American news and opinion website
| Parts of this article (those related to current staff) need to be
updated
.
Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.
(
March 2021
)
|
Rare
is an American news and opinion website based in
Washington, D.C.
Rare was launched as a startup in 2013 by a team of journalists, marketers and business executives at Atlanta-based
Cox Media Group
. Rare's slogan is, “America's News Feed", describing itself as a "news, political, and lifestyle social content hub".
[1]
The publication's first editor in chief
[2]
was Brett M. Decker, formerly an editorial page writer for
The Wall Street Journal
and editorial page editor of
The Washington Times
. Will Alford, one of the site's original founders and a former newsroom director at
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
,
became acting editor after Decker left. Betsi Fores, formerly of
The Daily Caller
, became Rare's managing editor, and
Jack Hunter
, former aide to
U.S. Senator Rand Paul
, became the politics editor after resigning from his Senate job.
History
[
edit
]
Rare launched at a
Newseum
gala on April 15, 2013, and acquired 25 million page views within its first year.
[3]
The website was aimed at a younger,
center-right
audience, and early contributors brought in by Decker's team included
Jeb Bush
,
Ted Cruz
,
Rand Paul
and
Grover Norquist
. Rare has been described as
libertarian-conservative
[4]
and has been compared to the websites
Independent Journal Review
,
BuzzFeed
, and
The Huffington Post
.
[1]
[4]
Their original tagline, "Red is the Center" referred to an editorial position where conservative thinking was at the heart of American success. In 2014, their tagline became “America's News Feed”, reflecting more mainstream, high-traffic, popular content targeting a younger, socially engaged audience.
In March 2018, editors for the site said Cox had decided to cease publication.
[5]
Following a mass layoff of over 50 staffers, the site and its affiliated web properties were purchased by Texas-based Wide Open Media Group.
[6]
The site ceased publishing once again in 2021, after its parent was acquired by Publishers Clearing House.
[7]
It was acquired by Nashville-based Savage Ventures and relaunched in April 2022.
[8]
In 2023, a CNN report described the new iteration of Rare as one of several "fringe right-wing" news sites with inflammatory and misleading content that
Microsoft
AI was serving to consumers.
[9]
Rare editor Troy Smith responded, calling CNN "left-wing fringe" and saying that mainstream media fail to cover President
Joe Biden
honestly.
[10]
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]