Washington Examiner Posts First Audience Increase Since November 2020

Trump’s Truth Social Registers Strong Gains in Unique Visitors

August 29,  2022, New York, NY – For the first time since the presidential election month of November 2020, the Washington Examiner posted a year-over-year (YOY) increase in unique visitors according to TheRighting’s exclusive analysis of July 2022 mobile and desktop traffic based on Comscore data. The moderate conservative news outlet drew 5.5 million unique visitors, up 25% from July 2021.  The Washington Examiner ranked as the third most-visited conservative news website for July 2022. 

Foxnews.com led all conservative websites generating 76.2 million unique visitors.  However, its YOY traffic fell 9%, its fifth straight month of losses.  The Epoch Times ranked as the second-most-trafficked right-wing news website.

“Most right-wing news outlets lost audience in July 2022, which was not surprising since it was a relatively slow news month,” said Howard Polskin, President and Chief Curator, TheRighting. “I expect traffic to balloon in August because of intense audience interest in the developments related to the FBI’s search of Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and the subsequent political and legal fallout.  The former president may be a threat to democracy but the he is catnip for audience traffic especially when he’s coloring outside the lines.”     

Winners and Losers Among Top 20 Conservative News Websites for July 2022

(by unique visitor percentage increase/decrease from year ago)

Winners

·      Epoch Times (+40%)

·      Washington Examiner (+25%)

·      National Review (+14%)

Losers

·      Townhall (-61%)

·      RedState (-44%)

·      Western Journal (-42%)

Among the three mainstream news brands TheRighting follows, only the New York Times brand generated a YOY increase in unique visitors for July 2022 (+3%).  The Washington Post experienced a 19% decline vs July 2021.  CNN had 113 million unique visitors in July 2022, which underperformed July 2021 by 9%. 

The Truth About Truth Social Traffic

June 2022 marked the first time TheRighting analyzed monthly traffic to Donald Trump’s Truth Social website, which launched in February 2022.  The fledgling social site attracted 2.5 million unique visitors in July, up about 600,000 from June 2022 (no year-ago numbers are available).

“Look for a surge in August unique visitors to Truth Social since it has become Trump’s primary megaphone especially for pushing back against the Justice Department’s justifications for the Mar-a-Lago search,” said Polskin. 

Here are the July 2022 unique visitors for the five conservative-friendly social media platforms TheRighting follows:

·      Rumble (7,107,000; -12% vs year ago)

·      Truth Social  (2,545,000; year-ago data NA)

·      MeWe (1,137,000; -27% vs year ago)

·      Gettr (784,000; -59% vs year ago)

·      Parler (496,000; -43% vs year ago)

Each month, TheRighting examines Comscore data on dozens of prominent conservative websites that post original content.  TheRighting ranks the top 20 conservative websites on the basis of unique visitors and also provides data on whether unique visitors have increased or decreased year-over-year. 

Source: Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform, Custom-defined list, including, but not limited to Foxnews.com, Breitbart.com, DailyCaller.com, WashingtonExaminer.com, WesternJournal.com, Washingtontimes.com, Total Digital Audience, July 2022, U.S.

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