How The Daily Wire is changing the relationship between politics and entertainment

If you've been paying attention to the changes in the right wing media landscape you're already familiar with The Daily Wire.

Founded in 2015 by political commentator Ben Shapiro and film director Jeremy Boreing, The Daily Wire is an American conservative media company that produces podcasts such as The Ben Shapiro Show.

Today on Commotion, guest host Ali Hassan talks to The Globe and Mail's film editor Barry Hertz and the New Yorker culture critic Vinson Cunningham about the rise of conservative media company The Daily Wire, and what their approach to the business might say about the role politics plays in the entertainment we consume.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Ali: What's made [The Daily Wire] worth covering now, in your opinion?

Barry: They've picked up a remarkable amount of steam, I feel, over the past several years. Their podcast networks of Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Andrew Klavan do really remarkably huge numbers, not just in the quote-unquote "conservative" space but across all of the platforms. They're right now playing in the big culture war sector of the U.S. election cycle, which is of course very fraught. And they started off their streaming service Daily Wire+, which has picked up a good number of subscribers in that alternative space. And this fall, they launched their first theatrical film, which is Am I Racist?, a kind of quasi-documentary by Matt Walsh.

Ali: Vinson, let me ask you: what do you think The Daily Wire is doing that these more classic conservative media outlets aren't doing, like Fox or Breitbart or Newsmax?

Vinson: Yeah, these other networks — and then you could also add to that places like the National Review, or specifically ideological journals — much of what they do is slant news, or in many ways offer conservative ideological alternatives to what they think of as mainstream liberal media. Whereas what The Daily Wire seems to be doing is create a whole rival system of entertainment.

You can watch some of the things that they produce, and it's not about conservatism per se, but it's just like, hey, the left has judge shows, for example. Why don't we do a Matt Walsh, this conservative thought leader/comedian/blogger, why don't we have him be Judge Judy? You know, it's giving you alternatives to what you might find on your TV for entertainment, not just for news. So it seems to me to be a more, honestly, ambitious vision.

Ali: Well, a few years ago, people would say that there's no such thing as conservative comedy. That term didn't really exist. But now … you do have numbers that are pretty high, with some of these more comedic shows. They're maybe not at the same level as The Daily Show or Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, but Barry, am I right to say that their numbers are still somewhat formidable?

Barry: Yeah, I think they're extremely formidable. And I mean, you only have to look at the comedy space right now and even in the mainstream to see the success of penetration of conservative-leaning comedy — Joe Rogan, Shane Gillis, stuff like that. So The Daily Wire is picking up on that and amplifying it to a comically provocative kind of level.

Ali: Yeah. Well, let's get into Am I Racist?. It's, as we've said, the first theatrical release from The Daily Wire. It is a mockumentary. It stars the aforementioned Matt Walsh. Vinson, the title kind of gives it away…. Your thoughts are also well-documented in a New Yorker piece that you did. You wrote at length about exactly all this.

Vinson: That's right. After Walsh and his followers had sort of been complaining that the quote-unquote "mainstream media" would never review this, even though it's the most popular movie in the country, I did review it. And then they said that I've got an agenda, you know. So it's like, one of the hallmarks of this world is to say, "We are being ignored by the mainstream." But then if somebody criticizes them, saying, "Well, of course they say this because they are beholden to their liberal masters." So whether you pay attention to it or not, as someone who is not a conservative, you're kind of in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Ty Callender.