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43-492: 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's founder

86-444: A geographic information system (GIS), where trends based on location can be mapped alongside dozens or hundreds of other variables. This geographic depiction also makes it ideal for volunteers to visit potential voters (armed with lists in hand, laid out in the shortest route—much like how FedEx and UPS pre-determine delivery routes). These databases are then mined to identify issues important to each voter and whether that voter

129-715: A Democratic attorney general candidate in Nevada named Aaron Ford ." Ford won his election. In 2020, the Hopewell Fund financed 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." 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. Courier Newsroom

172-764: 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." In 2020, NewsGuard rated the Courier websites as "generally unreliable." 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." NewsGuard ,

215-420: A consumer-facing browser extension and mobile apps for iOS and Android . Supported browsers for the browser extension include Google Chrome , Microsoft Edge , Firefox , and Safari . It is included by default in the mobile version of Edge, although users must enable it. For revenue, NewsGuard Technologies licenses their ratings. Clients include technology companies and the advertising industry, who view

258-527: A form of microtargeting for the Jewish vote. "According to people familiar with the campaign, he advised the White House on how to reach each of the dozens of distinct Orthodox communities-Syrian and Hungarian, Hasidic and Haredi." Ballabon's efforts also succeeded, with The Forward reporting that Ballabon "basically created a new demographic this election cycle...he helped put his fellow Orthodox Jews on

301-409: 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." 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

344-458: A multitude of voting groups is established according to these criteria and their minute political differences, then the tailored messages can be sent via the appropriate means. While political parties and candidates once prepared a single television advertisement for general broadcast nationwide, it is now not at all uncommon to have several dozen variations on the one message, each with a unique and tailored message for that small demographic sliver of

387-409: A particular political outcome." 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." Courier Newsroom has been accused of producing pink-slime journalism . Microtargeting Microtargeting

430-457: A red icon. Research has shown that readers who see the green icon find the corresponding news site more accurate and trustworthy compared to those who see no icon or a red icon. Brill positions the extension as an alternative to government regulation and automated algorithms, such as those used by Facebook . NewsGuard attempts to advise sites that it labels as unreliable on how to come into compliance with its rating criteria. NewsGuard operates

473-549: 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." 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." The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) described Courier's business model as "money from interested parties who seek

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516-535: A study by the Media Research Center in 2021. In 2024, The Daily Wire , The Federalist , and Texas sued the Department of State arguing that it does not have the authority to give a $ 25,000 grant to tools like NewsGuard that could "render disfavored press outlets unprofitable". The Biden administration sought to have the case dismissed but federal judge Jeremy Kernodle agreed with

559-721: A subgroup on the basis of unique information about that subgroup. Microtargeting is increasingly used by political parties and in election campaigns , including Australia , the United States Republican and Democratic political parties, as well as candidates who track individual voters and identify potential supporters. They use various means of communication such as direct mail, phone calls, home visits, television, radio, web advertising, email, and text messaging, among others, to communicate with voters, crafting messages to build support for fundraising, campaign events, volunteering, and eventually to turn them out to

602-482: A week. 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. 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

645-597: Is Tara McGowan , a political strategist and former journalist who previously worked for the Obama campaign and for the SuperPAC Priorities USA Action . Courier was launched by ACRONYM and is now owned by Good Information Inc . 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

688-459: Is a modification of a practice used by commercial direct marketers. It would not be possible on a large scale without the development of large and sophisticated databases that contain data about as many voters as possible. The database essentially tracks voter habits in the same ways that companies like Visa track consumer spending habits. The Republican National Committee's database is called Voter Vault . The Democratic National Committee effort

731-702: Is based in New York City . It raised $ 6 million in 2018. Investors include the Knight Foundation , Publicis , and former Reuters executive Tom Glocer . Its advisors include former officials such as Tom Ridge (former Secretary of Homeland Security ), Richard Stengel (former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs ), Michael Hayden (former director fo the CIA ), Anders Fogh Rasmussen (former Secretary General of NATO ), and Misplaced Pages founder Jimmy Wales . As of 2019,

774-442: Is called VoteBuilder. A parallel Democratic effort is being developed by Catalist , a $ 9 million initiative headed by Harold Ickes , while the leading non-partisan database is offered by Aristotle . The databases contain specific information about a particular voter (party affiliation, frequency of voting, contributions, volunteerism, etc.) with other activities and habits available from commercial data brokers . For instance,

817-548: Is more likely to identify with one party or another. As described by Cambridge Analytica’s CEO, their key was to identify people who might be enticed to vote for their client or be discouraged to vote for their opponent. Political information is obviously important here, but consumer preferences can play a role as well. Individual voters are then put into groups on the basis of sophisticated computer modeling. Such groups have names like "Downscale Union Independents", "Tax and Terrorism Moderates," and "Older Suburban Newshounds." Once

860-416: Is the use of online data to tailor advertising messages to individuals, based on the identification of recipients’ personal vulnerabilities. Such tactics can be used for promoting a product or a political candidate. Direct marketing data mining techniques that are used often involve predictive market segmentation (aka cluster analysis ). Microtargeting's tactics rely on transmitting a tailored message to

903-563: The The New Republic at 92.5, Mother Jones at 69.5, and The Washington Post at 100. It also recently downgraded the The New York Times from 100 to 87.5 for not distinguishing clearly enough between opinion and fact. CEO L. Gordon Crovitz said in 2024, "Under NewsGuard's apolitical rating system, many conservative outlets outscore similar left-leaning brands: The Daily Caller outscores The Daily Beast ,

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946-530: The 2006 election cycle . "It's no secret that the other side [Republicans] figured this out a little sooner", said Josh Syrjamaki, director of the Minnesota chapter of America Votes in October 2006. "They've had four to six years' jump on us on this stuff...but we feel like we can start to catch up." In India, firms like EdwardGlobal were first to combine Microtargeting with Geofencing. From 2010 to 2012,

989-552: The Associated Press for 25 years, joined Newsguard. In April 2019, the co-founders of NewsGuard announced that they had entered talks with British internet service providers to incorporate their credibility scoring system into consumer internet packages. Under the plans, a user would see a warning message before visiting a misleading site without needing to have the NewsGuard extension installed. Users would also have

1032-604: The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) operated the social media network ZunZuneo in Cuba in a microtargeting effort to identify those in support and opposed to the Cuban government so a "Cuban Spring " could be promoted on the platform. In the 2016 United States presidential election , Cambridge Analytica played a role in first promoting Ted Cruz and, eventually, Donald Trump . However,

1075-471: The New York Times called "the best political journalism you've never heard of." 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. The articles are promoted on social media such as Facebook, which does not prohibit the practice because

1118-430: 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." NOTUS wrote that "Courier grew out of

1161-687: The U.S., the U.K., France, Germany and Italy. In January 2022, the company said it was profitable, having doubled its revenue over the last year. Since 2022, the company has partnered the American Federation of Teachers so that many classrooms and libraries in the United States have the NewsGuard browser extension installed on their computers, expanding access to millions of users. This was criticised by conservatives and Republican politicians, who said that NewsGuard ranked left-leaning media outlets higher than right-leaning ones, citing

1204-657: The United States. Although some of the tactics of microtargeting had been used in California since 1992, it really started to be used nationally only in 2004 . In that year, Karl Rove , along with Blaise Hazelwood at the Republican National Committee , used it to reach voters in 18 states that George W. Bush's reelection campaign was not able to reach by other means. The results were greater contacts with likely Bush voters. For example, in Iowa

1247-452: The ability to disable the feature. In January 2020, NewsGuard began notifying users that it would become a paid, member-supported browser extension in early 2020, while remaining free for libraries and schools. Early adopters received a 33% discount on the price, paying $ 1.95/month (USD) or £1.95/month (UK). They plan to roll out new premium features, including a reliability score, and offer new mobile apps for Android and iOS . NewsGuard

1290-464: The campaign was able to reach 92% of eventual Bush voters (compared to 50% in 2000 ) and in Florida it was able to reach 84% (compared to 50% in 2000). Much of this pioneering work was done by Alex Gage and his firm, TargetPoint Consulting. Also in 2004, Jeff Ballabon , a senior executive at niche content publisher and Internet giant Primedia, Inc. , owner of About.com , independently engaged in

1333-661: The claims of Cambridge Analytica's influence, made by its managers, have not been proven, and Cruz's opponent Ben Carson was ultimately unsuccessful even though he, too, involved Cambridge Analytica in his campaign. Microtargeting is a form of targeting that uses recent technological developments to gather large amounts of online data. The data from people's digital footprints is analysed to create and convey messages that reflect an individual's preferences and personality. Research has shown that such digital footprints can be used to accurately and unobtrusively predict psychological traits and states of large groups of people. Microtargeting

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1376-506: The company Cambridge Analytica added the OCEAN psychological profile (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) analysis to other private and public data, and developed the ability to “micro-target” individual consumers or voters with messages most likely to influence their behavior. Such personal information is a "product" sold to interested companies. These data are particularly illuminating when portrayed through

1419-500: The company behind the tool, also provides services such as misinformation tracking and brand safety for advertisers, search engines, social media platforms, cybersecurity firms, and government agencies. NewsGuard Technologies was founded in 2018 by Steven Brill and L. Gordon Crovitz , who serve as co-CEOs. Crovitz was a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal . In 2018, Joyce Purnick , former bureau chief and editor at The New York Times , and Amy Westfeldt, an editor with

1462-429: The company employed 35 journalists to review over 2,000 news sites. Ratings are broken down in terms of reliability, trustworthiness, and financial conflict of interest. This and additional information is then displayed in the form of a "Nutrition Label" by the NewsGuard browser extension whenever a user visits a news site. Sites that pass are shown with a green icon next to their name. Those with low scores are shown with

1505-571: The map as a separate Republican Party constituency. He — or rather, President Bush — was rewarded royally when as many as 80% of Orthodox Jews nationally gave their vote to the GOP ticket." Democrats did limited microtargeting in 2004, with some crediting microtargeting for Kerry's win in Iowa in 2004. Some news accounts credited Republican superiority in that area for victories in that election cycle. Democrats later developed microtargeting capabilities for

1548-532: The newspapers are for-profit. Funders include George Soros , Reid Hoffman , and movie producers. 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." According to NOTUS , that same year "Courier wrote frequently and favorably of

1591-519: The plaintiff and allowed the case to proceed. Republican politicians in the U.S. House of Representatives opened a probe into Newsguard in June 2024. NewsGuard's founders cautioned that its "Nutrition Label" should not be treated as an endorsement equivalent to the nutrition facts label from the Food and Drug Administration . As of June 2024, Newsguard rated Fox News at 69.5, Breitbart News at 49.5,

1634-456: The polls on the election day. Microtargeting can also be used, sometimes by foreign actors, to spread disinformation about political candidates and events among target groups. For example, during the 2016 U.S. election, Russian disinformation campaigns targeted Facebook followers and now-defunct Cambridge Analytica exploited their data. Concerns about the legality and restriction of microtargeting have been raised in both Europe and

1677-568: The ratings as a way to protect clients against advertising on sites that could harm their brand. It also contracts with the United States Department of Defense . NewsGuard expanded its coverage to news in European languages such as French and German ahead of the 2019 European Parliament election . As of January 2021, NewsGuard said it has rated more than 6,000 news sites that account for 95% of online engagement with news in

1720-478: The reach of partisan sites by restricting their access and curtailing their advertising. Courier Newsroom was originally owned by liberal dark money group ACRONYM , but ACRONYM later divested its stake in the company in April 2021. As of June 2021, Courier Newsroom operates progressive digital news outlets in ten states. In June 2021, the company acquired a progressive political news site, Iowa Starting Line, which

1763-622: The targeting of news to swing voters "problematic." 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." 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." NewsGuard , which rates news sources, warns readers that Courier Newsroom websites are "insufficiently transparent" and "cherry-pick facts to advance

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1806-501: The voting public. This is the same for radio advertisement, direct mail, email, as well as stump speeches and fundraising events. NewsGuard NewsGuard is a rating system for news and information websites. It is accessible via browser extensions and mobile apps . According to NewsGuard, its team of "expert journalists" score publishers on a scale of 0–100 based on whether they have transparent finances or publish many errors, among other criteria. NewsGuard Technologies Inc.,

1849-507: Was originally owned by ACRONYM ; 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 . A complaint to the Federal Elections Commission was dismissed and ACRONYM has since dissolved. Carrie Brown, director of social journalism at the journalism school at City University of New York, found

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