The Hill is an American newspaper and digital media company based in Washington, D.C. that was founded in 1994. Focusing on politics, policy, business and international relations, The Hills coverage includes the U.S. Congress, the presidency and executive branch, and election campaigns. The Hill describes its output as "nonpartisan reporting on the inner workings of Government and the nexus of politics and business". The company's primary outlet is TheHill.com. The Hill is additionally distributed in print for free around Washington, D.C. and distributed to all congressional offices. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group since 2021. History Founding and early years The company was founded as a newspaper in 1994 by Democratic power broker and New York businessman Jerry Finkelstein, and Martin Tolchin, a former correspondent for The New York Times. New York Representative Gary L. Ackerman was also a major shareholder. The name of the publication alludes to "Capitol Hill" as a synecdoche for the United States Congress and government generally. In 2012, James "Jimmy" A. Finkelstein assumed control of the organization. Digital distribution and print circulation The Hill has grown to become the second most-viewed US political news website and the third-most tweeted U.S. news source. In 2016, The New York Times reported that The Hill was "proceeding with ambitious expansion plans" to become a national brand publication, and its website traffic increased 126% over the prior year, and was above Politico's traffic for the period. Following the 2016 US presidential election, The Street reported that The Hill saw the largest increase in online political readership among political news sites, with an increase of 780%. CNN and Politico saw smaller increases over the period, making The Hill "the fastest-growing political news site". In 2017, The Hill was also cited by Twitter as one of the top 10 "most-tweeted" news sources. A 2017 study by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University found that The Hill was the second most-shared source among supporters of Donald Trump on Twitter during the election, behind Breitbart News. In 2019, The Hill was ranked second among all US news sites for political readership, second to CNN, and ahead of Capitol Hill competitors such as Politico. In 2020, it was again ranked second for online politics readership across all news sites, behind only CNN. It remained ahead of Politico, Fox News, NBCNews.com and MSNBC TV. As of 2020, the newspaper