News/Commentary

Harris campaign manipulated news headlines for Google ads to pretend major sites are pro-Kamala

August 14, 2024 | | Print Article

New levels of gaslighting from the Harriz-Walz campaign reportedly caught corporate media “off guard” amid an effort to project the idea that “major publishers are on her side.”

“Pretty crazy that the free propaganda wasn’t enough.”

Shameless and ever-projecting leftists have signaled no end with their caterwauling over what they consider the spread of mis-, dis-, and malinformation. All the griping didn’t stop the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris from running ads with manipulated headlines linked to real articles to present an even more favorable narrative than what already existed.

According to a report from Axios, the campaign has been “editing news headlines and descriptions within Google search ads that make it appear as if the Guardian, Reuters, CBS News, and other major publishers are on her side.”

Screenshots of the ads included one linked to CNN with a description that read, “Harris is the daughter of civil rights activists and has always fought for all Americans,” and another connected to Reuters that suggested, “Under the Biden-Harris Administration, ‘The U.S. is winning the inflation fight.'”

A spokesperson for the Guardian reacted, “While we understand why an organization might wish to align itself with the Guardian’s trusted brand, we need to ensure it is being used appropriately and with our permission. We’ll be reaching out to Google for more information about this practice.”

Axios indicated that a Google spokesperson said, “We’ve provided additional levels of transparency for election ads specifically” while the company argued the “Sponsored” label made the ads “easily distinguishable from Search results.”

“Election advertisers are required to complete an identity verification process and we prominently display in-ad disclosures that clearly show people who paid for the ad,” the outlet was told. Even Facebook banned the practice in 2017 as part of “continuing efforts to stop the spread of misinformation and false news.”

Representatives for CNN, NPR, and USA Today, “said they were unaware their brand was being featured this way.”

Of course, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins had been caught off guard during an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” when the host prompted laughter by saying, “I know you guys are objective over there, that you just report the news as it is.”

“Was that supposed to be a laugh line?” she asked Colbert who responded, “It wasn’t supposed to be, but I guess it is.”

As NewsBusters editor Brent Baker pointed out, “Not even NYC lefties buy CNN as objective.”

The latest concern over Big Tech’s impact on the 2024 election comes after Google had already come under fire over search results from users looking for information about the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump.

Looking into the matter amid concerns of suppression and censorship, the House Oversight Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government had been told by Google’s parent company Alphabet that a “bug” had been responsible for issues related to searches about Trump that were the “result of its algorithm.”

John Gable, co-founder and CEO of nonpartisan firm AllSides, weighed in on concerns that corporate media outlets might have as he told Axios, “Some of these news organizations might not want to be positioned as promoting one campaign, and this implies that they have a bias towards that campaign, potentially.”

Meanwhile, reactions to the story showed users unsurprised over the lengths seemingly taken by Harris’s campaign to control voter opinion even with corporate media in the bag for them.

Kevin Haggerty
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