Back in the 1990s, the mainstream media was reluctant to print the dirty, sordid details about the president’s relationship with a certain young intern. Nobody wanted to break the news.
So nobody did.
Until the Drudge Report published the story. At that point, the dam broke — because telling the truth was now a risk-free endeavor: Outlets could cite the Drudge Report’s content to weasel out of any blowback or responsibility.
“As the Drudge Report reported today…”
That’s how it works: Lazy and/or cowardly media outlets report on the reports of other media outlets, building “new” stories on the backs of the old ones. The original article put the story in the public domain, so now it’s fair game: Hey, the cat’s already out of the bag.
Let the feeding frenzy begin!
But you still need an outlet to go first. That was a big problem in the pre-Internet days, because a handful of gatekeepers controlled the national news. If they didn’t like it, we wouldn’t see it.
Fox News, talk radio, and the internet broke their monopoly, but it was social media that delivered the deathblow. Now, anyone can post anything 24/7, and whammo — the world’s biggest media outlets will report it as fact!
Which takes us to The Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro, and media reports of their death spiral. Like many things, it was based on a smidgen of truth: One week ago, The Daily Wire laid off a number of employees, and Ben Shapiro — co-founder of The Daily Wire and its biggest star — has lost millions of YouTube viewers between April 2025 and April 2026.
What’s not true is that Shapiro’s viewership numbers are in free fall, or The Daily Wire fired 50% (or more) of its staff:
The Daily Wire fires half of its staff in mass layoffs
This comes as co-founder Ben Shapiro has lost 85% of his Youtube audience since last year pic.twitter.com/HrmI68svk8
— Popstonox (@Popstonox) May 1, 2026
Update: I’m hearing it was more like 60%. Absolute bloodbath. https://t.co/FUc8KXEOBP
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) May 1, 2026
Some data 📊 re: layoffs at @realDailyWire:
Ben Shapiro’s show lost 60,000 YT subscribers in the past 90 days, and has seen a massive drop in views month over month since early 2024 https://t.co/6JUpwlwSjf pic.twitter.com/MvRGYU5T7d
— Kyle Tharp (@kylewilsontharp) May 1, 2026
Which was useful research for The Washington Post’s May 9 hit-piece, “How Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire Lost Its Grip on the Conservative Internet”:
The Daily Wire contends that it is still on a growth path, pointing to a new permanent seat in the White House briefing room. And the Daily Wire’s podcast network still got millions of listens in the United States last month, ranking in popularity above the networks of Paramount and Barstool Sports, according to data from the industry analytics firm Podtrac.
But shows by right-wing firebrands such as Megyn Kelly and Carlson are growing fast, offering commentary more critical of the Republican establishment than the Daily Wire’s standard fare and outpacing content from Shapiro, the company’s most famous face.
Shapiro’s podcast ranks 43rd on the Spotify charts, at least 30 places behind shows by Owens and Carlson, and his YouTube views have plunged nearly 70 percent since December 2024, according to the video-tracking site VidIQ. Though his YouTube videos once consistently received millions of views, recent clips, like “THIS Democrat Claimed God Was Non-Binary,” have netted about 20,000 views in a span of two weeks.
Note that the WaPo cited VidIQ’s reporting instead of doing its own — a curious decision, since the Washington Post is a large media outlet with highly capable researchers, and YouTube views are publicly posted. If it wanted to break down the real, actual numbers, it could’ve done so.
(But there’s no need, I suppose, when another outlet has already told you everything you hoped to print.)
Garrett Searight of Barrett Media, however, did take the time to investigate the story and research the stats:
Ben Shapiro and The Daily Wire found themselves at the center of conservative media chatter this weekend, and not entirely for the right reasons.
Barrett Media confirmed layoffs had taken place at the company. The story took on a life of its own almost immediately. By the time it finished traveling across social media, the facts had been stretched, inflated, and in some cases, abandoned altogether.
Former Daily Wire host Candace Owens lit the fuse. She posted on social media that 50% of the company’s staff had been laid off — then revised that figure upward to 60%. It spread fast.
But sources I’ve spoken with suggest those numbers are wildly inflated, and it doesn’t appear the cuts came anywhere close to the 50% threshold Owens described. [emphasis added]
Whaaat?! Candace Owens was playing fast and loose with the facts?! I’m SHOCKED! Never saw it coming!
Why, I was certain that the woman who’s accused Erika Kirk of conspiring to murder her husband, hates Israel, and traffics in antisemitism would tell the truth about Ben Shapiro! I mean, what motive would she have to lie?!
(Interestingly, not only did the WaPo’s story quote Candace Owens; it also quoted Owens’ publicist, Mitchell Jackson: “[Ben Shapiro and The Daily Wire] identify as alternative media, but they want to be old media so bad. They don’t hate Hollywood. They’re mad Hollywood hates them.”)
Searight set the record straight:
Here’s what the data actually shows. According to Social Blade, Shapiro has lost subscribers — roughly 20,000 over the last 30 days and approximately 200,000 over the past year.
On the surface, that sounds alarming. Context matters, though. Those 200,000 lost subscribers are coming off a channel with 7.2 million. That’s a decline of about 2%.
Hardly the collapse the viral post described.
But what about losing all those YouTube viewers?
The viewership picture is a bit more complicated, but it still doesn’t support the headline.
In April 2025, Shapiro’s YouTube channel generated around 38 million views. In April 2026, that number came in at roughly 25 million — a drop of about 34%.
That’s a real decline, and it’s one The Daily Wire certainly isn’t celebrating. But 34% isn’t 85%, and those aren’t interchangeable figures.
It’s a credit to Shapiro’s enduring popularity that he “only” had 25 million views in April 2026. That’s an astonishingly large audience. By every meaningful metric, he’s still one of the most influential conservatives in media. A 34% decline matters, but implying that he’s lost 70 to 85% of his audience simply isn’t true.
By the way, did you notice how the Washington Post compared Shapiro’s numbers between Dec. 2024 and today? Of all possible dates and months, why do you think the WaPo used Dec. 2024 as its baseline?
You probably figured it out: The prior month was Nov. 2024 — the pinnacle of the most heavily-hyped, most-watched presidential election in American history.
Using Dec. 2024 as Shapiro’s baseline was journalistic sleight-of-hand, because — for very obvious reasons — ALL viewership numbers for political content were inflated.
As Searight explained:
Moreover, the missing context here is glaring. Go back to 2024, and Shapiro’s numbers were even higher — because the country was living through one of the most chaotic election cycles in modern memory.
There wasn’t just a Presidential race. There was an assassination attempt, an incumbent dropping out, and the first woman nominated as a major party presidential candidate. That kind of news environment drives traffic to political commentators across the board. It’s not a permanent baseline to which every other metric should be compared. It’s a spike. There’s a reason it’s called a spike: because it always, eventually, comes back down.
None of this is meant as a defense of Shapiro or The Daily Wire. Their editorial positions generate plenty of debate, and they’ve got no shortage of critics on both the left and the right. That’s fine. Disagreement is part of the business. What isn’t fine is watching a post with 17,000 followers — amplified by outrage and the algorithm — rewrite reality for 11.5 million people before anyone stops to check the numbers.
The Daily Wire has real, undeniable challenges. I’ve been plenty critical of its business model, too. Among its challenges: Ben Shapiro is still fiercely defending Donald Trump, the Iran War, and the MAGA movement, whereas The Daily Wire’s biggest critics — Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Megyn Kelly — are not.
And you’ll never guess which side is getting more love from the mainstream media now. Indeed, Carlson was just the beneficiary of a New York Times glow-up, and in the WaPo’s takedown of Shapiro and The Daily Wire, the writer actually gave Kelly the mic-drop end-quote — a snarky retort to Ben: “Don’t you have a company to save?”
No, Kelly: He doesn’t… because The Daily Wire isn’t dying.
Can’t say the same for the credibility of certain “influencers,” however.
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First. It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battle lines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
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