Matthew Sheffield is the publisher of Flux and host of the Theory of Change video podcast. His writings and broadcasts about public opinion, right-wing extremism, misinformation, and technology trends have been quoted and cited by numerous media outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, NBC, CNN, and PC Magazine.
Prior to starting Flux, Matthew was a pollster, writer, and television producer at The Hill where he created and analyzed public opinion surveys on a variety of policy areas which were quoted by presidential candidates, major news outlets, and national political groups.
Earlier, Matthew was a staff reporter at Salon where he wrote about numerous topics, including technology, elections, the media industry, and the rise of extremist movements in the United States. In his reporting, he exposed a secret network of salacious blogs set up for Fox News founder Roger Ailes that targeted women who worked for the network. He also exposed a security vulnerability in Google’s AMP framework and used DKIM email verification techniques to report that then-Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile had improperly passed television debate questions to a presidential candidate in 2016. He also wrote a three-part series on the history of the white nationalist “alt-right” movement that is widely cited.
Before joining Salon, Matthew ran a marketing and technology company which catered to Republican campaigns, conservative organizations, and publications. During this time, he served as the first online managing editor of the Washington Examiner and as the co-founder and executive editor of NewsBusters. He also produced a comedy television show called “The Flipside” and provided WordPress and Drupal web development services to many clients.
His initial right-leaning project was RatherBiased.com, a blog launched in 2000 that was critical of the former CBS anchor Dan Rather which the Pew Research Center said was most responsible for the explosion of the 2004 “Memogate” scandal that ended Rather’s CBS tenure.
Matthew left conservative media in 2015 after working on a manuscript for a book to help Republicans better understand politics. In researching the topic, he realized that GOP elites were not interested in religious pluralism, and that they often used cultural complaints to distract from unpopular policies.
His introduction to far-right politics grew out of his childhood in a fundamentalist Mormon family. During his youth, Matthew and his 7 siblings lived in cars, tents, trailer parks, and a few regular houses in several U.S. states. He is currently working on a memoir of these years, the first chapter of which is available to Flux subscribers.
