The U.S. government evidently values this work; in fact, the State Department subsidizes it. The National Endowment for Democracy—a nonprofit that has received $330 million in taxpayer dollars from the State Department—contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to GDI’s budget, according to an investigation by The Washington Examiner‘s Gabe Kaminsky.
Should the State Department spend public money to help an organization pressure advertisers to punish U.S. media companies? The answer, quite obviously, is no: The First Amendment prohibits the U.S. government from censoring private companies for good reason, and government actors should not seek to evade the First Amendment’s protections in order to censor indirectly or exert pressure inappropriately.
The Washington Examiner, which was included on GDI’s list of risky media outlets, confirmed that it has lost out on revenue due to advertisers heeding GDI’s federally subsidized concerns. (An internal GDI memosingles out Amazon for purchasing ad space on an Examiner article that allegedly included right-wing misinformation.)
But GDI evidently considers Reason even more threatening than The Washington Examiner. Reason is listed among GDI’s 10 allegedly absolute “riskiest online news outlets,” alongside the New York Post, Real Clear Politics, The Daily Wire, The Blaze, One America News Network, The Federalist, Newsmax, The American Spectator, and The American Conservative.