Here Are The Obama-Era Operatives And Former Journos Behind A Covert Propaganda Outfit

[mystery-ak]

Chris White
Tech Reporter
November 26, 2019 1:28 PM ET

    Democratic operatives who worked for former President Barack Obama are spearheading websites designed to mimic journalism outfits in an effort to push liberal positions.
    One of the founders behind the websites says media pundits should dispel of the idea of objective reporting and instead should push out liberal talking points that look like journalism.
    The websites they are creating come on the heels of a Democratic-led misinformation campaign to troll conservatives during a 2017 special election in Alabama.

A small cadre of former journalists and Obama-era operatives is creating a Russian-style propaganda outfit designed to mimic real local news and activate left-leaning voters ahead of the 2020 election.

Tara McGowan, a digital producer for Obama for America in 2011, is raising $25 million from wealthy liberals to create a media company called Courier Newsroom that is designed to deliver information favorable to Democrats. Courier is rolling out newspapers in swing states to counter what McGowan believes is right-wing spin on Facebook and across the digital domain.

Courier Newsroom does not alerts readers that the publication is actually a liberal project. The project’s primary mission is to craft content that can travel quickly throughout the social media ecosphere, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek report Monday. McGowan launched similar outlets earlier this year for similar purposes, the report notes.

more
https://dailycaller.com/2019/11/26/obama-trump-election/

[PeteS in CA]

More about this:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-11-25/acronym-s-newsrooms-are-a-liberal-digital-spin-on-local-news

The Left’s Plan to Slip Vote-Swaying News Into Facebook Feeds

A Democratic strategist named Tara McGowan watched all this unfold with particular alarm. McGowan, 33, is the founder of Acronym, a nonprofit digital strategy group that organizes progressives online to vote and volunteer. Lately she’s gained notoriety for her outspoken criticism of her party’s inability to challenge, or even clearly comprehend, Trump’s dominance of the digital landscape ...
...
Coming out of the 2016 election, the question she wrestled with was how Democrats can defeat the huge right-wing echo chamber. The answer she’s landed on is that they don’t need to. Hillary Clinton lost because Trump beat her by fewer than 80,000 votes in three critical swing states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Ousting him in 2020 would probably come down to a similar sliver of voters—so Democrats wouldn’t have to drown out all of the conservatives’ efforts on social media, but only capture and persuade a small portion of strategically situated swing-state voters... .

To McGowan ... the rise of misinformation coincides dangerously with another trend: the death of local news. Since 2004 more than 2,000 newspapers have shuttered, leaving millions of people without a trusted local news source. ...
...
... McGowan is spearheading what may be the most audacious project this election cycle. She’s raising $25 million from a host of wealthy liberals to establish a for-profit media company, Courier Newsroom, that has already started rolling out digital newspapers with local reporters and editors in six key swing states—Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin—to ... deliver the facts favorable to Democrats ..., and counter right-wing spin.

While the articles she publishes are based on facts, nothing alerts readers that Courier publications aren’t actually traditional hometown newspapers but political instruments designed to get them to vote for Democrats. And although the articles are made to resemble ordinary news, their purpose isn’t primarily to build a readership for the website: It’s for the pieces to travel individually through social media, amplifying their influence with persuadable voters.
...
Several months ago, without fanfare, McGowan launched the first of her newspapers, the Virginia Dogwood (“Your source for Virginia news”). The next, Arizona’s Copper Courier, followed in early October, and the rest are scheduled to make their debuts sometime around year’s end. ...
...
Her pitch has resonated with a certain breed of liberal donor: younger, tech-centric, and drawn into politics out of horror at Trump’s victory ... . Investors in her company include Dollar Shave Club founder Michael Dubin; SoulCycle ex-co-Chief Executive Officer Elizabeth Cutler; and Carley Roney, co-founder of the Knot. Other investors have chosen to remain anonymous.

McGowan has also won the support of a celebrated Democratic strategist: David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and recently joined Acronym’s board. ...

Be aware of Courier Newsroom outlets being newsaganda and less openly so than traditional outlets like the WashPost, NYT, and alphabet soup networks.