Harvard Study Identifies The Gateway Pundit As One of the Most Influential Conservative Media Outlets in 2016

Guest post by Joe Hoft

An early 2017 study found The Gateway Pundit Was 4th Most Influential Right-Leaning Media Outlet during last year’s election. 

Only Breitbart, The Hill and FOX News were more influential to conservative audiences.

The right was dominated with trusted online media outlets and liberal media critics.

The left was dominated by biased old media outlets that carried water for Hillary Clinton.

The Columbia Journalism Review published an article in March entitled “Study: Breitbart-led Right-wing Media Ecosystem Altered Broader Media Agenda” that reported these conclusions.

Now according to another analysis of the 2016 Presidential election, the Gateway Pundit was again listed as one of the most shared media sources on the right in 2016.

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University recently released their report entitled, “Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election”.  In the Executive Summary of the report they state the following:

In this study, we analyze both mainstream and social media coverage of the 2016 United States presidential election. We document that the majority of mainstream media coverage was negative for both candidates, but largely followed Donald Trump’s agenda: when reporting on Hillary Clinton, coverage primarily focused on the various scandals related to the Clinton Foundation and emails. When focused on Trump, major substantive issues, primarily immigration, were prominent. Indeed, immigration emerged as a central issue in the campaign and served as a defining issue for the Trump campaign.

We find that the structure and composition of media on the right and left are quite different. The leading media on the right and left are rooted in different traditions and journalistic practices. On the conservative side, more attention was paid to pro-Trump, highly partisan media outlets. On the liberal side, by contrast, the center of gravity was made up largely of long-standing media organizations steeped in the traditions and practices of objective journalism.

Of course, coming out of Far Left Harvard, the individuals who released the study ignore the fact that honest conservative media outlets like this one were created exactly because the Far Left leaning mainstream media (MSM) is nothing more than ‘highly partisan’ political talking heads for the globalist Democrat Party agenda.

We agree with the article in that President Trump succeeded in setting the discussion on issues during the election, such as immigration, jobs, etc.  Conservatives and Americans were more interested in debating these issues than Hillary’s entire campaign message “I am a woman, vote for me”.

The Harvard Study presents some interesting results.  The Gateway Pundit was one of the most popular conservative media outlets during the election.

The article also shows the relationship that conservative outlets maintained with each other during the election as noted in in the chart below showing Facebook shares:

This study is very similar to the study published in the Columbia Journalism Review which was funded by George Soros’s Open Society Foundations U.S. Program.

As noted in our post about the CJR study, we believe our efforts at the GWP helped President Trump immensely. Many of our readers have shared their gratitude for a job well done. 

Here are some additional assertions about the 2016 election that the study does not surmise:

 

  1. Americans want accurate, informative, and up to date information NOW and the MSM behemoths cannot or will not provide this service.
  2. As a result of the above, Americans are flocking in droves to new media sites like the GWP in order to obtain the truth that is not shared in the traditional MSM.
  3. The new media like the GWP did not originate due to Americans’ desire for sensationalism, the new media originated as a consequence of the MSM failing to share the truth.

Thank you all for your support.

 

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Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

You can email Jim Hoft here, and read more of Jim Hoft's articles here.

 

Thanks for sharing!