In the past 25 years, daily newspaper flow has fallen from over 60 million members to just over 20 million. This is a dramatic decline in British media. And the trend is accelerating: According to the Pew Research Organization, the , regular regular number of unique visitors , to the sites of the country’s leading 50 media plummeted 20 percent in one year from 2021 to 2022.
The remaining reader expresses a historically low level of faith in the accuracy of the reports they are receiving. Only 32 percent of Americans say they have a “great package or a good amount of trust” in the internet, according to , polling from Gallup.
Polling has long indicated that American consumers believe local advertising more than the national media, which is a positive sign. ” In 2021, Americans were 17 factors more likely to state they believe reporting by regional news organizations ‘ a great deal’ or’ quite a lot’ than to believe monitoring by national media organizations”, notes , a survey , done by Gallup and the Knight Foundation. However, the media industry’s recent merger has had a negative impact on the level of consumer distrust of the news.  ,
Local news agencies have been particularly affected by readership drop, though. Some have folded, cut workers, been purchased by private equity firms, or absorbed by national media companies, which has diminished their editorial freedom.  ,
In recent years, hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding poured into local advertising in what appears to be a cautionary treatment of faith in the power of the area or regional media. However, some of these investments come from left-leaning activists and liberal foundations, who some fear will further undermine the credibility of the media by having openly ideological and partisan agendas. While conservative donors also support news outlets ( including RealClearInvestigations ), their contributions are far smaller than those coming from the left — contributions large enough to radically remake the local news landscape. Among the notable instances of that money are:
- The MacArthur Foundation’s launch of its” Press Forward” initiative last fall, which committed to , spending$ 500 million  , over the next five years to “enhance local journalism at an unprecedented level to re-center local news as a force for community cohesion, support new models and solutions that are ready to scale, and close longstanding inequities in journalism coverage and practice” . ,
- The National Trust for Local News announced its , 2021 statement of its , and$ 300 million target of accumulating it for” a non-profit news organization dedicated to protecting and sustaining group news , to publish , sustainable area newspapers that safeguard the public trust, elevate the facts, empower communities with solutions, and develop a strong sense of place. Last season, the National Trust for Local News slowly acquired Maine’s largest paper, The Portland Press-Herald, along with 22 other media in the state.  ,
- The design of , States Newsroom,  , which was founded only six years ago with the goal of “nonpartisan policy of state policy” , , and has already formed alliances with local stores in all 50 states. Its stated goal is to “hard-hitting monitoring and remark to transform the social debate.”
- The creation of , The American Journalism Project,  , which describes its mission as “venture philanthropy” , , has committed$ 55 million to “rebuilding local news” . ,
States Newsroom, National Trust for Local News, American Journalism Project, and Courier Newsroom were reached by RealClearInvestigations. None of them responded to a request for comment.
Match the Sponsors
While not all the funding sources for these projects are formally political, to the extent the funding of these innovative regional journalism initiatives is formally known, some of the biggest donors and foundations on the liberal left are strongly associated with them. These donors have a track record of supporting initiatives that are ideological or partisan, or both, and they have little experience with local journalism.  ,
For instance, the National Trust for Local News and The American Journalism Project were also funded by the MacArthur Foundation, in addition to its$ 500 million Press Forward initiative. Long known for funding left-wing causes, MacArthur endorsed one of the most politically controversial works of advocacy journalism in the last decade. The architect of The New York Times ‘ 1619 Project, which claimed that the year enslaved people were first brought to Virginia was the” true founding]date ] of America, not 1776, was one of the foundation’s generous$ 800, 000″ Genius Grants.” The 1619 Project received scathing criticism , from some of America’s most eminent historians , and one of the 1619 Project ‘s , own fact-checkers, and entire essays in the project were so factually incorrect that there were , calls for them to be retracted entirely.
The National Trust for Local News, which has also received funding from the Tides Foundation and the Open Society Foundations, two of the largest sources of left-wing political funding, is also supported by the MacArthur Foundation.
The Tides Foundation, a “donor-advised” fund, allows contributors to direct where the money goes. Tides obscures the original source of the funds by acting as an intermediary, making it what transparency advocates refer to as a “dark money” group. Tides is one of the largest dark money operations and spent ,$ 854 million in 2022 alone. It grants millions of dollars to pro-Democrat get-out-the-vote campaigns, abolishing pretrial bail for those accused of violent crimes, and support for Hamamas demonstrations following the Israeli terror attack on October 7, 2023.  ,
Leftist billionaire George Soros is the creator of the Open Society Foundations network. According , to NBC News, between 2020 and 2023,” Soros ‘ contributions to political campaigns and causes since January 2020]amount ] to roughly half a billion dollars — at the least — most of it steered through dark money nonprofit groups and going largely toward political causes aligned with the Democratic Party”. Soros has the authority to influence local news consumption in addition to funding the National Trust for Local News, according to his family office’s recent purchase of a significant stake in 227 radio stations across the United States.
Both the National Trust for Local News and States Newsroom have received funding from controversial Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, who has spent nearly half a billion dollars on American left-wing causes. Despite the fact that it is against the law for foreigners to donate money to U.S. elections, Wyss gave almost$ 20,000 between 1990 and 2006 to candidates and political committees. Wyss was never punished because the statute of limitations had passed by the time the Federal Elections Commission investigated his illegal donations.  ,
In 2021, Wyss partnered with another influential Democratic donor, hotel magnate Stewart W. Bainum Jr., in an unsuccessful attempt to purchase Tribune Publishing, which then owned the Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, and the Baltimore Sun among other newspapers and media properties.  ,
In addition, some of the largest donations to The American Journalism Project are from , the foundations of high-profile Democratic megadonors. The Emerson Collective has given more than$ 5 million, which is funded by Laurene Powell Jobs, the owner of The Atlantic and one of the largest shareholders in Disney/ABC. Also, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s The Democracy Fund and the Craig Newmark Philanthropic Fund of the eponymous Craigslist founder have given The American Journalism project donations somewhere between$ 1 million and$ 5 million.  ,
For her part, Powell Jobs has built out a well-funded network designed to explicitly , advance the policy goals of the Democratic Party.
Omidyar has long supported journalism efforts, including those for The Intercept, The Intercept, and Democracy Fund, and has also provided significant grants to the Defending Democracy Together Institute, which is closely linked to the online anti-Trump outlet The Bulwark.  ,
In 2020, Newmark made a public pledge to a$ 200 million media campaign to influence the election, alleging that “foreign adversaries” were in charge of the Trump White House. Relatedly, Google and Facebook are also major donors to The American Journalism Project, and both companies have received heavy criticism for election meddling and censoring information on Covid and various political topics that later turned out to be accurate.  ,
Ironically, perhaps no single man is more responsible for the death of local media than Newmark, as it was Craigslist that destroyed classified advertising, a major source of revenue for newspapers. In 2021, Newmark  told the Press-Gazette,” I’m very concerned about jobs for journalists, and the future of local journalism,” and” I’ve always guessed that Craigslist might have an impact.”
Laundering Political Points of View
Media critics contend that just because these initiatives support local journalism are supported by so many partisan and ideological funders is not enough reason to reject them.
Steve Krakauer, a former CNN producer and author of Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned its Principles and Lost the People, points to the hypocritical outrage in the national press when a major Republican donor recently bought the Baltimore Sun earlier this year. NPR claimed that his purchase of the paper” sparked outrage and bafflement” among” some Baltimore residents,” despite the fact that the new owner claimed he had no plans to politicize the news and wanted to “return the paper to localism.”
Commentary of this sort rarely attends the acquisition or major financial support of a media source by wealthy individuals and outfits on the left. According to Krakauer,” just because someone is coming from a political standpoint, whether from the right or the left, should n’t be immediately dismissed as someone who ca n’t have an objective news organization.”
The infusion of nonprofit money reflects the economic reality that newspapers ‘ traditional reliance on advertising and subscription revenue has become an increasingly unsustainable business model.  ,
A growing concern is that the content of these new progressive donor-funded local news sites slants liberal in ways that many of the old independently owned regional newspapers that were accountable to their subscribers for revenue did not.  ,
Even the perception that progressive donors with national priorities now control large swaths of local media threatens to erode confidence in the media at a time when there’s too little trust left. And this mistrust has a well-known and troubling partisan component, which was documented by Gallup.
Pew also notes that media distrust is “driven by a decline among Republicans” and” the percentage of Republicans with at least some trust in national news organizations has been cut in half — dropping from 70 % in 2016 to 35 % ]in 2021]”.
According to Krakauer, when Republican news outlets learn that George Soros is a man in charge of almost every major newspaper in Maine- a state with the potential to influence a national election- it is reasonable for them to assume that partisans are taking control of a place that has n’t traditionally been seen as political and partisan.
Michael Watson, the author of a report on the left-wing incursion into local news for the right-leaning Capital Research Center, argues that media bias is often exhibited in structural issues that are n’t always obvious from reading day-to-day reporting.  ,
” During the 20th-century heyday of the metropolitan-liberal commercial press, well-resourced regional and local newspapers — through their coverage decisions, investigative journalism projects, and editorial voice — could set the tone for local and state-level policy discussions” , , observed Watson. They “had the authority to choose which viewpoints and issues merited consideration.” The fracturing of the media world in the 21st century has given that power to everyone and no one — and it is a power the institutional left is prepared to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to retake”.
Additionally, Watson asserts that it’s not hard to deny that progressive supporters of these local news initiatives use journalism as a means of achieving their political objectives. ” The philanthropic sector recognizes the need to strengthen American democracy and is beginning to see that progress on every other issue, from education and healthcare to criminal justice reform and climate change, is dependent on the public’s understanding of the facts”, said the president of the MacArthur Foundation in , the press release announcing , their$ 500 million Press Forward initiative.  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,
” When you read that, you think’ Aha!'” Watson asserts. ” Because if I may be aggressively cynical, if you control the public’s understanding of the facts, you control every other issue” . ,
A Case Study in Courier Newsroom
Courier Newsroom provides a case study of this phenomenon. With the intention of influencing voters, Courier has been running ersatz news websites in swing states for years. At first glance, one of its publications, the” Virgina Dogwood”, could easily be mistaken for just another local news website. It appears to be a fairly innocuous source of information for residents of the Old Dominion with headlines like” Inside scoop: 10 unique VA ice cream shops to visit for National Ice Cream Month” and” Get nimble with these adult gymnastics classes in Virginia.”  ,
However, a closer examination reveals something more. At least half of the stories on its homepage recently were about national politics and had little or nothing to do with local Virginia issues. The majority of the stories are obviously biased toward the Democratic ticket’s electoral gain, with headlines like” Trump’s policies would cause inflation to rise, economists say” and” Allegations of sexual assault and animal cruelty emerge in new RFK Jr. report.” Unlike a traditional publication, the website is very sparse, has no logo or illustrated masthead, its graphic design is an afterthought, and there’s almost no advertising.  ,
On Sept. 23, two X accounts affiliated with Kamala Harris ‘ presidential campaign—” Kamala HQ” and” Kamala’s Wins” — , reposted a headline , from another of Courier’s regional outlets,” Keystone Newsroom”, asserting that the Polish community of Pennsylvania had endorsed her campaign — the implication being that Harris had broad support from a prominent ethnic group in a crucial swing state. In reality, the article was just promoting an endorsement letter that had been signed by a number of well-known partisans.  ,
By reaching audiences online with factual, values-driven news and analysis, Courier Newsroom describes itself as” a pro-democracy news network that builds a more informed, engaged, and representative America.” In addition to Virginia and Pennsylvania, Courier , runs similar misleading websites in , Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Nevada, and New Hampshire.  ,
Courier’s real plan is n’t necessarily building” a more informed, engaged, and representative America”. Since its inception five years ago, Courier has played a key role in” the left’s plan to slip vote-swaying news into Facebook feeds,” according to a 2019 Bloomberg profile.
Courier Newsroom was created specifically to blur the line between political advertising and journalism. Media outlets are not subject to Federal Election Committee rules and reporting requirements, unlike campaigns and political action committees. In 2020, the FEC  dismissed a complaint against Courier , alleging that it should be required to be required to register as a PAC. Many social media platforms also have rules restricting political advertising, rules that Courier can get around by presenting itself as a for-profit media outlet.  ,
” Courier publications are n’t actually traditional hometown newspapers but political instruments designed to get them to vote for Democrats”, observes Bloomberg. The articles are written in the manner of regular news, but their goal is not primarily to increase readership for the website; rather, it’s for the pieces to spread their message more effectively through social media.
Courier has hired , ex-Facebook employees , and spent millions of dollars promoting its stories on Facebook and Instagram feeds using targeting tools with the goal of effecting specific election outcomes. One metric Courier relies on, according to Wired magazine, is how much money they spend on Facebook ads per vote gained.  ,
” Hyperlocal Partisan Propaganda”
Courier Newsroom is the brainchild of Tara McGowan, a former journalist who worked at “60 Minutes” and CBS News who went on to work on Barack Obama’s reelection campaign. McGowan founded Acronym, a digital political strategy firm that has been a significant player in liberal politics and is in charge of the Courier incubation, in 2017.  ,
Acronym was the only investor and owned a desk with another digital company called Shadow, which created the vote-counting app that the Democratic Party used to support the 2020 Iowa caucus. The app crashed as they were counting votes in the caucus, and after days of uncertainty, future Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg emerged from the Iowa caucus with more delegates than Bernie Sanders, even though Sanders won the popular vote.  ,
Those doubting the results quickly pointed to some major conflicts of interest. While Shadow had recently been compensated for his work on the Biden and Buttigieg campaigns, McCowan was married to Buttigieg strategist Michael Halle. The fiasco led the chair of the state party to resign and many prominent Democrats to openly question the results of the caucus, and the defeat of Sanders, a candidate disfavored by the Democratic Party establishment, helped Biden come from behind to beat his chief rival in the primary and eventually win the presidency.
After Acronym ceded its stake in Courier in 2021, McGowan continues to be the publisher of Courier Newsroom. As for what McGowan is doing with Courier, media critics do not mince words.  ,
” Tara McGowan and Courier are not trying to have an objective news organization, play it straight, and serve the people of whatever local audiences that they’re trying to serve”, says Krakauer. They are trying to turn political viewpoints into what is perceived as an objective news source, which is the worst thing you can do, they claim.
There have also been other ethical questions raised about Courier’s funding. Despite a protracted “Ethics & Standards” statement that reads,” Our coverage is not determined by our funders,” Courier received$ 2,500 from Planned Parenthood while “propagating content about what the election means for abortion access,” NOTUS reports.
Acronym and Courier have also attracted the financial support of the familiar roster of liberal players. Acronym has been backed by billionaire Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn and a well-known Democratic donor, along with George Soros.  ,
Hoffman apologized publicly in 2018 after it was revealed that he had funded a company called New Knowledge that had spread false information that might have helped Democrats in Alabama narrowly win a senate election. According to The New York Times, New Knowledge” created a Facebook page intended to look like the work of conservative Alabamians, and used it to try to split Republicans and promote a conservative write-in candidate to take votes from]Republican candidate Roy ] Moore” . ,
Additionally, New Knowledge created fake social media accounts to make it appear as though Moore was supported by Russians, a ruse that the Times notes “drew broad news media coverage.” After his funding of New Knowledge came to light, Hoffman declared,” I categorically disavow the use of misinformation to sway an election”. His subsequent funding of Acronym and Courier suggests that his disapproval is n’t so categorical.  ,
It has been reported extensively and widely reported that Laurene Powell Jobs has funded Acronym and Courier as well as ostensibly legitimate local news initiatives through her Emerson Collective foundation. Powell Jobs, who owns The Atlantic, one of America’s most influential magazines, is best friends with Kamala Harris, according to The New York Times. She has nevertheless been the subject of fawning coverage in her media investments. One CNET article declared,” Laurene Powell Jobs invests in news because she worries about democracy”, and a New York Times profile was headlined,” Can Laurene Powell Jobs Save Storytelling” ? ,
The Free Beacon, a website with a right-leaning backbone, ran a critical column about her funding of Acronym and Courier, almost alone in. ” The state of Powell Jobs’s investments — media properties faltering as a fake news operation takes off — flies in the face of her carefully curated image as a friend to the free press”, observed Charles Fain Lehmann.  ,
But if disguising political ads as news stories seemed like a novel, if troubling, approach when Courier launched five years ago, now it’s become standard operating procedure. Axios reported just last month that” 45 percent of partisan-backed outlets designed to appear like impartial news outlets are targeted to swing states — a clear sign that they’re designed to influence politics.” The article did not note that Powell Jobs, who is a major Axios investor, has funded such operations.
Progressives are not the only ones who create obscenely partisan news sources, according to Axios. ” The vast majority of the]partisan ] sites observed are backed by Metric Media, a conservative network traced back to media entrepreneur Brian Timpone, who has links to conservative donors”, reports Axios. The majority of Metric Media websites do n’t provide much information about the site’s owners or managers. The stories typically lack bylines and many are outdated or marked as ‘ press release submissions.'” Even though Metric Media tries to fly under the radar, it was the subject of a critical New York Times investigation in 2020.  ,
In contrast, McGowan has been the subject of numerous media profiles in glossy magazines that tries to promote her work.  , Fast Company praised , her as the” Democratic operative who beat Trump” and declared that boosting deceptively labeled news in front of voters is” an idea that will outlive Courier, despite the criticism” . ,
That was written four years ago, and it appears Courier’s pioneering work using false information to influence elections has been persistently influential. As recently as July 7,  , Semafor reported , that Democratic super-lawyer Marc Elias — famous for his significant role in paying for the” Steele Dossier”, which launched thousands of erroneous media reports claiming President Trump was compromised by the Russian government — was fighting off attempts by Arizona regulators to require a pro-abortion news site run by a Democratic front group to be subject to campaign finance laws. For the most part, it seems like partisan websites that pretend to be journalists will be a part of American elections.  ,
RealClearInvestigations was the first to publish this article.