Politico...
Newsmax hits the
‘Heartland’
By Keach Hagey
5/7/11
It’s not yet clear whether Donald Trump’s moment as a Republican
presidential candidate has come and gone, but it is clear which media
outlet had the most to do with Trump’s sudden rise — and thereby
solidified its role as a major conservative voice.
It was Newsmax, the website that Media Matters dubbed the “No. 1
Promoter of Trump 2012,” but which founder Christopher Ruddy describes
as a voice of a Heartland populism that more established conservative
publications do not understand.
Ruddy, who is best known for the conspiracy theories about the Clinton
administration he pushed in the 1990’s, has imbued Newsmax with a
distinctive and sometimes contradictory voice — “a little less
aggressive” than Fox, as he describes it — that seems to channel the
concerns of the talk radio listeners he considers his core audience.
“The Beltway has thought of conservative media as the National Review,”
Ruddy said. “But when someone in Tucson or San Francisco thinks of
conservative media — someone that follows Fox or Rush — they think of
Newsmax.”
Although Newsmax had a major role in legitimizing Trump’s candidacy
among conservatives, Ruddy said he has no plans to endorse a GOP
candidate. In fact, any Republican who has even been whispered about as
running in 2012 has made the pilgrimage to the Newsmax headquarters in
West Palm Beach for an interview (Mike Huckabee, the sole exception,
did his interview by phone).
Read the rest of the story at Newsmax
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