Outlet profile

Sludge

U.S. left

Owned byProject of the Participatory Politics Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit co-founded by David Moore and Donny Shaw

FundingPrimarily reader subscriptions; supplemented by small foundation grants (including the Broad Reach Foundation and Marcia Brady Tucker Foundation); received early support from the Civil Media Company/Civil Foundation (2018–2019)

On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

Sludge was founded in 2018 by David Moore and Donny Shaw, who had spent a decade running OpenCongress.org — the most-visited nonprofit site for tracking U.S. congressional activity and campaign money — under the Participatory Politics Foundation, a nonprofit they established in 2009. Sludge launched on the Civil blockchain-based journalism platform, which was bankrolled by Canadian crypto entrepreneur Joseph Lubin's company ConsenSys; Civil provided an initial investment to help get the outlet off the ground. When Civil struggled financially, Sludge shifted to a reader-subscription model in April 2019, with small foundation grants as a supplemental source. The outlet operates on a lean budget with a small staff, producing investigative pieces on lobbying disclosures, dark money networks, revolving-door hiring, and the intersection of campaign donations with government policy. Media Bias/Fact Check rates Sludge as left-biased based on story selection that tends to favor progressive narratives, while also rating it highly for factual accuracy and sourcing. During the second Trump administration, Sludge has focused heavily on donor-to-policy connections, conflicts of interest, and ethics concerns — including pieces on Trump's inaugural fund donors receiving government favors, a Trump media merger conflict of interest, and former Trump officials lobbying agencies they just left.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-08-05; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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