President Joe Biden has allowed a long-time Democratic political operative to maintain access to the upper echelons of his administration, according to a new review conducted by Fox News Digital.
Tara McGowan, who is the founder and publisher of Courier Newsroom, has reportedly visited the White House almost 20 times during the Biden administration. Many of these visits were for one-on-one meetings with top aides.
In one case, for instance, she met with Jordan Finkelstein six times from October of 2022 through October 2023. Finkelstein was serving as a chief of staff to one senior adviser in the Bien administration.
She also reportedly visited with Patrick Stevenson, who is the deputy assistant to the president and senior advisor for digital strategy.
Good Information Inc., the parent company of Courier Newsroom, calls McGowan its founder and CEO. The company runs a network of media organizations that claim to be independent but lean very much to the left.
The role that Stevenson holds as head of digital strategy for the White House could be particularly concerning, seeing as how it’s very possible that he was coordinating with McGowan on favorable coverage for Biden on the company’s networks as he is running for reelection.
Fox News Digital also reported that McGowan met with two aides to Ron Klain, who was serving as the White House chief of staff at the time. White House visitor logs show that from April 2022 through August 2022, she met with Nina Srivastava and Madeline Strasser.
In 2021, McGowan started Good Information Inc. to counter disinformation and fake news, she said.
However, she is not at all independent. She worked on the reelection campaign for former President Barack Obama and was the head of super PAC Priorities USA Action, which backed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
All the work that McGowan has apparently done for the Biden administration paid off for her company as well. Last year, Courier Newsroom somehow got an exclusive interview with Biden.
In the company’s end-of-year report, officials wrote:
“The White House invited COURIER for an exclusive interview with the President backstage after his rally at Belvidere Stellantis auto plant in Illinois this fall. One of our national social correspondents got to talk with the President about jobs and workers, sharing exclusive video footage with our audiences across TikTok, Instagram, X and other channels.”
The entire operation is backed by billionaire George Soros, who has donated millions of dollars to Courier Newsroom.
The Washington Free Beacon has reported in the past that the Courier Newsroom — despite claiming to be independent — undertook an advertising campaign for Democratic politicians during the 2020 election cycle. Many of the pieces it put out also mirrored press releases that the politicians had crafted.
During that cycle, Courier Newsroom had digital outlets in several battleground states including Wisconsin, Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan and Arizona.
Recently, Axios reported the company is building out its infrastructure in advance of the 2024 election, adding newsrooms in New Hampshire, Texas and Nevada.
