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Outlet profile

Cowboy State Daily

U.S. right

Owned byB. Wayne Hughes Jr., a Wyoming businessman and Republican donor, who purchased the outlet in February 2022. It was originally co-founded with seed funding from Foster Friess, a prominent Republican megadonor.
FundingPrimarily funded through philanthropy from the Hughes Charitable Foundation (controlled by owner Wayne Hughes Jr.), supplemented by digital advertising. The outlet is free to readers and does not rely on subscriptions.
On the administrationbroadly supportive

Background

Cowboy State Daily launched in late 2018 and began full operations in January 2019, co-founded by Jimmy Orr (now executive editor) and Annaliese Wiederspahn, daughter of Republican U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis. Startup funding came from Foster Friess, a well-known Republican megadonor who had run for Wyoming governor. The outlet was incorporated as a nonprofit and positioned itself as a statewide digital news source filling a gap left by declining legacy papers. In February 2022, Wyoming businessman and philanthropist B. Wayne Hughes Jr. purchased the outlet; Hughes is a major Republican donor who contributed to both of Trump's inaugurations and to his 2020 campaign. After the ownership change, an independent analysis of 562 articles found that politicians Hughes supported received significantly more favorable coverage than those he did not. The Columbia Journalism Review's Tow Center reported in 2023 that Cowboy State Daily published 129 articles about transgender people that year—more than any other single topic—drawing criticism for advocacy-style framing. The outlet has faced ongoing scrutiny from Honor Wyoming and other watchdog groups over transparency about its owner's political giving and its editorial independence. AllSides rates its media bias as 'Lean Right,' and the outlet's opinion pages have consistently aligned with conservative Wyoming politics and the Trump agenda.

Sources

  1. Wyoming Businessman, Philanthropist Buys Cowboy State Daily | Cowboy State Daily
  2. Trouble in Wyoming - Columbia Journalism Review
  3. Is the Cowboy State Daily Showing Political Bias? Evidence Suggests Yes - Honor Wyoming
  4. Does Wyoming deserve transparency from The Cowboy State Daily? - Honor Wyoming
  5. Politics, press and philanthropy: How a Jackson Hole billionaire couple is shaping Wyoming - WyoFile
  6. Cowboy State Daily Media Bias | AllSides
  7. Cowboy State Daily | Ground.news
  8. Bill Sniffin Named Publisher of Cowboy State Daily | Cowboy State Daily

Profile compiled 2026-08-29; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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