mostly on ads and consulting. so much ads and consulting.
How the Consulting Class Is Eating the Democratic Party
Fundraising costs gobble up most of the funds raised. Billions are spent on TV ads that have virtually no impact. Candidates may win or lose—but the consulting class always wins.
Midterm Political Ad Spending Hits Record $11.21 Billion
Political ad spending for the 2026 midterms has hit a record $11.21 billion, surpassing the 2024 presidential election cycle, according to AdImpact.
Conservative PACs have paid at least $1.6 million to the extended Metric Media network this election cycle, a Tow Center investigation reveals.
Nonprofits and political action committees (pacs) are using Metric Media’s extended network of local news sites to provide a range of campaign services to conservative candidates in the run-up to the November midterm elections, new research by the Tow Center shows. The tactic of using partisan newspapers to launder advocacy is being taken up […]
Democrats Lost the Propaganda War
The party used up about $5 billion on political ads in 2024. There’s a better way.
We spent $51,975 on podcast advertising: here’s everything we learned
Demystifying a good bit of the podcast sponsorship experience.
Ten more unintuitive things about impact philanthropy fundraising
some more lessons I’ve learned, for the $free.99
What I Learned Burning $13,867 on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
Explains how expensive it is to advertise on YouTube, what is involved in launching a campaign and finally tweaking it towards profitability.
Musk-Linked Dark Money Network Funded the Group Behind Cornel West’s Ballot Push
People Over Party raised $7.7 million in 2024, all of it from the nonprofit behind the Fair Election Fund, which in turn got every dollar from a Musk-funded dark money group.
What Ticketmaster Doesn't Want You To Know: Concerts Were Cheap For Decades
Financiers Fight Over the American Dream
A hedge fund planned to make a fortune—and do good—by exposing how Herbalife preyed on the poor. What went wrong?
How Massive Is Elon Musk’s Trillion-Dollar Fortune? Spend It Yourself
WIRED has partnered with Neal Agarwal of Neal.fun to create a visualization of Elon Musk’s massive wealth. Here’s how it came together.
Math Problem For Linda Yaccarino: If 90% Of The Top Advertisers Have Come Back, But Are Only Spending 10% Of What They Used To, How Screwed Are You?
Last week, we highlighted how it appears that exTwitter’s ad revenue remains in freefall. We noted that exTwitter CEO-in-name-only Linda Yaccarino had just gone on stage at the Code Conference to t…
A.I. Groups Are Spending Millions to Influence the Midterms
See how groups aligned with Anthropic and OpenAI have funneled major money into the fight for control of Congress.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT ads business hits $1 billion run rate as Europe gets self-serve access
That figure comes from multiplying current monthly ad revenue by 12, so it's a snapshot of where things stand today.
In case you didn't think Polymarket was sketchy enough. It paid influencers to use a fake site (poiymarket) to make fake bets that would then look like they won, and then to post viral videos to social media pretending they had won money. wsj.com/business/media/polymarket-soc…
They Looked Like They Were Getting Rich on Polymarket—but None of It Was Real
www.wsj.com