Right-wing Newsmax secretly lobbied to kill funding for fact-checking and ethics: report

Behind the scenes, Newsmax has worked to influence Florida lawmakers to cancel contracts with firms it dislikes.

Investigative reporter Jason Garcia, who covers corporate influence in Florida, reported Wednesday that Newsmax hired lobbyists to secretly influence state funding for companies that rate news outlets for accuracy and ethics.

Writing on his Substack, Garcia noted that Newsmax grew its network in part by being one of the few outlets willing to promote false information about the 2020 election. The network was subsequently sued by two electronic voting companies, Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems. Newsmax paid $40 million to settle with Smartmatic and $67 million to settle with Dominion.

Garcia obtained documents showing Newsmax’s lobbyists attempted to convince Florida House members to approve a new law that would bar all state agencies from contracting with businesses that also work with “media reliability and bias monitors.”

According to Garcia, “The measure is meant to squeeze companies like NewsGuard Technologies, a seven-year-old startup co-founded by a former Wall Street Journal publisher that evaluates news outlets based on their accuracy and adherence to journalistic standards. NewsGuard’s credibility ratings are used by clients such as search engines, AI developers, news aggregators, and brand-sensitive businesses worried about advertising on disreputable sites.”

The legislation Newsmax wanted, House Bill 1449, failed—but Republicans added a similar provision at the last minute to an appropriations bill. The language was inserted into a budget bill that wasn’t released to the public until the final Friday evening of the session and was buried on page 143 of the 154-page bill.

State House rules mandate that lobbyists disclose each piece of legislation they’re lobbying for, but Garcia reported there were no disclosures filed for House Bill 1449.

Newsmax, which is based in Boca Raton, Florida, has close ties to President Donald Trump, with several allies serving as hosts or contributors to the network.

Read the full report here.