[2] SourceFed was a part of DeFranco's portfolio of Internet-based media properties, including his own eponymous news YouTube series.

That portfolio was named DeFranco Creative and later renamed SourceFed Studios when acquired by Discovery Communications' Revision3.

Due to DeFranco's position as a YouTube partner, the website offered him funding for an original channel.

[5] DeFranco hand-picked the first six hosts of SourceFed: Joe Bereta, Elliott Morgan, Lee Newton, Steve Zaragoza, Trisha Hershberger, and Meg Turney.

As additional content was being introduced, the SourceFed crew expanded, adding hosts and editors to its team.

Bereta and Morgan claimed that these crashes coincided with them telling their audience through 20 Minutes or Less to vote for Newton as a write-in candidate.

[21][22][23] A public relations representative for YouTube stated “Having awesome partners like Philip DeFranco involved will attract younger viewers and he will have a really fresh take on politics".

[25] Most of the partners of Election Hub, excluding DeFranco, Al Jazeera English and BuzzFeed, struggled to garner 1,000 views of their on-demand content during the RNC.

[35] While at VidCon 2013, DeFranco gathered 554 people to play Ninja, a playground game, claiming the amount would be a world record.

[40][41] In September 2014, Zaragoza and Newton hosted a news story covering various charities' refusal of donations from Reddit, following the then-recent celebrity nude photo leaks.

[42] DeFranco took to Reddit, stating that the significant drop in subscribers was either due to "an error of that individual stats website or YouTube removing dead accounts.

"[42] Additionally, in response to requests or demands in favor of removing or firing any hosts, DeFranco stated, "No.

[45] Lieberman did emphasize that SourceFed was not accusing Google of any crimes, instead calling the manipulation "deeply unethical and wrong but not illegal.

"[45] The video attracted considerably more media attention than other SourceFed uploads, as it was referred to in posts by USA Today, The Washington Times, Business Insider, and The Globe and Mail, among other outlets.

[45][46][47][48] Shane Dingman, writing for The Globe and Mail opined that "This conspiracy theory post is not typical fare" for SourceFed.

[48] Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times wrote that the "conspiracy theory [about Google suppressing negative news in search results about Hillary Clinton] began with a video from the online outlet SourceFed that went viral this year, and quickly garnered headlines on conservative news sites like Breitbart and InfoWars.

[50] The video also drew responses from Google and Donald Trump (the Republican Party's then-presumptive nominee for President of United States).

DeFranco also hand-selected a second batch of three hosts (Trisha Hershberger, Meg Turney, and Steve Zaragoza) who debuted on the channel in 2012.

[57] Amidst the 2014 departures of Everett, Morgan, and Turney, SourceFed brought on William Haynes, Matt Lieberman, and Reina Scully in March 2014, serving as the de facto replacements for the former.

On February 24, 2015, Sam Bashor accepted an offer to become an official host on the SourceFed and SourceFedNerd channels.

[‡ 17][‡ 18] Coinciding with their departures, Ava Gordy and Candace Carrizales were introduced as hosts on the main SourceFed channel.

From May to December 2012, Deadline Hollywood tracked the weekly views of all the original premium channels on YouTube.

[79][‡ 29] The Wall Street Journal noted that it was hard to figure out why the simplicity of the idea behind SourceFed was able to receive mass appeal.

[80] After winning the Streamy Audience Choice Award for Series of the Year, SourceFed's The New Movie Thing Show was criticized by The Atlantic.

The publication wrote "The audience pick for series of the year went to SourceFed, which consists of short clips of people explaining things in loud, fast voices," and "It's not even close to quality programming.