin Review, founded Raw Story after he graduated from Oberlin College in 2003.^[2] It was officially launched in 2004, with Rogers joining the same year.^[3][4]

In 2017, Raw Story was accepted as a member of the Association of Alternative News Media.^[5]

In April 2018, Raw Story partners John K. Byrne and Michael Rogers announced that they had acquired AlterNet via a newly created company, AlterNet Media,^[3] as well as the New Civil Rights Movement.^[6][4][7]

From 2019 to 2021, Raw Story partnered with Pulitzer Prize winner investigative journalist David Cay Johnston and his nonprofit news service DCReport, providing funding for DCReport's investigative reporting in exchange for original content for Raw Story's subscribers on financial regulation, taxes, energy, the environment, worker safety, and corruption.^[8][9]

In 2023, Raw Story hired Dave Levinthal as Editor-in-Chief and Adam Nichols as Executive Editor with the goal of expanding investigative and enterprise reporting. Levinthal was deputy editor at Insider, and previously served at OpenSecrets, Politico and The Dallas Morning News. Adam Nichols was formerly Managing Editor at Patch.^[10]

Content

Founder John Byrne described Raw Story as "focusing on news that's downplayed by mainstream media outlets".^[3] In 2014, then-executive editor Tony Ortega described Raw Story's editorial mission as trying to expose people "who try to exploit American ideas about fair play and equality by rigging things through their immense wealth or their discriminatory cultural myopia."^[11] In 2005, Newsweek described rawstory.com as: "Muck, raked: If you're looking for alleged GOP malfeasance, the folks at rawstory.com are frequently scooping the mainstream media."^[12]

In November 2008, Raw Story reported that the United Mine Workers of America, which had endorsed Barack Obama's presidential campaign, had come to Obama's defense after John McCain's presidential campaign criticized him for a comment he had made about coal to the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle earlier that January.^[13] Environmental journalist Andrew Revkin cited the article by Raw Story in a post he wrote for The New York Times' Dot Earth blog, and Curtis Brainard, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, described the article as "well-done".^[14]

In 2011, Raw Story was among the first outlets to report on the Apple assistant Siri apparently directing users away from abortion clinics and emergency contraception, instead providing results for the definition of emergency contraception or clinics far from the user.^[15] The assistant, still in beta testing at the time, could, however, provide users with methods to acquire Viagra or use escort services.^[16]

The same year, Raw Story was the first to report on a United States Air Force contract to create fake social media profiles as a means of psychological warfare to be used against terrorist cells.^[17][18]

In 2012, then-executive editor Megan Carpentier wrote about undergoing a transvaginal ultrasound procedure in response to recent legislation in Virginia requiring an ultrasound prior to an abortion procedure.^[19]

In 2014, Jennifer Mascia published a column on gun violence after compiling records for The New York Times.^[20]

The same year, the outlet broke news of the connection between San Diego State University running back Adam Muema and Raymond "Lord Rayel" Howard-Lear. Howard-Lear claimed to be a prophet and made apocalyptic predictions online. Muema left the 2014 NFL Scouting Combine early and did not attend the San Diego State Pro Day while sending cryptic messages to reporters.^[21][22]

In 2017, Raw Story investigative reporter Jordan Green reported from the ground of the Unite the Right rally, and in 2021 covered the civil trial which resulted in a $25 million judgment against the organizers of the rally. Green had been following the activities of extremist groups, learning their lingo, and communicating with them. He has learned that such groups precisely and strategically plan their violent clashes. "That revelation informs his new work — tracking where January 6th insurrectionists’ anger is now directed and how it may manifest again."^[23]

On February 15, 2021, Raw Story reported that South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem had used a state airplane to travel to conservative political events. The report led Democratic lawmakers to formally request that the state's attorney general investigate Noem.^[24]

The outlet has also reported on far-right extremists, including a report on January 6, 2021, hours before the attack in the U.S. Capitol that "predicted exactly what would happen," according to Editor & Publisher.^[8] Raw Story was among the first to report on instigators of the riots, including an alleged attempt by the Oath Keepers to get then-President Trump to declare martial law using the Insurrection Act.^[25]

In 2023, Raw Story was the first outlet to report on the re-indictments of the founders of the Rise Above Movement, a California white nationalist group known for actively seeking out and engaging in street brawls.^[26]

In 2023, Raw Story's Dave Levinthal was the first to report that cyberthieves stole $690,000 from the campaign of Senator Jerry Moran, and revealed that $150,000 was stolen from the campaign of Rep. Troy Nehls.^[27]

False claims

In December 2017, Raw Story published an article based on a CNN report which mistakenly stated that on September 4, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. had received a website and a decryption key to preview the emails from the 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak before they were made public by WikiLeaks; the date was later corrected by CNN to September 14, 2016, which was after the emails had been reported on publicly. Raw Story did not include the correction in its article.^[28]

On February 19, 2018, Raw Story published a report claiming that Russian trolls co-opting the Me Too movement had forced Minnesota senator Al Franken to resign, and that an article by writer Ijeoma Oluo had been used as part of the campaign.^[29][30] Oluo told Snopes that her article had been published after Franken announced his resignation, adding: "I was hoping that the piece would give people context and help people grow from all of this into a better place."^[29] Raw Story later retracted its report.^[30]

During the 2020 United States presidential election, Raw Story published an article on November 4, 2020, which claimed that the United States Postal Service (USPS) had failed to deliver 27 percent of mail-in ballots in South Florida. PolitiFact determined that the figure was based on a misreading of Postal Service data, and the USPS stated that it had skipped some steps to get ballots to election offices faster.^[31][32]

According to a study by researchers from the University of Liverpool and University of Dundee, published in the journal Discourse & Society, the headline in another 2020 article in Raw Story engaged in the fallacy of ambiguity by using "the phrasal verb ‘cashing in on’" to create the appearance of impropriety in reporting on a business owned by Jared Kushner when, according to Snopes, there was "no evidence that the startup is linked to any public damage".^[33] According to the researchers, this use of "polysemous terms in news titles ... [is] potentially misleading for the majority of readers who are used to getting their daily news feed scrolling through news titles".^[33]

Reception

Major media outlets have called Raw Story an investigative news site,^[34] progressive,^[35] left-leaning,^[36] independent,^[37] and an alternative news site.^[38] Raw Story has performed exclusive interviews,^[39] investigative reporting,^[40] and has broken many stories.^[41] Raw Story articles have been recognized by Columbia Journalism Review and the Associated Press,^[42] and been mentioned by other news agencies such as Reuters.^[43] Raw Story primarily aggregates stories from around the web.^[44]

On August 4, 2008, the Online News Association announced that Raw Story was a finalist in the 2008 Online Journalism Awards in the "Investigative, Small Site" category for the article "The permanent Republican majority", which was about improper partisan influence in the prosecution of former Governor Don Siegelman of Alabama.^[45]

An August 2017 study by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society found that between May 1, 2015, and November 7, 2016, Raw Story was the fourth and fifth most popular left-wing news source on Twitter and Facebook, respectively. The study also found that Raw Story was the 9th most shared media source on Twitter by Hillary Clinton supporters during the 2016 United States presidential election.^[46] Another study found that rawstory.com also featured prominently on the list of links shared by a Russian troll farm via Twitter.^[47]

In 2021, a Raw Story report by Daniel Newhauser broke the story on South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem's use of the state airplane for non-official purposes, which resulted in criminal investigations.^[24][48] The investigative reporting was a finalist for a 2022 Society of Professional Journalists award which "honors a journalist or news organization for outstanding use of public records in reporting or advocacy of rights such as press freedom and public access."^[49]

In 2022, Raw Story won the first place EPPY Award in the category "Best news/political blog (1 million or more unique visitors)" for its opinion piece by Dakota Adams, son of Oath Keepers' founder Stewart Rhodes, titled "How I left the far right". The article described how Adams became disillusioned with the anti-government militia group in the later days of the Trump administration.^[50]

In 2009, libertarian journalist Michael Moynihan referred to Raw Story as a "conspiracy-friendly" website.^[51] In 2016, ad verification company DoubleVerify, which helps advertisers select which types of websites their automated online ads might appear on, created a new category called "Inflammatory Politics & News", one of 75 categories. The new category was to include "hardcore conservative and liberal sites", and included rawstory.com as well as several far-right websites.^[52] A 2018 report by the Oxford Internet Institute categorized Raw Story as one of the "Top 30 Junk News Sources on Twitter."^[53] Some consider Raw Story a hyperpartisan media outlet.^{[54][55][56][verification needed]}

Staff

As of June 2023, Roxanne Cooper was publisher and Dave Levinthal was editor-in-chief, Adam Nichols is Executive Editor, Eric W. Dolan is Senior Managing Editor, and Brad Reed is Managing Editor.^[1][23] Editorial staff are members of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild.^[57] Notable former editorial staff include New York Times senior staff editor Michael Roston,^[58] NBC News political reporter Sahil Kapur,^[59][60] and former Village Voice executive editor Tony Ortega.^[61]

References

1. "Masthead". Raw Story. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
2. Bogelin, Rosemary (April 25, 2014). "John Byrne, OC '03, Former Editor-in-Chief of the Review, and Founder of The Grape and The Raw Story". The Oberlin Review. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
3. O'Reilly, Lara (April 10, 2018). . The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on April 10, 2018. Retrieved June 27, 2021.
4. Anderson-Minshall, Diane (April 9, 2019). "Here's Why We Chose To Highlight Miami Activists On Our Cover". HIV Plus Magazine. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
5. "AAN Publications • Raw Story". Association of Alternative Newsmedia. Retrieved August 3, 2021.
6. About, New Civil Rights Movement
7. Byrne, John (April 9, 2018). . AlterNet. Archived from the original on April 10, 2018.
8. • "Behind Raw Story's Progressive Mission". Editor & Publisher. October 3, 2021. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
   • "Transcript : Episode #105: Behind Raw Story's Progressive Mission" (PDF).
9. • Byrne, John (May 22, 2019). "DCReport Partners With Raw Story". DCReport.org.
   • Byrne, John (May 22, 2019). "Raw Story partners with Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter David Cay Johnston in push for investigative journalism". Raw Story.
10. • Ross, Garrett (January 9, 2023). "POLITICO Playbook PM". Politico.
    • Ahmed, Mariam (January 20, 2023). "Raw Story makes two top editorial hires". Talking Biz News.
11. "The 60-Second Interview: Tony Ortega, Executive Editor, The Raw Story". Politico. March 4, 2014. Retrieved June 24, 2021.
12. BlogWatch; A weekly mainstream-media snapshot of what's hot (and what's not) in the ever-widening world of Web logs, Newsweek, 21 Mar. 2005, p. 16. Gale Academic OneFile, Accessed 25 Nov. 2022.
13. Juliano, Nick (November 3, 2008). . Raw Story. Archived from the original on November 6, 2008. Retrieved June 24, 2021.
14. Brainard, Curtis (November 4, 2008). "Coal's Curtain Call". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved June 24, 2021.
15. Golijan, Rosa (December 1, 2011). "Apple explains why iPhone won't find abortion centers". NBC News. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
16. "Siri, are you anti-abortion?". PC Magazine. November 30, 2011. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
17. Ackerman, Spencer (March 2, 2011). "Jihadis' Next Online Buddy Could Be a Soldier". Wired. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
18. Williams, Christopher (March 20, 2011). . The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on March 20, 2011. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
19. Lowder, J. Bryan (April 18, 2012). "Transvaginal Ultrasounds: Megan Carpentier Reports". Slate Magazine. Retrieved August 5, 2021.
20. "Must-reads of the week". Columbia Journalism Review. July 18, 2014. Retrieved August 25, 2021.
21. Van Valkenburg, Kevin (May 22, 2014). "Hiding In Plain Sight". ESPN. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
22. Schnell, Lindsay (May 15, 2014). "What Happened to Former San Diego State Star Adam Muema?". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
23. Peck, Gretchen A. (January 6, 2022). "At the front lines, on the homefront : Domestic extremism deserves astute, relentless coverage, but there are few journalists on the beat". Editor & Publisher.
24. Groves, Stephen (February 25, 2021). "Democratic lawmaker asks AG to investigate Noem's plane use". AP News.
25. Spocchia, Gino (May 31, 2021). "Oath Keepers wanted antifa to attack Capitol so Trump could declare martial law, indictment says". The Independent. from the original on June 6, 2021. Retrieved November 2, 2021.
26. Lamoureux, Mack (January 6, 2023). "A Neo-Nazi Street Fighting Gang Leader Was Just Indicted in LA". Vice Magazine.
27. • Hanna, John (January 23, 2023). "Kansas senator's reelection campaign scammed out of $690K". AP News.
    • Levinthal, Dave (January 20, 2023). "Cyberthieves jacked a U.S. senator's campaign and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars". Raw Story.
    • Murney, Michael (February 6, 2023). "Houston-area Rep. Troy Nehls' campaign bilked of $150k in wire fraud theft". Houston Chronicle.
    • Levinthal, Dave (February 6, 2023). "Crime spree hits one of Trump's top supporters in Congress". Raw Story.
28. Benkler, Yochai; Faris, Robert; Roberts, Hal (2018). "Mainstream Media Failure Modes and Self-Healing in a Propaganda-Rich Environment". Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press. pp. 189–222. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190923624.003.0006. ISBN 978-0190923624.
29. Palma, Bethania (February 20, 2018). "Did 'Bots' Force Al Franken to Resign?". Snopes. Retrieved June 25, 2021.
30. Ingram, Matthew (February 21, 2018). "The media today: Are Russian trolls behind everything?". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved June 25, 2021.
31. Greenberg, Jon (November 5, 2020). "Claim that postal service failed to deliver 27% of mail-in ballots in South Florida is 100% wrong". PolitiFact. Retrieved June 24, 2021.
32. Sadeghi, McKenzie (November 17, 2020). "Fact check: False claim that 27% of mail-in ballots in South Florida not delivered". USA Today. Retrieved August 21, 2021.
33. Musi, Elena; Reed, Chris (April 23, 2022). "From fallacies to semi-fake news: Improving the identification of misinformation triggers across digital media". Discourse & Society. 33 (3): 349–370. doi:10.1177/09579265221076609. S2CID 250429139. Retrieved April 9, 2023.
34. • "Ind. official who urged 'Use live ammunition' on Wis. protesters loses job". NBC News. February 23, 2011.
    • Van Valkenburg, Kevin (May 22, 2014). "Hiding In Plain Sight". ESPN.
35. • "Behind Raw Story's Progressive Mission". Editor & Publisher. October 3, 2021.
    • John, Arit (April 9, 2014). "The Death of an Uninsured Florida Woman Is the Left's Obamacare Horror Story". The Atlantic.
36. • Blake, Meredith (March 13, 2014). "Oklahoma Fox station accidentally cuts evolution scene from 'Cosmos'". Los Angeles Times.
    • Harwell, Drew (November 8, 2018). "White House shares doctored video to support punishment of journalist Jim Acosta". The Washington Post.
37. Flood, Alison (August 4, 2014). "Pro-gun picture book for children aims to reassure kids about parents' weapons". The Guardian.
38. Zeller Jr., Tom (January 4, 2007). "CNN Steps Into Osama/Obama Bramble; Blogs Document It". The New York Times.
39. • Epstein, Jennifer (March 21, 2011). "Kucinich: Libya action 'impeachable'". Politico.
    • Crump, James (August 27, 2020). "#Unfit: Damning documentary argues Trump is a malignant narcissist". The Independent.
40. Montellaro, Zach (February 16, 2021). "What comes next for top election administrators". Politico.
41. • Ngak, Chenda (December 5, 2011). "Thousands petition Apple over Siri's abortion answers". CBS News.
    • Arellano, Gustavo (July 9, 2021). "Essential California: 20 years of 'True Tales From Another Mexico'". Los Angeles Times.
42. • "Must-reads of the week". Columbia Journalism Review. July 18, 2014.
    • Groves, Stephen (February 25, 2021). "Democratic lawmaker asks AG to investigate Noem's plane use". AP News.
43. DeRosa, Anthony (September 26, 2011). . Reuters. Archived from the original on September 29, 2011.
44. Mower, Lawrence (November 18, 2017). . Palm Beach Post. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
45. • "2008 Online Journalism Awards – Finalists". Online News Association. August 4, 2008. from the original on June 27, 2021. Retrieved June 27, 2021. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch (help)
    • Alexandrovna, Larisa; Kane, Muriel (November 18, 2002). . Raw Story. Archived from the original on December 1, 2008. Retrieved December 5, 2013.
46. Faris, Robert M.; Roberts, Hal; Etling, Bruce; Bourassa, Nikki; Zuckerman, Ethan; Benkler, Yochai (August 16, 2017). "Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election". Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Harvard Library. ISSN 3375-9251. Retrieved June 25, 2021.
47. Yin, Leon, Franziska Roscher, Richard Bonneau, Jonathan Nagler, and Joshua A. Tucker. "Your Friendly Neighborhood Troll: The Internet Research Agency's Use of Local and Fake News in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Campaign." Data report, NYU Center for Social Media and Politics (2018).
48. Author of story on Noem's plane use in 2019 following AG complaint, KELO, September 7, 2022
49. • 2022 SPJ Sunshine State Awards, Society of Professional Journalists Florida chapter
    • 2022 Categories : Special Awards Division, Society of Professional Journalists Florida chapter
50. • "2022 EPPY Awards". from the original on November 3, 2022.
    • "Opinion : How I left the far right". Raw Story. July 12, 2022.
51. Moynihan, Michael (July 17, 2009). "The Assassins Debate". Reason. Retrieved August 25, 2021.
52. • Maheshwari, Sapna (December 2, 2016). "Ads Show Up on Breitbart and Brands Blame Technology". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 25, 2021.
    • Alba, Davey (December 15, 2016). "Fake News Will Go Away if the Tech Behind the Ads Won't Pay". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved August 25, 2021.
53. Nahema, Marchal; Neudert, Lisa-Maria; Kollanyi, Bence; Howard, Phillip N. (November 1, 2018). (PDF). Programme on Democracy and Technology. Oxford Internet Institute. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 11, 2021. Retrieved July 10, 2021.
54. Benkler, Yochai; Faris, Robert; Roberts, Hal (October 18, 2018). "The Architecture of Our Discontent". Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. p. 72. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190923624.003.0002. ISBN 978-0-19-092362-4.
55. Pennycook, Gordon; Rand, David G. (February 12, 2019). "Fighting misinformation on social media using crowdsourced judgments of news source quality" (PDF). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116 (7): 2521–2526. doi:10.1073/pnas.1806781116. PMC 6377495. PMID 30692252. (PDF) from the original on July 3, 2021. Retrieved July 1, 2021.
56. Xu, Weiai Wayne; Sang, Yoonmo; Kim, Christopher (April 20, 2020). "What Drives Hyper-Partisan News Sharing: Exploring the Role of Source, Style, and Content". Digital Journalism. 8 (4): 486–505. doi:10.1080/21670811.2020.1761264. ISSN 2167-0811. S2CID 219764736.
57. Grinapol, Corinne (July 21, 2017). "Raw Story Joins the Washington-Baltimore News Guild as Management Voluntarily Recognizes Its Union". Adweek. Retrieved August 3, 2021.
58. "The 60-second interview: Michael Roston, senior staff editor, social media, The New York Times". Politico. February 26, 2015. Retrieved August 5, 2021.
59. Carney, John (December 2, 2010). "Bank of America's Risky WikiLeaks Strategy". CNBC. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
60. "NBC News Author Sahil Kapur". NBC News. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
61. Horgan, Richard (October 31, 2013). "Former Village Voice EIC Tony Ortega Joins Raw Story". Adweek. Retrieved December 6, 2021.

External links

• Official website