All news is biased, no matter what it claims to be.
Removing partisanship is virtually impossible as it often isn’t even a conscious intention whenever information is being reported.
So when news outlets claim to be an “independent,” there’s good reason to be skeptical.
Take, for example, Courier Newsroom, founded by Tara McGowan in 2019.
“Editorial independence is a core tenet of our work and we maintain an editorial firewall between our funding sources and newsrooms that ensures the integrity of our journalism,” the outlet says on its website.
A skeptic might ask, what are those funding sources?
“Courier’s main backer is Acronym, a liberal dark-money group that has invested heavily in Democratic digital advertising and campaign technology,” Gabby Deutch wrote in a February 2020 opinion piece for The Washington Post.
“Courier Newsroom is a clandestine political operation, publishing, among other things, positive stories about moderate Democrats who face difficult reelections in November,” she wrote.
At the time, Deutch was described as “the Washington correspondent for NewsGuard, a New York-based nonpartisan organization that reviews news sites to combat misinformation.”
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Many on the right would dispute the description of NewsGuard as “nonpartisan,” arguing it unfairly targets conservative outlets.
Still, Deutch raised the alarm about the left-wing media operation, writing, “Courier and Acronym are exploiting the widespread loss of local journalism to create and disseminate something we really don’t need: hyperlocal partisan propaganda.”
According to Fox News, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations also donated millions of dollars to the news outlet in 2021 and 2022.
(An Open Society representative said in a statement that the organization was “proud to be among several funders who support Courier Newsroom, which is responding to the disappearance of so many trusted local news organizations across the United States to provide quality, local, values-driven journalism and to meet readers where they are — online.”)
The Fox News report Tuesday revealed that the “independent” Courier is even more connected to the Democratic Party than you might think.
It said McGowan has visited the White House nearly 20 times during President Joe Biden’s administration.
Fox News said the Courier publisher and CEO has participated in at least six one-on-one meetings with high-ranking White House aides, including Jordan Finkelstein, who served as chief of staff to a Biden senior adviser.
McGowan also met with Patrick Stevenson, whose LinkedIn page bio says he is the “Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor for Digital Strategy,” according to the report.
The list goes on: In 2022, she also met with Madeline Strasser, an adviser to then-White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, and Nina Srivastava, another adviser to Klain.
McGowan herself is far from lacking in political connections to top Democrats.
She worked on former President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign and Priorities USA Action, the largest super PAC behind Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential run.
With such a background, it’s no wonder the news organization McGowan started is nowhere near the independent source it claims to be.
There’s nothing about Courier that isn’t a purely political machination aimed toward advancing the agenda of the Democratic Party.
It’s no wonder its “reporting” praises and boosts Biden and his cohorts while attacking former President Donald Trump.
The Courier’s website includes a quote from former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob applauding the effort to produce “factual news from a variety of viewpoints.”
But it offers no such variety — just the same left-wing coverage that can be found in all the establishment media outlets.
