30 Facts About Ben Swann

Benjamin Swann was born on July 17,1978 and is an American television news anchor, investigative journalist, and political commentator.

Ben Swann became a TV sports producer, and later a news journalist and producer, and managing editor on network affiliates, FOX, and RT America of the Russian state-owned TV network RT.

Ben Swann garnered praise for a 2012 in-person interview with President Barack Obama about the so-called "kill list" which is used to direct drone strikes against American citizens, like Anwar al-Awlaki.

Ben Swann has questioned the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Civil War, whether United States had a role in the development of the Islamic State, and other controversial topics.

In 2017, after his employer, CBS affiliate 46 in Atlanta, aired a Reality Check which presented the false Pizzagate conspiracy theory as potentially true, Ben Swann was forced by WGCL to bring down his Truth in Media website and all of his social media.

About a year later, he was fired when WGCL learned that Ben Swann was planning to relaunch Truth in Media.

Ben Swann was homeschooled with nine brothers and sisters in El Paso, Texas, and earned a bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts from Brigham Young University in 1993, at the age of 15, and a master's degree in History from California State University, Dominguez Hills in 1994, at the age of 16.

At the age of 15, Ben Swann became a youth pastor at his local Baptist Church in Canutillo in El Paso County, Texas.

Ben Swann then filmed, edited, and reported news and sports stories before becoming a morning co-anchor and managing editor at the station.

Ben Swann won regional Emmy Awards in 2005 and 2009, as well as a national Edward R Murrow Award in 2002 for coverage of Alexandra Flores.

Ben Swann left El Paso in December 2010 to become an evening TV news presenter at Cincinnati, Ohio's Fox affiliate WXIX-TV, co-anchoring with Tricia Macke.

Ben Swann produced a thrice-weekly news segment series entitled Reality Check shortly after joining the station which he described as investigating "issues other media is not looking at".

Ben Swann asked the President direct questions about the so-called presidential "kill list" which had been used to direct drone strikes against terrorism suspects, and the legality of the list including US citizens, like Anwar al-Awlaki and teenage son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki.

Several journalism and civil liberties watchdogs praised Ben Swann's fact-checking work on the segment, such as Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic, Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian, Byron Tau of Politico, The Huffington Post, and the Columbia Journalism Review.

Ben Swann broke several details about local officials at the Cincinnati IRS office involved in the IRS targeting controversy which were picked up in national news media and led to Ben Swann making brief appearances on Fox News.

In 2017, Ben Swann has sought crowdfunding via his 419,000 Facebook followers for an episode titled, "US and partners intentionally created ISIS".

From May 2013 until June 2015, Swann appeared regularly on RT America in Washington, DC For three months in 2014 he hosted the Ben Swann Radio Show on the Republic Broadcasting Network which is, according to the media watchdog Media Matters for America, a far-right network which has aired Holocaust denial and other antisemitic conspiracy theories.

In June 2015, he was hired by CBS-46 affiliate WGCL-TV in Atlanta, Georgia where he revived his fact-checking segment under the title Reality Check With Ben Swann and was made part of the station's new investigative unit.

Ben Swann was reinstated after he took down his Truth in Media and Reality Check sites.

Ben Swann was fired on January 29,2018, after the station learned that he had been trying to revive Truth in Media without their knowledge and permission.

Ben Swann relaunched Truth in Media in 2018 after he was fired by WGCL-TV.

Ben Swann launched the Isegoria social media platform, named from the ancient Greek meaning "Equality of all in freedom of speech".

In FARA filings disclosed in August 2022, Ben Swann was paid $6.8 million by the Russian government in order to produce propaganda TV content for the South America, Indian, and Chinese markets.

Ben Swann has reported on many conspiracy theories and false claims, several of which are aligned with narratives pushed by his former employer, the Russian state-run RT.

On his personal YouTube channel, Ben Swann posted videos discussing debunked conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, including a conspiracy theory that shooter did not commit the act alone.

Ben Swann discounted the conclusion that 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting was conducted by a lone gunman.

Ben Swann has questioned whether 7 World Trade Center collapsed the way authorities said it did on September 11,2001.

Ben Swann later dedicated a Reality Check segment to the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory that emerged during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle, contending that Pizzagate may have been true, and called for a police investigation of the allegations.

Ben Swann lived in Portland, Oregon, where he was an assistant pastor at a Presbyterian church.

Ben Swann was ordained in 2000 in the Southern Baptist Convention.