Outlet profile

Alternet

U.S. left / progressive

Owned byOwned by Raw Story Media, Inc. (The Raw Story), which acquired it in 2018 from the Independent Media Institute, the nonprofit that had run it since 1998. The Raw Story is led by John Byrne and Roxanne Cooper. Its 2018 ownership structure is the most recent one found in these searches.

FundingCommercial and advertising-driven under Raw Story Media. Before 2018, the Independent Media Institute funded it through foundation grants and donations. Funders listed for that nonprofit include the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Park Foundation, Craigslist Charitable Fund and New World Foundation.

On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

AlterNet was launched in 1998 by the Independent Media Institute (IMI), a San Francisco-based nonprofit. The site grew out of the Institute for Alternative Journalism, which began in 1987 as an alternative-press news service. For about two decades it was funded mainly by foundation grants and donations, and it served as a progressive outlet for syndicated alt-weekly content, original reporting and opinion. In 2018, Raw Story Media acquired AlterNet, along with The New Civil Rights Movement, which moved it from a nonprofit to a commercial model. After that, its output shifted toward high-volume, aggregated and rewritten political stories, many built on reports from other outlets, alongside opinion columns. Critics, particularly on the right, have called it hyper-partisan, and it has been described as a liberal or left-wing advocacy outlet. In 2026, its coverage consistently criticizes the Trump administration. Examples include pieces on Trump's trade disputes with Canada, legal setbacks, Iran rhetoric and midterm prospects, plus opinion pieces that warn of an attempted 'coup'. This was based on search summaries of recent headlines and tags, not a full review of its output.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-10-28; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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