The Daily Signal Is a Year Old Today. Here’s a Closer Look at What We’ve Done.

Rob Bluey / June 03, 2015

The Daily Signal turns a year old today. It’s an important milestone for our team and The Heritage Foundation—and a good opportunity to share some of our accomplishments and goals.

The Daily Signal combines fair, trustworthy and accurate reporting with strong conservative commentary and policy analysis.

We embarked on this journey on June 3, 2014, to bring you something unique and original. We saw an opening in the market to produce high-quality journalism—fair, trustworthy and accurate reporting—combined with strong conservative commentary and policy analysis.

The Heritage Foundation brings a wealth of knowledge and sizable influence as a think tank on Capitol Hill. The addition of a news outlet has helped expand its reach.

One of our goals, a vision articulated by Heritage President Jim DeMint, is to reach beyond conservatives as we grow our audience. Policy debates, after all, don’t always follow party lines—and neither do Americans. Heritage has maintained a non-partisan approach to policy research for 42 years. As our founder, Ed Feulner, often says, it’s better to add and multiply than to divide and subtract.

At The Daily Signal, we strive to approach each story based on its own set of facts. And over the course of the past year, our journalism has enhanced political debates in America by helping you better understand what’s at stake and why it matters.

The Daily Signal helps you better understand what’s at stake and why it matters.

This combination of America’s most influential think tank and its budding digital news outlet is having an impact. We’ve become a source of where the news media gets its news and where a growing number of Americans turn for the scoop on policy debates in Washington and the states.

Our news team includes a dozen journalists based in Washington, D.C., headquarters and across the globe. Their goal is to bring you the most compelling stories each day. Rather than following the pack, we’ve asked them to search for the stories that go unreported and ask the questions other journalists failed to.

Here are three recent examples of how they’ve done exactly that:

In April, investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson, a Daily Signal contributor, wrote a two-part series on America’s largest Obamacare exchange, Covered California. The report drew attention from coast to coast and prompted one of the country’s most prestigious journalism organizations to call for greater scrutiny.
Last month, reporter Melissa Quinn documented the IRS’ seizure of $107,702 from North Carolina convenience store owner Lyndon McLellan. Days after her story landed on the influential Drudge Report, the government decided to dismiss the case and return McLellan his money.
And just this week, producer Kelsey Harkness uncovered incriminating correspondence about Oregon’s case against the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa. The documents revealed the close-knit relationship between a prominent LGBT group and the government agency that fined the Oregon couple $135,000 for declining to serve a same-sex wedding for religious reasons.

As we enter our second year, we’re looking forward to more great scoops from Attkisson, the former CBS News journalist who broke news for us on topics ranging from Benghazi to Obamacare. Earlier this year, we inked a deal with CBN’s David Brody to interview presidential candidates and other newsmakers. And we even added our first foreign correspondent, Nolan Peterson, who is reporting from war-torn Ukraine.

We’re expanding our reach in the United States as well with a reporter already on the ground in New Hampshire and another soon to start in Iowa. We work with an impressive group of graphic designers to bring you eye-catching infographics and talented filmmakers to produce vibrant videos. And with technology bringing changes that disrupt the news business, we’re prepared to remain on the cutting edge with a team of strategists and developers.

Have a look at the infographic below to get a better sense of our reach and what we’ve built.

Graphic: Casi Long/The Heritage Foundation