After reports surfaced that the federal government may have paid for subscriptions to media companies such as Politico, the White House announced on Feb. 5 that those payments “will no longer be happening.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Feb. 5 press briefing that those contracts would cease immediately.
“So upon coming out here to the briefing room, I was made aware of the funding from [the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)] to media outlets, including Politico, who I know has a seat in this room, and I can confirm that the more than 8 million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayer will no longer be happening,” Leavitt said.
“The DOGE team is working on canceling those payments now. ... This is a whole-of-government effort to ensure that we are going line by line when it comes to the federal government’s books.”
Politico received $8.2 million in subscription payments from the entire federal government, and $44,000 came from USAID, according to USAspending.gov.
A breakdown of contracts on the Federal Procurement Data System indicates that much of the funding was for agency-wide employee subscriptions to the company’s news service.
In a contract with the Department of State totaling more than $250,000, the description indicates that the contract includes a “one-year order with the Politico Pro ... for access to the Politico Pro US, Politico Pro EU, and E&E News platforms and exclusive reporting and analysis.”
A similar description can be found in contracts with the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Thomson Reuters Special Services, Reuters’ parent company that also includes data and technology services, received $13.6 million, and Reuters News & Media received $3.1 million from the federal government.
Additionally, a review of USAspending.gov indicates that The New York Times received $3,014,419 from the federal government.
The payments have been cumulative across multiple government agencies for several years. While some of the individual contracts with the four companies lack descriptions, many of them say the payments are for news subscriptions.
Reuters did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
A spokesperson for Politico sent The Epoch Times an internal memo that Politico Media Group CEO Goli Sheikholeslami and its global editor-in-chief, John Harris, sent to staff Wednesday evening.
In the memo, Sheikholeslami and Harris wrote that Politico “has never been a beneficiary of government programs or subsidies—not one cent, ever, in 18 years.”
“We have offered a professional subscription service, starting with POLITICO Pro, since 2012. It provides both private and public sector clients with granular, fact-based reporting, real-time intelligence, and tracking tools across key policy areas,” they wrote. “As a practical matter, the overwhelming majority of our professional subscriptions under POLITICO Pro are in the private sector.”
Sheikholeslami and Harris added that they are “happy to have ... conversations“ with their ”federal government subscribers and are confident that most will see the continued value” of Politico subscriptions.
“Simply put, the services, tools, and journalism we supply on the Pro Platform makes all our clients—private sector and public sector alike—better informed and arms them with real-time news and information and reporting they simply cannot get anywhere else.”
New York Times Managing Director of External Communications Charlie Stadtlander told The Epoch Times that all federal funds received by the company are “subscriptions that government offices and agencies have purchased to better understand the world” and have come for decades “under both Democratic and Republican administrations, including the first Trump administration.”
He said the company receives no federal grants and that the federal subscriptions make up less than “1/1000th of what we take in annually.”
“It was surprising to see social media attention on the fact that a small number of government offices, libraries, and courts purchase subscriptions to The New York Times and other media outlets,” he said.
“These officials and other public servants are simply seeking to better understand the world through our independent journalism, like millions of other Americans. It’s worth noting that we offer these government subscriptions at a heavily discounted rate.”
A spokesperson for The Associated Press told The Epoch Times that it is an “independent, not-for-profit global news organization.”
“The U.S. government has long been an AP customer—through both Democratic and Republican administrations. It licenses AP’s nonpartisan journalism, just like thousands of news outlets and customers around the world,” an AP spokesperson told The Epoch Times.
“It’s quite common for governments to have contracts with news organizations for their content.”
