Donald Trump’s “official” super PAC has spent more than $25 million since last year to secure the president’s re-election. Now he’s looking for a new tactic: the group, America First Action, has introduced a data website.
The site is called the American Herald and describes itself as “a conservative data platform designed to provide you with all the news that the liberal media doesn’t need you to know.” We are committed to covering the national problems that have an effect on all Americans, not just the political calendar on the left. “
The formation of the American Herald takes place in an election cycle in which Trump’s political device sought to build its own media infrastructure to fight and circumvent what it considers an endemic hostility from the political press. “Stop telling yourself what to think,” the American Herald’s motto reads.
Released quietly in June, the American Herald pledges to put a Trumpian touch on the front page of newspapers and then make headlines in emails, social media posts and virtual ads. America First has already spent thousands of dollars selling the group’s “stories” on the Facebook and Instagram pages for America First and American Herald. It spent thousands more to advertise the site in Google ads.
Although those paid classified ads imply that they were paid through America First, there is no disclaimer on the American Herald’s Facebook page. And while its online page also includes the law-based disclaimer at the bottom of the page, its articles are designed to be read as popular conservative news content, obviously agenda-oriented.
Trump’s crusade destroyed the content of the American Herald like any other news that publishes favorable stories about the president. And it has even “covered” America First with third-person references that hide the fact that the super PAC and the news is one.
America First is far from the only political organization seeking to leverage the merits of data content at the service of an explicitly political agenda. Democratic organizations, in particular, have established a giant infrastructure in this election cycle of autonomous and seemingly independent press organizations that serve only to cover the strife and the same political contenders that their explicitly political buyers point to.
In fact, the American Herald looks a lot like a “news” site created in 2018 through American Bridge, a Democratic super PAC. The online page of this medium contains all legally required disclosure terms, but only states that its “mission is to hold the public accountable through reports that disclose the corruption and wrongdoing of the powerful” through “quick and shocking investigations into urgent problems.”
Even in this politically saturated data environment, the American Herald stands out for its direct connection to a main arm of the president’s political machinery. While America First is technically independent of Trump’s crusade, the crusade has officially endorsed the group, the president has attended America First’s fundraising opportunities and Trump’s crusade has leased his mailing list to the super PAC.
So far, America First has purchased classified ads that sell the American Herald’s own Facebook page, aimed at states such as Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan. None of them connected to the point-of-sale website, and only asked those who saw the classified ads to like the American Herald’s Facebook page.
But the “news” site is already facing obstacles. America First has purchased classified classified ad loclassified classified ads on its own page that reference American Herald content, and some of the classified classified ads have been removed due to unspecified violations of Facebook’s advertising policies, based on the platform’s political ad archive. . And it turns out that the American Herald’s Twitter account was also suspended sometime during the following week.
An America First spokesman did not respond to inquiries about or his series of social media misadventures.