Government Agencies Cancel Politico Pro Subscriptions
The White House is following through on its plan to cut back on news subscriptions inside government agencies.
A spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department, Audra Weeks, said on Thursday that the agency had canceled its subscriptions to Politico Pro, a news and information service, after reviewing its media contracts. It was not immediately clear whether the department had ended its subscriptions to other news outlets.
President Trump and his administration have ratcheted up criticism and scrutiny of the press since taking office last month. Brendan Carr, the newly named chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has ordered an investigation into PBS and NPR, and also opened an inquiry into CBS News over an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Politico has been at the center of a social media misinformation campaign this week, with X users posting screenshots that falsely purported to show millions of dollars funneled from the United States Agency for International Development to the site. Mr. Trump spread a similar message on his Truth Social platform.
In fact, the screenshots described government subscriptions to Politico Pro, which added up to millions of dollars. The service offers policy-related resources and tracks news and legislation, and has more than 30,000 subscribers, according to a Politico overview.
When asked about the social media campaign on Wednesday, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said that the government would be eliminating subscriptions to some news organizations as part of a plan to scale back government spending.
“This is a whole-of-government effort to ensure that we are going line by line when it comes to the federal of government’s books,” Ms. Leavitt said.
An official from the Agriculture Department told employees in an email this week to end the agency’s business relationship with several news publications, saying that it was “working with the bank to put additional controls in place” to prevent further transactions. The email listed Politico, Axios and Reuters as the news organizations that were targeted. In its statement, the U.S.D.A. said that the agency did not have any subscriptions to Axios, “so there were no cancellations made” to that outlet.
Goli Sheikholeslami, Politico’s chief executive, and John Harris, Politico’s editor in chief, said in a note to readers on Thursday that the overwhelming majority of subscribers to Politico Pro were outside the federal government.
“Most Politico Pro subscribers are in the private sector,” the note said. “They come from across the ideological spectrum and subscribe for one reason: value.”
Politico said it had no additional comment beyond the note from Ms. Sheikholeslami and Mr. Harris.
A spokeswoman from Reuters said that the company did not comment on commercial agreements. Axios said the U.S.D.A. did not subscribe to its service, Axios Pro, which provides information focused on specific niches in the financial and policy realms.
