You won’t believe how much money the feds keep giving to just one media outlet

How much the federal government is spending on one media outlet is troubling, to say the least.

According to The Weekly Standard, the Virginia-based media organization known as Politico received $710,044 in contracts last year from the federal government. That may not seem like much in the big picture of the trillions of dollars the feds spend yearly, but it is when you realize they keep giving them more and more each year for their news services.

In 2011, Politico launched its subscription-based service, Politico Pro. That year, the government joined for $41,900. Three years later, the feds upped the contracts to 28 and spent $431,800. Last year, 50 individual licenses were purchased through Politico Pro, bringing the total to a whopping $710,044 — “a 64% increase over 2014,” the report adds.

The news organization states on its Pro website that it “provides the most distinct coverage of Washington and beyond, and thousands of politics and policy professionals depend on us each day to do their jobs.” A team of over 100 journalists are said to cover “game-changing developments” in agriculture, defense, education, energy, health care, trade, tax, and more.

But according to the vice president of communications for Politico, Brad Dayspring, there’s no possible way having this large number of contracts could lead to a conflict of interest:

“Our editorial staff pursues news stories completely independent of the sales process — there is no interaction between the business team executing sales of the Pro service and the editorial teams gathering the news.”

Dayspring said he is “proud” to get “more federal agencies” on board each year and assured that its business only accounts for “a small fraction” of Pro subscriptions.

What is interesting, however, is comparing the federal contracts with other media outlets. In the same years between 2011 and today, The Washington Post‘s subscriptions have dwindled so low, it owes the feds $3,523. Subscriptions for The New York Times never toppled $100,000 and have been at zero for the last three years.

Like the Weekly Standard states, “the growing federal appetite for Politico’s services” is quite evident and it’s going to take a lot more than a company statement to convince me there’s no conflict of interest here.