Obama operatives creating Russian-style propaganda outfit

Obama-era operatives and former journalists have teamed up to create a Russian-style propaganda outfit that mimics news outlets in an effort to mobilize left-leaning voters ahead of the 2020 election.

Called Courier Newsroom, it is publishing newspapers in swing states to counter what it regards as right-wing spin on Facebook and other digital media, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.

The publications don't disclose to readers the organization's left-wing agenda, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek report Monday.

The founder, Tara McGowan, a digital producer for Obama for America in 2011, is raising $25 million to create the company. She founded similar outlets earlier this year, including the Virginia Dogwood and Arizona's Copper Courier.

She plans to roll out other publications in the battleground states of Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

McGowan also is behind a nonprofit group called Acronym that will spend $75 million on digital ads to counter President Donald Trump's popularity in battleground states.

She explained to Bloomberg Businessweek how her operations work and what kind of information it can extract from readers.

"Everybody who clicks on, likes, or shares an article ... we get that data back to create a lookalike audience to find other people with similar attributes in the same area. So we continually grow our ability to find people," McGowan, a former journalist for CBS News, told reporters.

She argued that "balance does not exist anymore" in news media.

"We're losing the information war to verified liars pouring millions of dollars into Facebook," she said.

David Plouffe, who managed Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, recently joined Acronym's board, the Daily Caller reported.

Plouffe said he traces "so many of the problems in our country" to "the strength of the conservative distribution network — on TV, but especially, as Trump showed, online."

"Democrats have never been able to get velocity there," he said.

The Daily Caller News Foundation said that neither Plouffe nor McGowan have responded to its request for comment through the Acronym website.

"They have not yet answered questions about the ethical problems associated with producing journalistic content without mentioning the true design of the group behind the site," the Daily Caller said.