This Right-Wing Media Feud Just Took an Ugly Turn

[Zorro]

Right-wing blowhard Steven Crowder is accusing Ben Shapiro’s media empire of being in bed with Big Tech—fighting words that have ignited a heated public dispute.

An increasingly ugly and personal feud has publicly broken out this week between two of the biggest names in the conservative entertainment complex, with one popular YouTuber accusing right-wing media boy king Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire empire of colluding with tech companies to tamp down right-wing content.

“Big Tech is in bed with Big Con,” Steven Crowder said in a video this week, complaining about a contract offer he’d received from The Daily Wire—without specifically naming the company.

A day after Crowder told his viewers to “Stop Big Con,” The Daily Wire’s chief executive Jeremy Boreing published an hour-long response video detailing the negotiating offer that the conservative media empire sent to Crowder’s agent.

Boreing, besides confirming The Daily Wire had initially offered Crowder $50 million, claimed the podcaster misconstrued and misrepresented many of the details of the potential contract. He also took issue with Crowder accusing his site of doing the bidding of tech companies, insisting The Daily Wire has also been a victim of Big Tech’s supposed one-sided censorship of conservative voices.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/stephen-crowder-and-ben-shapiro-a-right-wing-media-feud-that-just-turned-ugly

It's all about the Benjamins...

[msfiddlestix]

1. This story is so weird It feels like its still "opposite day" n/t

[Caliman73]

5. Not really weird, just a bunch of lies.

Both companies and all of the parties involve would LOVE to be in bed with "Big Tech". They thrive on media saturation because their message is only compelling when repeated and spread through the media.

Crowder routinely lies and almost always misrepresents information on his podcast. Ben Shapiro is the king of logical fallacies. Both are extremely dishonest because they HAVE to be. They can NEVER argue topics on their merits so they have learned rhetorical strategies to promote their bad faith arguments. It is actually quite simple and "normal". Like any business in order to grow they consolidate. Because their messaging is pretty much standardized, they fight to find a niche. Sometimes that means turning on each other and accusing the other of "selling out" or being part of the "establishment' when both would, as I said earlier, absolutely LOVE to be part of the establishment.

There is not there there. It is just two grifters trying to out grift each other. Like in the actual movie Grifters, when Angelica Houston's and John Cusak's characters lock into battle to get one over on each other. There will be a feud until there is no feud and they will pretend like nothing happened.

[Leghorn21]

2. The uglier the better!!

Get to it, gentlemen!!

[Initech]

3. Let them fight!

[Hortensis]

4. "The oft-missed secret of the right-wing media ecosystem is that it is ruthlessly competitive.

The RW media are largely controlled by what their "grassroots" audience insists on. If you lose touch with what the audience actually cares about, you lose them to another show, another station, another site.

Conservative media became, on one hand, the place that grass-roots discontent with the Republican Party’s leadership or agenda could be turned against the party’s elite, and on the other hand, the place where the party’s elite could learn about what the grass roots really wanted. It also — with the rise of online fund-raising — became a place rebellious Republicans candidates could find money even after they alienated their colleagues and repelled the Koch class. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was one of the 10 top fund-raisers in the House in the 2022 election cycle.

So that’s one explanation for what happened to the Republican Party: It’s caught between a powerful business wing that drives its agenda and an antagonistic media that speaks for its ethnonationalist base, and it can’t reconcile the two." ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/15/opinion/mccarthy-republicans-coming-apart.html?action=click&algo=bandit-all-surfaces-shadow-lda-unique-time-cutoff-30&alpha=0.05&block=trending_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=802780178&impression_id=3c6fb658-95a5-11ed-a89c-9964bd088cc2&index=0&pgtype=Article&pool=pool%2F91fcf81c-4fb0-49ff-bd57-a24647c85ea1®ion=footer&req_id=15489967&shadow_vec_sim=0.4696599220300648&surface=eos-most-popular-story&variant=holdout_best_most-popular-story

Bless their hearts.

Here's some more context to the way Crowder is describing this situation to push his audience's buttons. I have no idea how much it opportunistically uses or deviates from what would be considered truthful aspects by honest observers as he smears his media target as allied with Big Bad Business.

This NYT opinion piece actually describes three big factors the author sees pulling the Republican Party apart, including the one above of Koch-type business versus the media that say whatever the RW base insists on.

[oldsoftie]

6. They dont like the fact that Shapiro has at times been critical of Trump

And Dear Leader must NOT be disrespected.

[twodogsbarking]

7. There is something other than "right-wing media" ?

I just assumed it was a sliding scale.

[moniss]

8. Fifty million

to go out there every day and tell lies and spew hate. The point needs to be made that people/companies are willing to pay that amount because they will make far more than that by way of ad revenue, merchandise sales and fundraising from those who consume the hate/lies. The hate movement folks also compile lists of those who buy/give, call into hate radio etc. and sell those lists to eagerly waiting GQP politicians etc. so they can hit them up for money and keep them stoked on hate/anger/lies.