| Truthdig | |
| Commercial: | Commercial |
| Type: | News commentary, alternative media, editorials |
| Language: | English |
| Registration: | Optional |
| Founder: | Zuade Kaufman Robert Scheer |
| Launch Date: | 2005 |
Truthdig is an American alternative news website that provides a mix of long-form articles, blog items, curated links, interviews, arts criticism, and commentary on current events that is delivered from a politically progressive, left-leaning point of view. The site focuses on major "digs" that purport to look beneath headlines to reveal facts overlooked or not reported by mainstream media. Truthdig was co-founded in 2005 by Zuade Kaufman and Robert Scheer, who served as editor-in-chief. As of 2014, the Truthdig site drew more than 400,000 visitors per month.
Kaufman began her journalism career at KCET in Los Angeles, initially working on documentaries before transitioning to print journalism. She collaborated with Scheer on hyperlocal editions at the Los Angeles Times, Westside, Weekly, and Our Times, starting as a researcher and then as a staff reporter. After the newspaper changed ownership and eliminated these local editions, Kaufman pursued a master's degree in journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. She began developing Truthdig while at USC, and it launched immediately after Scheer was fired from the Los Angeles Times.[1]
On March 11, 2020, nine employees of Truthdig signed a statement announcing a work stoppage to protest what they described as "unfair labor conditions and the effort by the publisher, Zuade Kaufman, to remove the site's founding Editor-in-Chief and co-owner Robert Scheer".[2] [3] On March 27, 2020 Kaufman responded in an open letter that attributed the matter to "negotiations to end the business partnership" between her and Scheer.[4] On March 25, 2020 Truthdig employees received emails they characterized as "Truthdig LLC was being dissolved and that our positions at the publication had been terminated". According to the full statement, 15 employees would be affected.[2] The "Truthdig" website concomitantly posted an announcement that "Truthdig" was "going on a hiatus".[5]
On November 1, 2022, the website was relaunched[6] without Scheer's involvement.
Significant contributors to Truthdig have included William Blum, Noam Chomsky, Juan Cole, animator Mark Fiore, Amy Goodman, Sam Harris, Chris Hedges, Kamin Mohammadi, Greg Palast, Carrie Rickey, Émile P. Torres, and Gore Vidal.
In October 2006, Truthdig published an essay entitled, "After Pat's Birthday", about the death of the NFL player and American soldier Pat Tillman that was written by his brother Kevin.[7] The essay was widely distributed and was cited in The New York Times[8] and the Associated Press.
Truthdig has been used as a data source in communication studies research on systematic differences in coverage of political events by alternative media (such as Truthdig) versus mainstream media. In 2015, an Association for Computing Machinery conference paper determined that users of the NewsTrust website considered Truthdig a "most trusted" political news source with a "left" viewpoint.
, Truthdig has won six Webby Awards,[9] four awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, and forty first-place awards from the Los Angeles Press Club,[10] among others. At the 2010 ceremony for the Webby Awards, which traditionally limit acceptance speeches to five words, Robert Scheer accepted on behalf of Truthdig, saying: "Wall Street—what fucking thieves."