Americans for Public Trust (APT) filed complaints in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin against Star Spangled Media (SSM), which operates the fake news website The Morning Mirror.
The complaints highlight how The Morning Mirror masquerades as a “news outlet” while using verbatim political copy from Democrat candidates’ campaign content in their “news stories,” producing attack ads on Republicans and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to bolster their campaign-like content.
Notably, Star Spangled Media’s operation is bolstered by left-wing politico-lawyer Marc Elias, who is Kamala Harris’ campaign lawyer.
Caitlin Sutherland, Executive Director of American’s for Public Trust stated, “The Morning Mirror is nothing more than a dark money group pretending to be a news outlet so they don’t have to report hundreds of thousands of dollars of political ads that are boosting liberal politicians and candidates in battleground states — and Harris’ campaign attorney Marc Elias is doing their bidding.”
Click here to read reporting on APT’s complaints against SSM.
Click here to read the Michigan complaint.
Click here to read the Pennsylvania complaint.
Click here to read the Wisconsin complaint.
Fast Facts
- News organizations are exempt from the campaign finance framework in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania however SSM does not qualify as a bona fide news organization for the purposes of the states’ campaign finance laws.
- SSM has failed to register as a political committee and report its contributions and disbursements.
- The Morning Mirror has no masthead, no bylines, no contact information, and no address listed on their barebones, “blog-like” website.
- Through The Morning Mirror ad buys, SSM has spent over $381,000 in digital political advertising aimed at key voting demographics throughout Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
- The paid advertisements reveal a direct pipeline of nearly identical content from candidates’ websites, to the “articles” on The Morning Mirror, to digital adds paid for by SSM.
- SSM appears to generate no revenue via methods used by legitimate newsrooms, and instead, only receives its money from dark money special interests.
- SSM described its revenue as “grants from nonprofit organizations that are interested in funding the type of news coverage that Star Spangled Media undertakes and building an audience for the news coverage via targeted advertising.”
