News or activism? Dark money behind Iowa journalism blurs the line

An Iowa journalist employed by a left-leaning news website was recently prohibited from attending an event for a GOP presidential candidate. It was a move I will never condone as a journalist myself, let alone try to justify. But if a political campaign dislikes a particular news organization enough to take the imprudent action of banning its journalists from public campaign events, I’m still inclined to ponder what it is about that organization that the campaign finds so objectionable, and whether if there’s anything to that objection.

On Aug. 11, Ty Rushing, Political Editor for Iowa Starting Line, and a colleague from a sister publication out of state were prevented by law enforcement from entering a campaign event in Harlan for Florida governor and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis. The DeSantis campaign did not provide an explanation and did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Iowa Starting Line is an online news site founded in 2015 by former Democratic campaign operative Pat Rynard to cover the ins and outs of liberal politics in Iowa. By mid-2019, the site had gained such a following as a go-to source, including from national political reporters and presidential candidates, that Rynard was able to open a newsroom in Des Moines. In early 2020, The New York Times called it “the best political journalism you’ve never heard of.” Ad revenue and continuing donations allowed Rynard to hire several temporary staff to cover the 2020 Iowa Democratic Party presidential caucuses.

Local news site sells to political strategist’s group

After ad revenue slowed post-caucus and Iowa Republicans cemented big wins in 2020, Rynard put Iowa Starting Line “on hiatus” to determine the organization’s next steps. In late June 2021, he announced that he had sold the publication to Courier Newsroom, a for-profit media company originally owned by ACRONYM, a political dark money group founded by well-known national Democratic strategist Tara McGowan.

ACRONYM divested of its ownership in Courier Newsroom in April 2021, two months before Courier Newsroom acquired Iowa Starting Line. At that same time, McGowan parted ways with ACRONYM to redirect her full focus to Courier Newsroom. Under the umbrella of ACRONYM, with McGowan at the helm, Courier Newsroom had launched seven other local publications in political “swing states.” Despite the recent divestiture from ACRONYM, Courier Newsroom’s acquisition of the local Iowa publication made Iowa Starting Line the eighth news site to follow ACRONYM’s original design.

Selling to Courier Newsroom gave Iowa Starting Line the resources to hire new staff, including Rushing as editor and political reporter. It also, as I wrote for The Gazette in July 2021, gave the site a new mission of combating “the impact of disinformation by countering it with local news that builds a more informed and engaged electorate.”

Courier Newsroom founded to reach voters

However, the original business plan McGowan drafted in 2019 for her network of media properties under the ACRONYM umbrella didn’t center on combating disinformation. Rather, it focused on gaining an advantage over Republicans in the messaging war — with votes in mind. By creating a “media content network” through what would become Courier Newsroom, ACRONYM had several aims, including building a “nimble communications infrastructure for Dems in critical states” and “reach(ing) voters with strategic narratives + information year-round,” all funded by donations from the wealthy, well-connected, and politically motivated Courier Newsroom wouldn’t have to disclose.

Transparency advocates raise red flags

This was much to the ire of organizations such as Open Secrets, which follows money in politics and describes Courier Newsroom and its network of local news sites like Iowa Starting Line as “part of a coordinated effort with deep ties to Democratic political operatives.” NewsGuard, an organization that rates news sites for reliability and transparency, protested that “the solution to political misinformation is not a different, more tech-savvy form of political misinformation.”

“Misinformation” is a strong word. I make no claims of falsified reporting by Iowa Starting Line reporters, and I offer no doubts about their commitment to accuracy in reporting. They’re good people, hard workers, and talented journalists. That’s a fact.

It’s how that reporting is commissioned and used that gives me — and others — pause. Even with the promise of independent editorial control, as Iowa Starting Line and its sister publications in other states are all stated to have, funding that comes not through subscription fees or ad revenue but big-dollar contributions is almost always given with some kind of intention. Iowa Field Report, for example, is a conservative outlet that has accepted large donations from the Republican Party of Iowa and Gov. Kim Reynolds’ campaign. Unsurprisingly, its content largely centers on cheap hit pieces and social media posts trolling state Democrats.

The ultimate question is this: When does news stop being news and instead become activism?

News organization invests in partisan voter turnout

The line between news and activism in 2022 was certainly blurred when Iowa Starting Line decided to measure the influence of their operation in the form of cold hard votes. I never thought I’d see the day when a news organization took to their own website to brag about making a five-figure investment into voter turnout — or when they brag about spending more than even big-name candidates. Though ethically dubious, a news organization paying money to target voters is perfectly legal, as long as no candidate or party is endorsed over another.

Last year, Iowa Starting Line created an initiative to deliver paid content to Democratic-leaning Facebook users in chosen counties. To determine if their investment had any effect on turnout in the 2022 Democratic primary, Iowa Starting Line compared voter turnout in the counties where they “boosted” (paid for) their content to be shown with counties where they did not. “Courier estimates 3,300 net votes were cast as a result of its $49,000 boosting program, which comes out to $15 per net vote,” states the article online.

A calculated dollar amount per vote. News, or activism?

I have no knowledge of Iowa Starting Line using the same tactics of paid ads to selectively boost Democratic voter turnout in the 2022 general election as they did in the preceding primary. They did, however, host a forum with only Democrat candidates in high-profile races shortly before Election Day — 1st Congressional District candidate Liz Mathis’ appearance was described as her “closing pitch to voters” — and ran a series of social media videos encouraging voter turnout.

Friendly video features candidate

Mathis appeared in a video filmed just before the 2022 Election Day for the Iowa Starting Line TikTok channel. In the video, Mathis and Liz Fleming, a regular contributor to Iowa Starting Line’s social media channels, joke about which one of them is Liz “from” Iowa and which is Liz “for” Iowa. “We’re Lizzes from Iowa, for Iowa,” says Fleming, before putting her arm around Mathis and smiling. Mathis’ campaign shared the video on the campaign’s social media accounts with captions reminding viewers to vote.

Filming videos messages with candidates. News, or activism?

  Buy Photo

I sent a few questions about candidate forums and voter turnout efforts to Pat Rynard, who remains the managing editor of the news outlet he built from nothing. Rynard explicitly refused my inquiry, citing the story I wrote in July 2021, of which he disapproved.

Employing elected officials

Rynard also did not answer my question about Courier Newsroom’s relationship with JD Scholten, a former congressional candidate and current member of the Iowa House of Representatives elected in 2022. Scholten is also the creator of “You’re Probably Getting Screwed,” a series of newsletters and videos produced in partnership with Courier Newsroom that debuted in May of 2022, when he was a declared candidate.

Although Scholten ran unopposed in both the primary and general election, his freelance work with Courier Newsroom continued through the general election campaign into the 2023 legislative session, during which at least nine newsletters and accompanying videos of Scholten’s commentary were posted to a Substack page belonging to Courier Newsroom. Scholten, who is reportedly playing professional baseball in the Netherlands, did not respond to an email sent last week.

Even as a freelancer and not a staff member, for a candidate or sitting legislator to enter into any kind of work agreement with a news organization is a significant conflict of interest. Newsroom ethics discourage or prohibit their own reporters from covering individuals with whom a personal or professional relationship exists. How can any news organization impartially cover a public official while the public official has a contract with that news organization?

The question is valid. When does news stop being news and instead become activism? Is it when news organizations pay thousands of dollars for voter turnout? When independent outlets get sold to enterprising political power players? When public officials get on the newsroom payroll? When the donors stay anonymous, despite a company’s pledge of transparency?

Soros-funded news

A few months after Iowa Starting Line’s sale to Courier Newsroom, Courier Newsroom was acquired by a company called Good Information, Inc., which was launched with the backing of billionaires Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, and George Soros, a Hungarian-American hedge fund manager. Both are megadonors to liberal causes. It is not a terrible stretch to say that Iowa Starting Line, a grassroots local outlet founded by one political organizer-turned amateur journalist, is now a Soros-funded operation.

The Courier Newsroom website states that a list of Good Information, Inc’s “investors, underwriters, and supporters who have contributed more than $25,000 to support our journalism is available by request.” But no contact information is available to make the request, and my attempts to obtain the promised information were futile.

I can’t say for sure why the Ron DeSantis campaign barred Ty Rushing and his colleague from his event, but any presidential campaign worth their own mega-wealthy donor dollars knows to follow the money and see where it leads. That doesn’t mean that it was wise or necessary to ban Rushing, whose experience earned him a quick appearance on cable news and cast the DeSantis campaign in a negative light.

Rushing should get to do his job without disruption. Ironically, talented reporting might be the only product of Iowa Starting Line unmarred by dark money or political ambition.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com