Covering a big, beautiful disaster now, not later
The narrative that will shape the 2026 midterms is being written now
Last weekend, Donald Trump signed into law one of the most radical pieces of legislation this country has seen in recent years. The massive piece of legislation strips health coverage from 17 million Americans, will deepen poverty and hunger, will make college and clean energy less accessible, increase the national deficit, and effectively take from the poorest Americans to benefit the wealthiest. Rural hospitals will close, essential workers will lose their jobs, and millions will lose or pay more for their health insurance.
Before its passage, the legislation was already deeply unpopular, with poll after poll showing Americans opposed to its harshest provisions.
So how does such unpopular legislation still become law? As many things, the answer lies in part due to our media ecosystem - and how both political parties engage with it (or don’t). Writing in his Message Box newsletter this week, my friend Dan Pfeiffer hit the nail on the head:
“Our media ecosystem is fundamentally broken. It has become nearly impossible for all but the most engaged news consumers to follow what is happening in politics. The biggest chasm in politics is no longer between the Right and the Left—it’s between those who follow the news religiously and those who passively or actively avoid politics. Democrats do quite well with the former and struggle mightily with the latter.
Trump benefits from a media environment powered by algorithms—where facts are fluid, context is impossible, anyone can be an “expert,” and the least credible voices are elevated above everyone else.
That dynamic persists to this day and helps explain why the GOP felt comfortable passing the most unpopular bill in recent memory less than 18 months before a critical election.”
Within this context, it's important to note that so many Americans have no idea what’s in the bill. A recently published polling memo from Priorities USA showed that nearly half (48%) of Americans hadn’t heard anything about the bill, and more could only generally describe what is in it. That means those of us who are paying close attention to the disastrous impacts this bill will have on our entire population have a tremendous amount of work to do to communicate the importance of this legislation to those Americans. Those audiences need to know which of their representatives in Congress voted for it, and who fought against it. Our newsrooms are doing exactly that with shareable social graphic carousels like these:
Some of our other content featured how members of Congress voted in Arizona, Michigan, and New Hampshire.
This work also shouldn’t be starting now that the bill has passed, and at COURIER, our reporters have been covering the impacts of this bill to educate less engaged audiences across our 11 states for months. Over the past month alone, our team has published more than 500+ pieces of original content - videos, graphics, newsletters, web stories - about the potential impacts of the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” From Arizona to North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and everywhere in between, we’ve localized the legislation’s effects and highlighted the voices of communities who are most affected by its passage.
With the passage of this bill, the 2026 midterm election cycle has officially started - and communication to the voters who will decide the fate of those elections cannot wait until the final three months of the midterm elections or through the Democratic Party’s paid advertising alone.
I know I sound like a broken record on this point, but that is the exact approach Democratic committees, campaigns, and PACs all relied on last year to great failure. In order to change the outcome, their strategy of when, how, and where to go on offense to communicate the very unpopular impacts of this bill has to change - and it has to change right now. Americans need to be reached day in and day out on the social media platforms where they spend their time, in the formats they consume, with information about what’s happening in Washington - and how it is going to impact their lives and communities. That’s what we’re doing at COURIER, and we need our allies in the fight against this administration’s radical and anti-democratic agenda to embrace this approach and help support the growth of our newsrooms and other pro-democracy media outlets like ours.
It’s often during these challenging political moments that I’m most proud of the work our team does. Our 100+ staff and journalists on the ground across the country consistently demonstrate their ability to move quickly and translate complex national news for their hard-to-reach local audiences. We’re not going to slow down, but we urgently need more resources to expand the reach of our content to more news-avoidant audiences, and to bring more of these folks into our online communities for longer-term impact.
As we look ahead, the stakes for our communities and the country have never been higher. The fight to inform, engage, and empower people about the real impacts of this legislation is just beginning, and it demands the collective effort of all of us. Whether by sharing a story on social media or supporting year-round pro-democracy media efforts like ours, we can bridge the information gap left by a fractured media landscape. Together, we can ensure that the truth isn’t drowned out by noise and that the voices of those most affected are heard loud and clear.
- Tara
WATCH: My conversation with Judy Woodruff on the state (and future) of media
Last night, I had a true fan-girl experience when I had the honor of joining PBS News Senior Correspondent (and American treasure) Judy Woodruff in a conversation about the unprecedented attacks on the media (and PBS in particular) by the Trump administration, the rise of content creators as trusted news sources, and how we can all collectively save quality journalism in America. You can watch the full virtual event that was hosted by BigTent USA and moderated by GenZ Reporter + The Up and Up Substack writer Rachel Janfaza here:
Earlier this week, I also joined my friend and author of Hopium Chronicles, Simon Rosenberg, for a Substack Live video conversation to talk about COURIER’s 6-year anniversary, the media ecosystem, and where we go from here. You can watch our full conversation here >>
Our leadership team is growing:
I’m so thrilled to share a slate of extraordinary new senior leadership hires who have joined our team to help lead COURIER into its next phase of growth and impact. 🚀 Mariela Rosario has joined as Managing Director of COURIER Local (our state newsroom network); Jimmie Yoo as VP of Technology, Data, and Analytics; Jennifer Mandelblatt as Chief of Staff, and Michael Dabbs as VP of Underwriting Partnerships! These hires come just a few months after we added Tracy Leeds Kaplan as SVP of Distribution & Sales, and Kevin Dreyfus as Managing Director, National.
Get national political news from COURIER in your inbox
In case you’re not already subscribed, I wanted to shout out a new daily national political newsletter from COURIER National Political Correspondent Camaron Stevenson, called Below the Belt(way). As someone who reads WAY too many political newsletters already, I am not blowing smoke when I say that Cam’s newsletter is already shedding light on critical stories out of Washington that I am simply not hearing or reading about anywhere else - in a skim-worthy way- making this one an instant must-read for other political news junkies:
What (else) I’m reading:
Where Working Class Voters Get Information, and How and When to Reach Them (Working Class Project, 7/9)
“Working class voters are more likely to consume news via links on social media than the general population. Overall, they use YouTube and social media more than the general population (including more regular TikTok consumption), and only 1 in 20 ever read a print newspaper.”
New Report: Local Journalist Index 2025 (Muck Rack, 7/10)
“For the first time, we’ve mapped how many local journalists cover each U.S. county, revealing in stark detail the stunning collapse in local reporting… Less than a quarter-century ago, the United States had about 40 journalists per 100,000 residents on average. Now, the equivalent number is 8.2 Local Journalist Equivalents, about a 75% decline.”
Mayor Mamdani and the News Judgments That Provokes (Second Rough Draft, 7/10)
“In New York City, roughly one out of every 11 people is a Muslim, while fewer than one out of eight are Jewish. New York has had Jewish mayors for most of the last 52 years. Now ask yourself if you would be reading-- if we would be publishing-- the same sorts of stories about Mamdani’s religion if New York Democrats had just, even more unusually and statistically unlikely, selected a Hindu candidate. I think not. We need to ask ourselves, honestly, if the difference isn’t the most obvious sort of “othering,” of playing to ignorance and bigotry.”