Few news outlets in America generate as strong a reaction just from their name alone as Breitbart News. To its supporters, it’s an essential counterweight to what they see as a left-leaning mainstream press. To its critics, it’s a source that has repeatedly published misleading or inflammatory content. Whatever your view, Breitbart News has undeniably shaped conservative media and American political discourse over the past decade and a half, and understanding its history, ownership, and current standing helps explain why it still generates so much conversation.
How Breitbart News Got Started
The idea behind Breitbart News traces back to 2007, when Andrew Breitbart and Larry Solov, longtime friends, took a trip together and decided to build a news organization built around the idea that a wider range of political voices, especially conservative ones, deserved a stronger platform in digital media. The site officially launched in 2011 in Los Angeles, and it grew quickly into one of the more recognizable names in what’s often called the “alternative” or explicitly right-leaning media ecosystem, alongside outlets that emerged around the same period to challenge what conservatives frequently described as liberal bias in traditional newsrooms.
Andrew Breitbart died unexpectedly in 2012, and leadership passed to Larry Solov as CEO, with Steve Bannon stepping into the role of executive chairman. Joel Pollak took over as editor-in-chief and Alex Marlow became managing editor — both remain closely associated with the outlet’s direction and public identity today. Bannon later left to join Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and, eventually, the Trump White House, a move that cemented Breitbart’s close association with Trump-era conservative politics in the public imagination.
Editorial Identity and Ownership
Breitbart News organizes its coverage into sections with names like Big Government, National Security, Tech, and Sports, and it has consistently positioned itself as offering political and cultural commentary from an explicitly conservative, populist perspective, often framing its coverage as filling a gap left by outlets it considers part of the political establishment.
Ownership has historically been kept relatively private. When pressed on the subject in 2017, Solov confirmed that control of the company was shared among himself, Susie Breitbart (Andrew Breitbart’s widow), and the Mercer family, prominent Republican megadonors who had reportedly invested millions in the outlet in its earlier years. Solov has also been fairly open about preferring to disclose as little as possible about the company’s financial structure, which has made independent verification of current ownership details difficult for outside researchers and journalists.
Coverage, Controversy, and Criticism
Breitbart News has faced substantial and repeated criticism over the years, particularly around its coverage during the mid-2010s. Independent media analysis organizations, along with numerous journalists and academic researchers, have documented instances where the outlet published inflammatory or factually disputed content, including coverage during the Obama presidency that drew criticism for promoting unsubstantiated claims. The outlet also faced significant backlash in 2017 after a former contributor’s associations with white nationalist figures came to light, prompting an organized advertiser boycott led by the online group Sleeping Giants. That boycott campaign coincided with a documented decline in advertiser support and a notable falloff in the site’s readership over the following years.
Media Bias/Fact Check, one of the more widely cited media rating organizations, currently rates Breitbart News with a strong right-leaning bias and mixed factual reporting, placing it in a category the organization reserves for sources it considers should be fact-checked closely on a per-article basis. Breitbart itself, along with many of its supporters, has pushed back against this kind of characterization, framing its coverage instead as a necessary alternative perspective in a media landscape they view as dominated by outlets with an opposing political lean.
Where Breitbart Stands Today
Breitbart’s audience has changed considerably since its peak influence around the 2016 election. Traffic figures from that period showed the site reaching upward of 17 million monthly readers, a number that fell substantially in the years that followed, settling into the low single-digit millions by the end of the decade and continuing to decline since. Current web analytics estimates put Breitbart’s monthly traffic in the tens of millions of total visits when counting all site interactions, with an audience skewing notably male and older, and much of that traffic arriving through direct visits from a loyal, returning readership rather than general search discovery.
Despite the decline from its peak, Breitbart News remains a fixture within the conservative media landscape, competing for attention alongside outlets like Fox News, The Daily Wire, Townhall, Newsmax, and The Gateway Pundit. It continues to maintain bureaus and correspondents covering national and international politics, and it remains a frequently cited source within conservative political and commentary circles, even as its broader cultural reach has narrowed compared to its mid-2010s peak.
Why Breitbart News Still Matters in the Conversation
Whatever position someone holds on Breitbart’s editorial choices, the outlet remains a genuinely significant case study in how digital-native, explicitly partisan media organizations have reshaped American political discourse over the past fifteen years. Its early success in building a large, engaged social media following, combined with its close ties to the Trump political movement, made it a template that other partisan outlets on both ends of the political spectrum have since studied and, in some cases, imitated.
The Bottom Line
Breitbart News occupies a distinct and polarizing place in American media — celebrated by supporters as a necessary voice for conservative and populist perspectives, and criticized by media watchdogs and many journalists for a track record of inflammatory and, at times, factually disputed content. Its readership has declined significantly since its mid-2010s peak, but it remains an active and influential player within conservative media, and its history offers a useful window into how partisan digital outlets built and sustained political influence in the social media era.
