Courier Newsroom is a digital media company that operates news outlets and sponsors political content intended to support Democratic candidates.[a][2][3][4] It microtargets voters via social media advertising with the intention to both inform and persuade.[5]
Courier's lack of transparency about its funding sources and glowing coverage of Democratic candidates have raised questions about its reliability and about the line between advocacy and journalism. Courier engages in political microtargeting and the Columbia Journalism Review described Courier's business model as "money from interested parties who seek a particular political outcome."
Courier Newsroom was founded in 2019 by Tara McGowan. As of May 2020, Courier Newsroom websites had a budget of $11 million, a staff of 60 reporters and 12 editors, and aimed to publish approximately 300 articles and videos a week.[4] Courier Newsroom raised $15 million in the first half of 2022 from donors including Reid Hoffman and George Soros. The outlet spent over $5 million on Facebook and Instagram advertising designed to promote Democratic candidates and members of Congress.[11]Mark Zuckerberg's concern that the Courier Newsroom was not a real news outlet sparked a 2020 change in policy at Facebook, which started to limit the reach of partisan sites by restricting their access and curtailing their advertising.[12] Courier Newsroom was originally owned by liberal dark money group ACRONYM, but ACRONYM later divested its stake in the company in April 2021.[13][3][14]
As of June 2021, Courier Newsroom operates progressive digital news outlets in ten states.[15] In June 2021, the company acquired a progressive political news site, Iowa Starting Line, which the New York Times called "the best political journalism you've never heard of."[16][17]
Strategy
The Courier Newsroom's local digital news outlets are not traditional town newspapers. Instead, they are websites designed to encourage people in key swing states to vote Democratic, while looking like local newspapers.[18][b] The articles are promoted on social media such as Facebook, which does not prohibit the practice because the newspapers are for-profit.[7]
Funders include George Soros, Reid Hoffman, and movie producers.[4][19] Courier Newsroom received $250,000 from Planned Parenthood between June 2021 and June 2022. It received $715,000 in 2022 from "a dark money group with close ties to the Democratic Attorneys General Association" for "content creation and promotion."[20] According to NOTUS, that same year "Courier wrote frequently and favorably of a Democratic attorney general candidate in Nevada named Aaron Ford." Ford won his election.[20]
In 2020, the Hopewell Fund financed[vague] Courier Newsroom. The New York Times reported that Courier "published articles favoring Democrats and received millions of dollars from dark money groups. It was paid $2.6 million by a nonprofit linked to House Democratic leadership to promote articles."[21]
As of 2024, Courier Newsroom had spent more than $12 million on Facebook and Instagram ads. This number does not include spending on TikTok, which does not disclose advertising spending.[20]
Reception
Courier Newsroom was originally owned by ACRONYM;[22][23][24] the creation and operation of Courier Newsroom initially raised ethics questions about ACRONYM and about its financiers, who include billionaires Reid Hoffman and Laurene Powell Jobs.[25] A complaint to the Federal Elections Commission was dismissed and ACRONYM has since dissolved.[6]
Carrie Brown, director of social journalism at the journalism school at City University of New York, found the targeting of news to swing voters "problematic."[c]Vox reported that "the Courier Newsroom launch did raise some eyebrows. If this were a Republican operative declaring its strategy like this, a lot of Democrats probably would have criticized it."[26] According to OpenSecrets, "websites affiliated with Courier Newsroom that appear to be free-standing local news outlets are actually part of a coordinated effort with deep ties to Democratic political operatives."[3]
NewsGuard, which rates news sources, warns readers that Courier Newsroom websites are "insufficiently transparent" and "cherry-pick facts to advance a Democratic narrative." Gabby Deutch, writing on behalf of NewsGuard, called Courier News a "faux news site" and said while "[u]nlike some sources of partisan disinformation, Courier stories are generally fact-based" its strategy is nevertheless "pumping up moderate Democrats elected to Congress in 2018 in Republican-leaning districts."[23] In 2020, NewsGuard rated the Courier websites as "generally unreliable."[d] In 2024, NewGuard's editor said that "Courier Newsroom sites do not disclose ownership and financing, they do not disclose possible conflicts of interest, nor do they gather and present information responsibility."[20]NewsGuard, a misinformation tracking company that rates the reliability of news sources, has warned that "Courier's undisclosed funders and glowing coverage of Democratic candidates should raise questions about its reliability."[20] A 2024 study by NewsGuard found that "the number of partisan-backed outlets designed to look like impartial news outlets has officially surpassed the number of real, local daily newspapers in the U.S." NewsGuard identified at least 1,265 such websites "backed by dark money or intentionally masquerading as local news sites for political purposes." According to Axios, almost half of these websites are targeted to swing states, "a clear sign that they're designed to influence politics." Courier Newsroom was described by Axios as having "some of the more strategic sites."[27]
NOTUS wrote that "Courier grew out of a series of explicitly political experiments that hinged on using paid online advertising to turn out voters. It then pivoted to being a privately owned media company" that is "testing the limits of what a newsroom can be."[20]
According to The Wall Street Journal, outlets like Courier try to capitalize on readers' trust in local news sources "while playing down their partisan interests and often obscuring their donors."[4]
The Columbia Journalism Review(CJR) described Courier's business model as "money from interested parties who seek a particular political outcome."[28]CJR also reported that Courier engages in political microtargeting wherein "employees at Courier's headquarters are responsible for testing whether content produced by its local newsrooms is successful in moving voters in a desired progressive direction."[29]
^Courier Newsroom, which Bloomberg called "a liberal, digital spin on local news."[1]
^the effort is also designed to help elect Democrats, by delivering partisan news stories to swing-state voters on Facebook[8]
^Carrie Brown, director of social journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. But the notion of targeting it directly at specific voters in swing states, "that is interesting and more problematic."[8]
^assessed the Courier websites as "generally unreliable."[8]
^A Facebook ad about Trump and the pandemic from "Cardinal & Pine," a North Carolina-focused Courier outlet, was seen disproportionately by people who were young and female, a group that turns out at a relatively low rate, but tends to support Democrats[8]
^Thompson, Alex (14 July 2020). "Newsroom or PAC? Liberal group muddies online information wars". Politico. Retrieved 5 September 2020. Acronym — a sprawling digital organization whose programs include millions of dollars in traditional political advertising and voter engagement efforts, with financing from some of the deepest pockets in progressive politics, such as liberal billionaires Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, and Laurene Powell Jobs, the majority owner of The Atlantic — has stirred outrage and provoked debate about the ethics of such political tactics
