"Fact checkers" at the anti-Trump website The Dispatch tried to scold critics enraged over the millions in taxpayer dollars wasted on "Politico Pro" subscriptions, and ended up looking completely ridiculous in the process.
Facebook originally hired The Dispatch as part of its old fact-checker squad, perhaps to lend an appearance of balance, as they have claimed. This wasn't balanced.
Following the uproar over the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other government agencies doling out $8.2 million on Politico’s wildly overpriced Pro subscriptions between 2024 and 2025 alone, The Dispatch fact-checker Alex Demas followed with a knee-jerk response on February 5: “Claims That Politico Received USAID Funds Are False.”
What?
Not only was this so-called “fact-check” headline ironically not true, given that USAID demonstrably spent at least $44,000 on subscriptions, Demas undercut his entire argument by conceding that the USAID funding for Politico did indeed exist:
The only payments received by Politico LLC from USAID were for two subscriptions to E&E—an energy and environment publication it produces—totaling $44,000 over two years.
Derp.
The Dispatch was forced to change the headline later, and astonishingly managed to make itself look more foolish by shifting the goalposts all over the field: “No, Politico Did Not Receive ‘Substantial Funds’ from USAID.”
What counts as “Substantial,” of course,” is completely subjective. Fox News noted that Politico Pro base subscriptions “are typically between $12,000 and $15,000 for three users.” In perspective, wrote The Federalist senior editor John Daniel Davidson in an X post: “if Politico subscriptions are $10K that’s not a subscription that’s patronage.” But apparently subscriptions that are worth over $10,000 are not considered “substantial” by The Dispatch’s political metrics.
Newsflash, Dispatch: This is not how fact-checks are supposed to work. But the outlet wasn’t finished butchering the facts. Its initial article falsely claimed that the $8.2 million referred to payments between 2016 and 2025, when the figure only referred to payments made between 2024 and 2025. The outlet’s “correction” note at the bottom of the updated article was nothing short of hilarious:
The headline of this piece has been updated to more accurately describe the contents of the fact check. While Politico LLC did receive funds from USAID and other government agencies, the money was not for grants but payment for subscriptions to its publications. Also, the $8.2 million figure cited refers to payments in the 12 months leading up to February 2025, not dating back to 2016.
Oh, well as long as it’s just “subscriptions” and not “grants,” right? How is this any better? It’s still taxpayer money funding a leftist media outlet that falsely bills itself as being a bastion of “nonpartisan journalism!” It’s a wonder if The Dispatch or Politico for that matter ever bothered to read the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics.
One of the posts that Demas took issue with was from independent journalist Kyle Becker, who simply posted snapshots on February 5 of the millions Politico got from a litany of government agencies and accurately captioned it: “Fun Fact: @Politico received USAID funds. Everything makes sense now.”
But Demas — in some sort of weird bout with incredulity — concluded that Becker’s claim was “false.” Of course, nowhere did Demas note Becker’s follow-up post published the same day as his initial post, which included the clarification: “Just to be clear, Politico was getting funds from all sorts of government agencies for extremely pricey Politico Pro subscriptions.”
But Demas still attempted to downplay the significance of the government turning Politico into its personal public relations arm by objecting, "Various government agencies have purchased subscriptions to its publications since 2016.”
Great Scott! It’s like watching a train wreck happen in real time.
