Outlet profile

Hot Air (Opinion)

U.S. right

Owned bySalem Media Group (part of Salem Web Network, alongside Townhall.com, RedState, and PJ Media)

FundingAdvertising and Salem Media Group's corporate revenue (a publicly traded conservative media company); no subscription paywall

On the administrationbroadly supportive

Background

Hot Air was founded by conservative author Michelle Malkin in 2006, who served as publisher but left day-to-day editorial control to her writers. Salem Communications (now Salem Media Group) bought the site in February 2010, folding it into its stable of conservative digital outlets. Long-serving writer Nick Catoggio, known under the pseudonym Allahpundit, built a reputation for Trump-skeptical conservative commentary before resigning in September 2022; his departure left the site's tone more uniformly pro-Trump. Current contributors include Ed Morrissey, John Sexton, and David Strom, who mix opinion columns with aggregated news coverage. Media Bias/Fact Check and other outlets rate the site as generally right-leaning. As part of Salem Media Group, a publicly traded company that also runs conservative talk radio stations, Hot Air sits within a broader conservative media ecosystem funded mainly through advertising rather than a single billionaire owner or subscriber base.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-10-03; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

← Back to track record