the Wire has had its problems lately<\/a>: \u00a0some chalk it up to MAGA’s decreasing \u00a0tolerance for Israel, which Shapiro’s DW supports. \u00a0<\/p>\nI think the problem is a lot simpler than that. \u00a0I think it boils down to two things: \u00a0it’s spread its focus too far, and much of what it\u00a0does\u00a0<\/em>focus on just isn’t that good. \u00a0<\/p>\nUnfocused: \u00a0<\/strong>the nation needs a solid conservative news and opinion source. \u00a0Limbaugh was that. \u00a0Fox News used to be. \u00a0 Limbaugh’s gone, Fox News is in a mushy middle zone, and the likes of Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson are lapping up the horseshoe right – there’s a definite market for the DW, or\u00a0something like it<\/em>. \u00a0<\/p>\nBut along with that very worthy mission, DW took on trying to enter the culture war. \u00a0Which is, again, and again very noble and much-needed venture. \u00a0<\/p>\n
But their entries, although no doubt catastrophically expensive, have been pretty much trash. \u00a0 They’ve released a non-documentary movies – all of them properties the various studios passed on, and so were available on the relative cheap. \u00a0 “Run Hide Fight” was the first – a concept (high school girl takes on school shooters) that I loved, but it came off like a high school theater class production of “Die Hard”. \u00a0“A” for concept, “C-” for execution. \u00a0And it was a\u00a0lot\u00a0<\/em>better than some of the other efforts – “Ladyballers” would have been a fun ten minute Youtube short, sort of like one of the Babylon Bee’s videos. \u00a0But they tried to make it a feature length film, which was about 110 minutes too long and, I suspect, 110 minutes too costly. \u00a0Can’t say I’ve had the interest to sit through their other offerings. \u00a0<\/p>\nTheir documentaries are better, more or less – “What is a Woman” was a good concept (and only 20 minutes too long). \u00a0The follow-up, “Am I Racist”, started out strong and swerved into cringe, finishing “Meh”, for all the same reason. \u00a0Which we’ll come back to.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The two documentaries did well enough at the box office. \u00a0Well enough to pay for the turkeys – or the gargantuan “Pendragon Cycle” that seems to have been in production for years?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not to mention some of the dubious dives into merchandizing? \u00a0 “Jeremy’s Razors” would have to not just shave your face, but make you taller and richer to be worth $30 more than a pack of Harry’s Razors. \u00a0 Harrys’ made a stupid woke ad; for $30 for\u00a0razors<\/em>, I can overlook it. \u00a0<\/p>\nAll of that – and running a news service as well – had to have been a huge money suck. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The cash cow should have been their basic content – the podcasts and radio shows that bring in the listeners and viewers.<\/p>\n
And that’s the bad news. \u00a0<\/p>\n
No Beat: \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>I’m a Ben Shapiro fan. \u00a0 No bones about it. \u00a0If you’re not, that’s fine – there are plenty of forums for you out there. \u00a0He’s brilliant. \u00a0On a scale of 1-100, his podcasts are a 90 with a standard deviation of about 2 always good, frequently brilliant. \u00a0<\/p>\nBut the rest of DW’s flagship personalities?<\/p>\n
Matt Walsh may be the least interesting person in media today. \u00a0He’s a professional troll – sometimes brilliant (“What is a Woman”), frequently more like an entitled ninth-grader. \u00a0His podcast is a 50, with a standard deviation of 20 – occasionally brilliant, frequently cringey. \u00a0 Part of the problem for me – admittedly someone whose style is “radio” – is one of the tics in his delivery; \u00a0he will frequently (like, once or more in every podcast) make a point, then re-iterate it, then re-re-iterate it, and re-re-re-iterate it…I’ve heard seven or eight repeats of a point or conclusion, done with out irony. \u00a0 \u00a0A nervous tic, or a mark of sloppy thinking? \u00a0Who cares? \u00a0It’s annoying as hell. \u00a0And unlike the Medved-like information vacuum that is Shapiro, he’s frequently crushingly ignorant. \u00a0Last year, talking about Trumps’ record on abortion, he went through one of his muttering, sometimes barely audible lists of examples to the contrary, and got to “Reagan. \u00a0Ronald Reagan. \u00a0What did he\u00a0<\/em>ever do for us?”, ignorant of the fact that Reagan ever controlled the house, barely he’d the Senate for six out of eight \u00a0years, and had to spend his political capital on the top of his agenda, eliminating the USSR and fixing the economy. \u00a0 I’d love to ask Walsh which he’d prefer to have tried (futilely) to trade. \u00a0 His one strength? \u00a0He’s a troll with a level of commitment that Shapiro called “sociopathic”; it was tongue in cheek, but it lands. \u00a0It’s a personal thing, but a little trolling goes a long way for me. \u00a0“What is a Woman” was pretty brilliant – 50 plus two standard deviations. \u00a0 “Am I Racist” had moments – shaming Robin DeAngelo to cough up a purse full of pocket change for a black guy was a classic – but I descending hard and fast into the kind of cringe that has me tuning out on “Fawlty Towers” these days. \u00a0<\/p>\nMichael Knowles is better – I’d call him a 70 with a standard deviation of 5. \u00a0 He’s an agreeable sort, with some intellectual heft on matters of the Catholic Church, campaign politics, the Catholic Church, history, the Catholic Church, logic, the Catholic Church and the Catholic Church. \u00a0 An avowed former atheist, he brings that “the douchiest New Yorkers are the ones that grew up in Buffalo” vibe to his discussions about the nature of faith. \u00a0 And enough of the cigar talk, ffs. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The res to the lineup? \u00a0Can’t say I can be provoked to care all that much, although watching Reagan Conrad’s rise to her “Token Gen Z Podcast” slot gave me “Top Forty Radio in the ’90s” vibes. \u00a0I suspect there’s a lot of money going out there. \u00a0<\/p>\n
I hope DW can pull it out. \u00a0 Or that Salem is smart enough to pick up the scraps if it doesn’t. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The big news in right-wing alt media lately has been the travails of the Daily Wire – heretofore the most successful conservative alt media source in the business. \u00a0 In many ways, DW was what picked up Limbaugh’s mantel after his untimely passing.\u00a0 But the Wire has had its problems lately: \u00a0some chalk it up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-center-right-altmedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90236"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90239,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90236\/revisions\/90239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}