Axios Reporter Downplays Her Own Story on Harris Campaign Allegedly Using Misleading Ads After Backlash

Axios reporter Sara Fischer downplayed her own scoop about the Kamala Harris campaign after it engendered backlash from her supporters.

The strategy harnesses the ambiguous nature of the media’s oftentimes pro-Harris coverage with actual Harris campaign advertising.

The Harris campaign edits the ads that “make it appear as if the Guardian, Reuters, CBS News and other major publishers are on her side,” Axios reported. “It’s a common practice in the commercial advertising world that doesn’t violate Google’s policies, but the ads mimic real news results from Search closely enough that they have news outlets caught off guard.”

“According to Google’s ad transparency center, the Trump campaign isn’t running these types of ads, but this technique has been used by campaigns before,” the outlet explained. “The ads say that they are sponsored, but it’s not immediately clear that the text that accompanies real news links is written by the campaigns and not by the media publication itself.”

Reporter Sara Fischer, who broke the story, said on X: The “Harris campaign has been editing news headlines & descriptions in search ads that make it appear as if major outlets support her — Google believes its sponsored disclosures are enough to keep voters from being misled, but media outlets may feel differently.”

Prior to Fischer downplaying her report, one user wrote, “This is seriously all you got? Those ads look completely fine to me. You think THAT’S misleading? What about the media cleaning up DJT’s slurring last night? That’s misleading!”

“The media works for Trump and are worthless hacks,” said another.

Fischer later received blowback for undermining her own story.

Paul Roland Bois directed the award-winning Christian tech thriller, EXEMPLUM, which has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes critic rating and can be viewed for FREE on YouTube or Tubi. “Better than Killers of the Flower Moon,” wrote Mark Judge. “You haven’t seen a story like this before,” wrote Christian Toto. A high-quality, ad-free rental can also be streamed on Google Play, Vimeo on Demand, or YouTube Movies. Follow him on X @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.