Tara McGowan on C-SPAN

Over the past three months, an avowed left-wing organization has spent more than $9 million on Facebook ads boosting Vice President Kamala Harris and attacking former president Donald Trump. The spots have reached scores of swing state voters using a Facebook feature that allows advertisers to submit their own data—for political groups, that is, data they've compiled on voters—to reach a precise audience.

The practice is considered standard operating procedure for campaigns and PACs. But the group behind the $9 million digital ad blitz is neither a campaign nor a PAC—at least not on paper. Instead, it's Courier Newsroom, liberal operative Tara McGowan's organization that pushes Democratic talking points under the guise of local "news" outlets.

Courier's Facebook ad spending—and its targeting tactics—reflect the extent to which Democrats rely on McGowan's media project to reach voters online. 

While the $9 million Courier has spent on Facebook ads since Aug. 3 is not a substantial amount when compared with spending on television advertisements (Future Forward, the preeminent PAC supporting Harris, had already reserved $332 million worth of airtime by mid-September), it is a sizable sum in the digital ad game, where a few hundred dollars is enough to place a spot that garners thousands of impressions. And while Future Forward does run digital ads, it has spent $4.8 million on such spots in the last 90 days, roughly half as much as Courier.

Courier’s ad blitz also reflects the advantages the group receives by presenting itself as a nonpartisan news entity.

When Future Forward runs a Facebook ad, it does so through a page that explicitly labels it a political organization. That page includes a disclaimer that it is "paid for by FF PAC." A curious user could follow the information to the Federal Election Commission database and review Future Forward's public donors, including liberal billionaires Michael Bloomberg and Reid Hoffman.

But when Courier runs a Facebook ad, it does so through one of its 11 "local news" outlets. The Facebook pages for those outlets are labeled "Media/news company," rather than "Political Organization." They're also designed to appear nonpartisan. The Facebook page for The Keystone, Courier's Pennsylvania site, features a map of the state emblazoned with its official flower. Its bio reads, "Pennsylvania news by and for the people of Pennsylvania." And unlike Future Forward, Courier is not subject to the FEC's donor disclosure laws.

At the same time, its "news" is little more than political advertising—in this case, positive messaging about Democrats—with some window dressing to make it look like objective reporting and therefore gain credibility in the eyes of voters. That setup garnered criticism from the Center for Responsive Politics—which labeled Courier "fake news"—as well as CNN's Jake Tapper and Brian Stelter. In a 2020 TV segment, Tapper said Courier is "not an actual newsroom, it's an organization funded by Democratic donors," while Stelter dubbed Courier "pink slime."

"This is a big problem, I'm glad you brought this up, because this is a phenomenon known as 'pink slime' sites," Stelter said. "They look like news, they might taste or smell like news, but they are not."

Courier doesn't seem to be hurting for cash. From Aug. 3 to Oct. 31, the group spent $9.2 million on Facebook ads primarily targeting five swing states: Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina, a Washington Free Beacon review found. Courier has more recently ramped up its ads in Nevada, spending nearly $300,000 there in the last week.

Many of the ads deal with abortion and birth control. In North Carolina, for example, an active Courier spot says Trump "raised the alarming prospect of restricting birth control access, indicating he would soon unveil a comprehensive policy" and "suggested that states should have the authority to impose their own limits on contraceptives." 

The ad links to a May 21 article from Cardinal & Pine, Courier's North Carolina site, on comments Trump made during a local TV interview at the time. Hours after that interview, Trump said he did not support restricting birth control. Months later, when Harris cited the interview to say Trump is "'looking at' restricting contraception," a Newsweek fact check said the claim "needs context." Neither Courier's ad nor its article includes such context. 

Though Courier spent less than $200 on the spot, it has received between 4,000 and 5,000 impressions, according to Facebook ad data. The overwhelming majority of those impressions have come from women in North Carolina between the ages of 25 and 44. But Courier does not target its ads to Facebook users who have identified themselves as women, disclosures show. Instead, it submits its own audience lists to Facebook, allowing it to target precisely the users who see its ads. Those lists usually consist of names, email addresses, and phone numbers that Facebook matches with its own user database.

It's unclear exactly how Courier, which did not respond to a request for comment, obtains the data it submits to Facebook for its custom audience lists. While those lists could, in theory, be compiled through public data—like a state voter roll—some digital ad consultants have argued that using such data would violate Facebook's terms. 

What's clear, however, is that Courier has used its custom lists to get specific political messages in front of an ideal audience. Its abortion-related ads, for example, mostly reach young women. By contrast, an active ad from Courier's Arizona outlet hitting Trump on tariffs primarily targets men between the ages of 35 and 44.

One veteran Republican operative who assessed Courier's Facebook spending said the group's tactics are both savvy and relatively standard for a well-funded political campaign. The difference, the operative said, is that Courier is designed to make the average voter believe it isn't part of a political campaign at all.

"They're targeting voters under the guise of a news organization while shielding their donors' identities," the operative said.

McGowan launched Courier in 2019, posing for glossy profiles in mainstream media outlets such as Bloomberg. At its founding, Courier was owned by ACRONYM, McGowan's dark money group bankrolled by the likes of Hoffman and fellow liberal billionaire George Soros.

One year later, Courier changed its organizational structure, with ACRONYM divesting from the organization. Courier is now owned by another McGowan entity, Good Information Inc., which is also backed by Soros and Hoffman.

Though Courier's state-level entities attempt to present themselves as local, nonpartisan outlets, Courier itself is known to lean into its partisan status. In February, it hired Nina Burleigh, the former Time White House reporter who offered to give former president Bill Clinton a blowjob "to thank him for keeping abortion legal."

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