WDAY Radio, a local news outlet in Fargo, North Dakota, is considering legal action after the Kamala Harris campaign deceptively edited WDAY headlines to make it look like they supported her in an ad campaign, its president told the Daily Caller.
The Harris campaign has been editing news headlines and descriptions within Google search ads to make it appear as if major news organizations explicitly support her, a bombshell Axios report revealed Tuesday.
WDAY was the only family-owned outlet listed in the report. Other outlets who had their content manipulated by Harris’ team included Reuters, the Associated Press, NPR, CNN, The Guardian, The Independent and more.
Harris campaign has been editing news headlines & descriptions in search ads that make it appear as if major outlets support her
—Google believes its sponsored disclosures are enough to keep voters from being misled, but media outlets may feel differentlyhttps://t.co/dU0KFhbeuy— Sara Fischer (@sarafischer) August 13, 2024
WDAY’s President blasted Google and the Harris campaign for the deception in an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller.
“We feel insulted and violated by what was done here,” Steve Hallstrom, the President and Managing Partner of Flag Family Media, which owns WDAY Radio, told the Daily Caller.
“You have a political campaign that used our news brand and our URL to effectively lie to people about the headline we wrote,” Hallstrom said. “They lied to every single person that saw that ad. It’s misleading, it’s dishonest, and it hurts us as the company, our news brand. So as of today, we’re starting to make some calls here. We are considering all of our options here, including legal action.”
The Harris campaign used three variations of an advertisement which linked to WDAY’s website. The ads ran with the headlines “Harris Picks Tim Walz – 215,000 MN Families Win,” “Learn About VP Pick Tim Walz – Harris Picks Tim Walz,” and “Harris Picks Tim Walz – Tim Walz Tapped For VP,” according to the Google Ads Transparency Center.
The advertisements linked to real articles by the news organizations in question — but the articles did not have those headlines, nor did they include parts of the text included underneath.
A Harris campaign ad shows a manipulated headline from WDAY Radio. Screenshot/Google Ads Transparency Center
“We never wrote anything close to what is alleged here,” Hallstrom said. “They took two different unrelated stories that we did have on our website, sort of mashed them together, and then from there, they rewrote a few words to make it look like our news organization was cheering on the selection of Walz.”
Hallstrom shared the two news stories he believes the campaign manipulated with the Daily Caller. The stories ran the headlines “Walz selected as Kamala Harris’ VP pick for 2024 Election” and “Minnesota Child Tax Credit benefits 215,000 Minnesota families.”
The ads don’t violate Google’s policies, the company told Axios, though some of them appeared without necessary sponsorship disclosures due to a “glitch,” a Google spokesperson said.
“I’ve heard the excuses about how this meets the approval of the Google Ad criteria people, and I don’t care,” Hallstrom said. “When you see that ad, you may understand that it’s an ad, that any reasonable human being would look at that and say, ‘Oh, the campaign, they found a story or headline on a website that’s good for them. Who would not use that? Who wouldn’t use that?’ But that’s not what happened here,” he continued.
Other outlets said they were wholly unaware of the seemingly-duplicitous ad campaign.
“AP was neither aware of this practice nor would we allow these to run on our website,” an AP spokesperson told the Daily Caller.
“We were unaware Reuters was being featured in these advertisements. We are looking into the matter,” Reuters told the Caller.
“It is entirely wrong for anyone to put fake headlines under ‘The Independent’ brand,” a spokesperson for the outlet told the Caller. “We object fiercely and believe it is undermining of what politics and journalism should be about. It is misleading to muddle fake headlines with any campaign trying to persuade people to vote in an election, and must be widely condemned. We will be seeking their removal.”
Hallstrom questioned why the Harris campaign would believe the ads are a good idea to begin with.
“There are things that are right and there are things that are wrong, and this clearly is wrong. This is clearly leading, it’s clearly deceptive, it’s dishonest, and it was done obviously recklessly without thinking about what’s really happening here. And I don’t know who on the Harris staff made the decision that this was a good strategy. But I can’t believe that on the whole that that organization, that campaign would, top to bottom, feel like this is a tactful and a principled approach to getting the word out about their candidate,” he said.
The scandal occurs at a time when Harris is facing increased scrutiny for her lack of meaningful engagement with the press. (RELATED: Kamala Harris Fails To Sit For Interview During First Week Of Presidential Campaign)
In the three-plus weeks since Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, she has yet to sit down for an interview with any members of the press. Her lack of availability prompted the Washington Post Editorial Board to publish a list of questions they’d like to ask her.
The Washington Post Editorial Board publishes a list of questions it would like to ask VP Harris.
The VP hasn’t done a press conference or sit-down interview since launching her campaign three weeks ago. https://t.co/nG6gQAZ7pA pic.twitter.com/5XmwUDrgf8
— Reagan Reese (@reaganreese_) August 12, 2024
“We don’t want to let this go. We want to fight on this one,” Hallstrom concluded.
The Daily Caller reached out to Google and a representative for the Harris campaign, but did not hear back by time of publication.
