Rising (web series)

(Redirected from The Hill's Rising)

The Hill's Rising (or simply Rising) is an American daily news and opinion web series produced by Washington, D.C. political newspaper The Hill. The series is available on The Hill's website and YouTube.

Rising
Logo of the Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti-hosted iteration
GenrePolitical news and commentary
Presented by
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
Production
Running time30 minutes
Production companiesThe Hill, Nexstar Media Group
Original release
ReleaseJune 13, 2018 (2018-06-13) –
present

Gradually gaining popularity on YouTube throughout 2019 and 2020, the show's longest-serving hosts were Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, until their departure in May 2021. The show was hosted by journalist Ryan Grim and Emily Jashinsky until they also left in September 2022.[1] The current host is journalist Robby Soave.

About

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Rising features commentary and analysis of political news and current events, in-studio interviews with politicians, campaign staff and surrogates, political advisors and strategists, and members of the news media. When Ball and Enjeti hosted, the show presented a synthesis of populist left and populist right viewpoints.[2]

The series is available on The Hill's website, YouTube, and a streaming channel.[3]

Format

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Rising typically produces five episode a week, Monday-Friday. There are usually about eight pre-taped segments per episode. Each host presents a "radar" segment which analyze current events and present commentary in a monologue format, usually organized into three or four bullet-points. This is followed by an open discussion.

History

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Logo the Buck Sexton and Krystal Ball-hosted iteration

In 2018, The Hill announced Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton as presenters of a new slate of original programming to be produced by John Solomon. Rising launched in June 2018 as Rising with Krystal & Buck with Buck Sexton as host. Sexton departed in June 2019, with Saagar Enjeti replacing him. In the press release, Ball was slated as the "progressive co-host on a morning show with a conservative co-host".[4][5][non-primary source needed] The show focused on attacking "establishment Democrats such as Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg."[citation needed]

In late 2019, it had an average of 600,000 viewers daily. As of October 2020, the Hill's YouTube channel averaged 1.48 million views per day,[6][7] and had around 1.2 million subscribers. Enjeti and Ball also co-authored a book, The Populist's Guide to 2020: A New Right and New Left Are Rising.[8][9][10] In 2020, the show did a few live-stream analysis programs for important political events like the 2020 Democratic primary and the 2020 general elections.[citation needed]

In March 2022, YouTube suspended Rising's channel for seven days for allegedly "violating the platform's rules around election misinformation". Then-Rising host Ryan Grim stated in The Intercept: "Two infractions were cited: First, the outlet posted the full video of former President Donald Trump's recent speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on its page. Second, Rising played a minutelong clip of Trump's commentary on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which included the claim that none of it would have happened if not for a “rigged election.”"[11]

Since 2021

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In May 2021, Ball and Enjeti announced they were departing Rising in order to release their own independent project, Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar.[12][4] They were temporarily replaced with Ryan Grim and The Federalist editor Emily Jashinsky. In July 2021, Kim Iversen took over from Jashinsky,[13][14] who said on Twitter that she had never intended to do Rising full time.[15][non-primary source needed] According to The Daily Beast, Iversen was a controversial figure:

Aside from her COVID-19 vaccine skepticism, she also sparked complaints from Hill employees after she defended the Chinese government’s harsh treatment of Uyghurs (prompting co-host Ryan Grim to push back on-air) and seemed to peddle pro-Russian propaganda about Ukraine... [and] Iversen recently got into a back-and-forth with fellow Rising co-host Olayemi Olurin over deadnaming actor Elliot Page.[13]

From early 2022, its regular weekday presenters were left-wing Briahna Joy Gray (a former Bernie Sanders campaign spokesperson) and libertarian Robby Soave (an editor for Reason magazine).[13]

Iversen, a vaccine skeptic, left the show in July 2022 after Batya Ungar-Sargon rather than her was picked to interview Anthony Fauci (of whom Iversen had previously been critical) with Soave.[13]

Grim and Jashinsky, who were the regular Friday hosts of Rising, resigned in September 2022.[16] Also in September 2022, Rising refused to air a segment on their show in which left-wing political commentator Katie Halper called Israel an "apartheid government". She was subsequently fired from the show.[17]

As of 2023, Jessica Burbank and Amber Duke presented Rising on Fridays.[18]

On June 7, 2024, Briahna Joy Gray, who had frequently courted controversy during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war,[19] was fired from Rising after allegedly callously dismissing trauma and "rolling her eyes" during an interview with the sister of an Israeli woman held hostage by Hamas, who urged her to believe Israeli women’s accounts of sexual assault on October 7. Joy Gray responded by saying “There should be no doubt that @RisingTheHill has a clear pattern of suppressing speech — particularly when it’s critical of the state of Israel.”[20][21]

Hosts

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Briahna Joy GrayRobby SoaveRyan GrimSaagar EnjetiKrystal BallBuck Sexton

References

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  1. ^ Baragona, Justin (September 1, 2022). "D.C. Rag's Popular Web Show Loses Two of Its Hosts". The Daily Beast. Retrieved June 29, 2023.
  2. ^ "The American 'Populist Right' After Trump". The Wire. New Delhi: Foundation for Independent Journalism. February 17, 2021. Archived from the original on February 18, 2021. Retrieved June 27, 2022. Saagar himself recently surpassed a million subscribers on the morning news hour Rising with Krystal and Saagar,... which gained notoriety for its (rightly) favourable coverage of "anti-establishment" presidential candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang when corporate-owned cable news was hostile to both. Soon after, Enjeti – a social conservative and fiscal liberal – and the avowed socialist Ball co-authored The Populist's Guide to 2020 (Strong Arm Press), their bestselling companion to the elections told from what they call 'populist left' and 'populist right' perspectives.
  3. ^ "The Hill TV Bows as A Nexstar OTT Offering". Radio and Television Business Report (RBR+TVBR). August 10, 2022. Gale A713251397.
  4. ^ a b Berkowitz, Joe (June 12, 2021). "Why 'Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar' became the number-one political podcast in a week". Fast Company. Archived from the original on November 12, 2021. Retrieved June 12, 2021.
  5. ^ "Krystal Ball, Jamal Simmons Join The Hill" (Press release). PR Newswire. January 31, 2018. Retrieved January 12, 2020.
  6. ^ Halper, Evan (December 12, 2019). "No #Bernieblackout here: Sanders rides a surge of alternative media". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 12, 2020.
  7. ^ "The Hill's YouTube Stats (Summary Profile) - Social Blade Stats". October 1, 2020. Archived from the original on October 1, 2020. Retrieved October 1, 2020.
  8. ^ Hartmann, Thom (February 3, 2020). "Will 2020 Election Be A Story of Populism?". Free Speech TV. Retrieved February 11, 2020.
  9. ^ Ball, Krystal; Enjeti, Saagar (January 7, 2020). The Populist's Guide to 2020: A New Right and New Left are Rising. Strong Arm Press. ISBN 9781947492455. Retrieved January 30, 2020.
  10. ^ Halper, Evan (December 12, 2019). "No #Bernieblackout here: Sanders rides a surge of alternative media". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 27, 2022. The populist hosts and their guests mercilessly rip into several of the top Democrats in the presidential race and the media covering them, especially MSNBC... The show's stars find South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg particularly objectionable.
  11. ^ Grim, Ryan (March 4, 2022). "Big Tech's Kafkaesque Approach to Censorship Is Driven by an Abiding Contempt for Its Audience". The Intercept. Retrieved September 7, 2022.
  12. ^ Cockburn (June 1, 2021). "The fall of Rising". The Spectator. Archived from the original on June 7, 2021. Retrieved June 7, 2021.
  13. ^ a b c d Baragona, Justin (July 27, 2022). "D.C. Insider Rag's Star 'Conspiracy Theorist' Abruptly Exits". The Daily Beast. Retrieved August 3, 2022.
  14. ^ Kim Iversen (July 29, 2021). "Kim Iversen LIVE: What Was I Doing On CORPORATE Media?!! And More". YouTube. Retrieved August 27, 2021.
  15. ^ Jashinsky, Emily [@emilyjashinsky] (August 2, 2021). "Love the team at Rising but I've decided to stop subbing in. I agreed to host temporarily after choosing in May not to do the show full time. We had fun. Now I have to get back to writing. I love the show @krystalball and @esaagar built and am stoked @ryangrim is back this week" (Tweet). Retrieved August 26, 2021 – via Twitter.
  16. ^ Baragona, Justin (September 1, 2022). "Two Hosts Exit The Hill's Popular Web Show 'Rising': Ryan Grim and Emily Jashinsky are leaving the successful digital talk show for its main rival". Confider. The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on October 1, 2022.
  17. ^ Grim, Ryan (September 29, 2022). "Hill TV Censors Segment on Rashida Tlaib's Description of Israel as "Apartheid Government," Bars Reporter". The Intercept. First Look Media. Archived from the original on September 30, 2022.
  18. ^ "Rising: May 26, 2023". The Hill. May 26, 2023. Retrieved August 25, 2023.
  19. ^ Fink, Rachel (June 2, 2024). "Briahna vs Brianna: American Political Pundits Feud on Social Media Over Israel's War Against Hamas". Haaretz.com. Retrieved June 7, 2024.
  20. ^ "Briahna Joy Gray rolls eyes at October 7 survivor, gets fired from 'The Hill'". The Jerusalem Post. June 6, 2024. Retrieved June 7, 2024.
  21. ^ Roe, Mike (June 6, 2024). "The Hill Fires Progressive Host Who Defended Hamas". TheWrap. Retrieved June 7, 2024.
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