Pressure of Truth
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Outlet profile

Sludge

U.S. progressive/left-leaning investigative nonprofit

Owned bySludge is a project of the Participatory Politics Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The foundation was founded by David Moore and Donny (Donald) Shaw, who also co-founded Sludge.
FundingMostly reader subscriptions and the Institute for Nonprofit News' NewsMatch donation drive. It also gets small gifts of $5,000 or less from family foundations and has run crowdfunding campaigns. From January 2018 to March 2019 it was funded by grants from Civil Media Company and the Civil Foundation. It describes itself as a very small operation, with roughly two people.
On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

Sludge launched in 2018 as part of Civil's 'First Fleet' of blockchain-backed news startups, with grants from Civil Media Company and the Civil Foundation. It was created by the team behind OpenCongress, a nonprofit site for tracking Congress and campaign money that ran from 2007 to 2013. After Civil's funding ended in March 2019, Sludge became reader-supported, with subscriptions, a 2019 Kickstarter, an IndieGogo campaign, and NewsMatch money. Its beat is lobbying, campaign finance, dark money, and corporate and special-interest influence over government. Donald Shaw is a co-founder and its best-known writer. Its stories often use lobbying disclosures and campaign finance data. Its work leans progressive in its framing and concern about concentrated money in politics. It also publishes reporting on Democratic-aligned groups and donors, such as 2026 stories on Democrat-aligned dark-money groups and on DCCC bundlers lobbying for Flock. Media watchdogs rate outlets like it as left-leaning, though I did not review those ratings in detail, and I found no major controversies. Under the second Trump administration, its coverage has focused on industry lobbying and donor influence on policy, which usually reads as critical of the administration.

Sources

  1. About Sludge
  2. Announcing Sludge, part of Civil's "First Fleet"
  3. Sludge - Influence Watch
  4. Sludge - Bias and Credibility - Media Bias/Fact Check
  5. Donald Shaw - The Nation
  6. The DCCC's Top Bundlers Are Now Lobbying for Flock - Sludge
  7. Democrat-Aligned 'Dark Money' Group Hires Crypto Lobbyist - Sludge

Profile compiled 2026-11-03; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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