“It can’t be both,” is a popular statement to make during heated arguments. Daily Caller Senior Editor Amber Duke is trying to set out that it can be both, by being both a journalist and a commentator.
As one of the leaders of the Tucker Carlson-founded digital outlet, Duke helps set the table every day for the company’s writing staff, ensuring they’re following and advancing the news.
She also, however, makes regular appearances on news/talk radio and cable news programs, giving her opinion on the day’s news from a conservative angle.
She says it can be difficult at times to balance the two, but she enjoys the challenge.
“I think I’m very honest about where I come from with my views,” she admitted. “I don’t make any bones about the fact that I’m conservative. And I think being honest with the reader allows a greater sense of trust to develop, because they know the perspective that I’m coming from, and they can evaluate what I’m saying based on that perspective.”
Duke added that with her background in more traditional journalism, she eased into the opinion side of the medium.
“I had a baseline level of trust where people could believe that what I was saying was true, because I was dealing in facts,” Duke. “So I think it’s easier to transition that way.”
She said, in her view, getting a start in journalism is where every aspiring media personality should start for a simple reason.
“I always tell young journalists when they’re getting involved in the business that when you’re 22 years old, people really don’t care about your opinions,” Duke said with a laugh. “You don’t have much life experience. You learned what you learned in college, which maybe was hopelessly biased, and you haven’t really taken those tenets and put them into practice. So it’s nice to start out by really just consuming and learning as much as you can through the process of journalism and storytelling, and then once you start to develop that life experience and that trust with your audience, that’s a good time to start making that transition, if that’s what you’re interested in.”
It might feel inevitable that someone working as both a journalist and a political commentator would need to eventually choose one role or the other, but Amber Duke doesn’t see it that way.
“I feel comfortable doing both. My role as an editor is very different from my role as a commentator,” she said. “As an editor, I’m looking at every piece that comes from my reporters and making sure that we are following basic journalistic principles … when I’m doing commentary, I am, of course, looking at it from a different perspective, not that I’m not also using the journalistic method of making sure things that I’m saying are factually accurate and make sense.
“But I’m also thinking about a messaging standpoint. So how am I weaving together facts to make an argument? It’s more of a rhetorical process, as opposed to the editor hat, which is more focused on the journalistic process.”
Amber Duke also believes working in digital media with the Daily Caller — and on The Hill’s digital video show, Rising — as well as making appearances on news/talk radio and on cable news shows exposes her work to nearly every demographic, which is always a good thing.
“You don’t just have people who are reading The Daily Caller, but now I get to translate Daily Caller stories in a three-minute TV hit on Fox News, or 15-minute hit on Rising, or if it’s on the radio, people who are listening in their car. So you get to cut across a lot of different age demographics, obviously, with the broadcast media landscape changing with YouTube playing a big part. Platforms like Substack and independent podcasts, you’re getting younger viewers and listeners, whereas if you’re on cable news, you’re getting an older demo. Daily Caller is probably somewhere in the Gen X range. So I feel like I’m covering a wide swath of people.”
Duke concluded that as she’s grown in her career in both the journalism and opinion angles, she’s learned something about those who work in the industry. And it’s played to her advantage.
“I found, in my experience, that there’s a lot of people who can write, and a lot of people who can do TV, and not a lot of people who can do both,” she said. “So I do feel like I have a comparative advantage, and that I’m able to translate thoughts to paper but also to broadcast media.”
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
