Social media-focused progressive news outlet Courier expands to Georgia

With the new additions, Courier will have 20 local news sites. The organization has always been eager to add reporters in Georgia, Rosario said, given that it is one of the fastest-growing states in the country.

The expansion comes ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, when Georgia voters must navigate a hypercompetitive race for governor in addition to ones for congressional representatives. It’s also likely conservative media outlets will put significant resources toward covering this year’s election.

“We’re going into a huge midterm election this year. Georgia is going to be pivotal,” Rosario said.

The announcement comes during a period of contraction for journalism jobs, both in Atlanta and the United States at large.

The decline is not a new trend. Since 2005, more than 270,000 newspaper jobs have vanished, a loss of more than 75%, according to the 2025 Medill State of Local News report.

But Courier’s publications aren’t traditional newsrooms. They’re digital-first and package content in short-form videos, explainers, carousels and text posts on social media, as well as through newsletters. It’s mostly a mix of liberal-leaning politics and lifestyle coverage geared to capture the attention of what Courier deems a “news avoidant” audience, or people who actively tune out the news and mostly rely on indirect exposure.

Consumers are increasingly turning to social media to get their news. A fifth of U.S. adults for instance now regularly get their news on TikTok, up from about 3% in 2020, according to a September 2025 report from the Pew Research Center. No social media platform has experienced faster growth in news consumption. For adults under 30, this number is higher. About 43% of the young adults surveyed by Pew say they regularly get news from TikTok, up from 9% in 2020.

Courier has partly grown its presence across social media through paid advertising.

The organization was founded by Democratic operative Tara McGowan in 2019. It’s owned by Good Information Inc., a public benefit corporation backed by billionaires George Soros and Reid Hoffman, among others, that invests in new media companies. Courier is the only organization listed on its website.

Critics have referred to Courier as a partisan outlet masquerading as a local news outlet. In 2022, the Federal Election Commission dismissed a complaint alleging Courier existed to promote Democratic candidates in key political contests and failed to register and report as a political committee. The organization maintained it was a news operation with a progressive perspective.

But Courier said it doesn’t try to hide its partisan leaning, and emphasizes its commitment to fact-based journalism on its various websites.

“We make an effort to try to get to know our audiences really well, and foster a two-way conversation, both on social media and through our newsletter programs,” Rosario said.

Courier’s local news sites do not have paywalls. The organization is funded through a number of buckets, including reader contributions, advertising and monetization through social platforms. Each of its local publications includes a donation link at the top of the masthead. It also has philanthropic and corporate underwriters, Rosario said.

One recent donor to the organization was the Future Forward USA Action, a nonprofit associated with the chief fundraising vehicle of Kamala Harris’ campaign in the 2024 recent presidential election, which donated about $13.6 million to Courier in fiscal year ending 2024, according to tax filings obtained by ProPublica.

The other states into which Courier is expanding are California, Colorado, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York and Utah. Like Georgia, the organization will hire about one or two reporters in each state, and hopes it will add more depending on the success in each state.

“We’ll get as big in each state as we’re allowed to,” Rosario said. “We’re like a goldfish.”