Newspaper The Hill

The Hill

Type	Daily newspaper (when Congress is in session)
Format	Compact
Owner(s)	Nexstar Media Group
Founder(s)	Jerry Finkelstein Martin Tolchin
Editor	Bob Cusack
Managing editor	Ian Swanson
Photo editor	Greg Nash
Founded	September 1, 1994; 29 years ago (1994-09-01)
Language	American English
Headquarters	1625 K St., NW, Suite 900, Washington, D.C., 20006 U.S. 38°54′11″N 77°02′15″W / 38.90306°N 77.03750°W / 38.90306; -77.03750 (The Hill newspaper)
City	Washington, D.C.
Country	United States
Circulation	24,000 print (as of December 2012)
ISSN	1521-1568
OCLC number	31153202
Website	thehill.com
Media of the United States List of newspapers

Focusing on politics, policy, business and international relations, The Hill's coverage includes the U.S. Congress, the presidency and executive branch, and election campaigns. Its stated output is "nonpartisan reporting on the inner workings of Government and the nexus of politics and business".

The company's primary outlet is TheHill.com. The Hill is additionally distributed in print for free around Washington, D.C., and distributed to all congressional offices. It has been owned by Nexstar Media Group since 2021.

Founding and early years

The company was founded as a newspaper in 1994 by Democratic power broker and New York businessman Jerry Finkelstein, and Martin Tolchin, a former correspondent for The New York Times. New York Representative Gary L. Ackerman was also a major shareholder. The name of the publication alludes to "Capitol Hill" as a synecdoche for the United States Congress and government generally.

In 2012, James A. Finkelstein assumed control of the organization.

Digital distribution and print circulation

In 2016, The New York Times reported that The Hill was "proceeding with ambitious expansion plans" to become a national brand publication, and its website traffic increased 126% over the prior year, and was above Politico's traffic for the period.

Following the 2016 US presidential election, The Street reported that The Hill saw the largest increase in online political readership among political news sites, with an increase of 780%. CNN and Politico saw smaller increases over the period, making The Hill "the fastest-growing political news site". In 2017, The Hill was also cited by Twitter as one of the top 10 "most-tweeted" news sources. A 2017 study by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University found that The Hill was the second most-shared source among supporters of Donald Trump on Twitter during the election, behind Breitbart News.

In 2017, The Hill hired John Solomon as executive vice president of digital video. Solomon inserted material from advertisers into journalistic copy, leading to protests from The Hill's publisher. In March 2018, he worked closely with associates of Rudy Giuliani, the personal lawyer of U.S. President Donald Trump, to promote the spurious Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory. In May 2018, Solomon's role was changed to opinion contributor, although he was allowed to keep his original title. In September 2019, he left The Hill.

Katie Halper, a former free-lancer with Rising, was terminated on September 28, 2022. The Intercept reported that she had recorded a "Radar" monologue that described Israel as an "apartheid" state.

As of 2018^[update], The Hill was the second most-viewed US political news website and the third-most tweeted U.S. news source.

In January 2019, CNN claimed Finkelstein interfered in the editorial independence of the paper by "keeping a watchful eye on the newspaper's coverage to ensure it is not too critical" of President Trump.

In 2019, The Hill was ranked second among all US news sites for political readership, second to CNN, and ahead of Capitol Hill competitors such as Politico.

In 2020, it was again ranked second for online politics readership across all news sites, behind only CNN. It remained ahead of Politico, Fox News, NBCNews.com and MSNBC TV.

 

As of 2020, the newspaper claims to have more than 22,000 print readers. The Hill is distributed for free in newspaper boxes around the U.S. Capitol building, and mailed directly to all congressional offices.

As of 2020, The Hill's YouTube channel had 1,100,000 subscribers, ahead of Politico, Axios, and Bloomberg Politics. In October 2020, The Hill's YouTube channel averaged over 1.5 million daily video views and more than 10 million per week; in September 2020 it received over 340 million video views.

In 2021, The Hill was acquired by Nexstar Media Group for $130 million.

The Hill TV

In June 2018, The Hill launched Hill.TV, a digital news channel. Four years later, the channel expanded to a 24 by 7 FAST streaming service and was rebranded as The Hill TV. It is distributed by Haystack, LG, LocalNow, Plex, Roku, and Vizio. Programming includes Rising, a morning news program hosted by Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave four days a week (initially by Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton.) In May 2021, long-time hosts Ball and Saagar Enjeti announced they were departing in order to release their own independent project, Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar.

Notable stories and awards

The National Press Club's annual Sandy Hume Memorial Award is named after staffer Sandy Hume, in recognition of his 1997 reporting in The Hill of an attempted Republican coup against then-speaker Newt Gingrich.

Climate and energy reporters Sharon Udasin and Rachel Frazin were recognized with SEAL Awards for environmental journalism in 2022 and 2023.

Masthead

• Joe Ruffolo, General Manager
• Bob Cusack, Editor-in-Chief

Past