Type of business Private Founded 2012 | Available in English Owner Media Group of America | |
Type of site News aggregation, blogging, original reporting Founder(s) Alex Skatell, Phil Musser | ||
The Independent Journal Review is an American news and opinion website based in Alexandria, Virginia. The publication was founded in 2012 by former Republican party staffers Alex Skatell and Phil Musser. The publication is owned by Media Group of America, with Skatell serving as its CEO. The site covers general interest topics including politics, culture, entertainment, and viral news content.
Contents
In 2012, Skatell hired Bert Atkinson as Chief Editor. Soon afterward, the website hired Kyle Becker, who became the Managing Editor. In 2016, Atkinson left Independent Journal Review to join the start-up Axios. The editorial team is currently led by Becker, the Director of Viral Media, and Benny Johnson, the Chief Content Officer. The site has been described as appealing to a mainstream center-right audience.
Founding and early expansion
In 2012, Alex Skatell, a former digital director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, launched the Independent Journal Review, using $40,000 that Skatell had earned via a software application that he developed at college and $20,000 borrowed from his parents. He believed that there was a gap in the market for a publication that would appeal to "a more mainstream center-right audience" and began aggregating news stories on a Facebook page called Conservative Daily. Skatell promoted the page and later launched the Independent Journal Review.
Skatell then teamed up with Phil Musser, a former executive director of the Republican Governors Association, who became a co-founder of the journal, as well as Media Group of America. Skatell then hired his friend Bert Atkinson to fill the position of editor and chief writer. Atkinson hired a staff of writers and editors to contribute to and grow the journal. By November 2014, the organization employed approximately fifty full-time staff members and several contributing writers.
The site attracted an audience that largely lived outside Washington D.C. political circles that had broader interests than average consumers of political news.
In January 2015, an angel investment firm invested $1.5M in the parent company of the site and Pete Snyder joined the board.
In June 2015, they hired Benny Johnson as a "content director." Johnson had previously worked at Buzzfeed but was fired after plagiarizing content from other websites.
2016 election cycle
During the 2015 campaign season, Independent Journal Review had a number of political videos acquire national attention, such as Lindsey Graham destroying his cell phone and Ted Cruz making "machine gun bacon."
Then, Independent Journal Review partnered with ABC News to host the Republican Presidential Debate on February 6, 2016.
During the 2016 election, Independent Journal Review was the most engaged website per news story on Facebook, topping social media competitors Buzzfeed and The New York Times. In November 2016, Independent Journal Review became one of the first two digital media companies accepted into the News Media Alliance, formerly the Newspaper Association of America.
Post-2016 election
In January 2017, the website was noted for being the first major U.S. news outlet to confirm that Judge Neil Gorsuch would be nominated by President Donald Trump for the Supreme Court.