Wired has a story by Taylor Lorenz about Chorus, which is a Dem backed influencer agency, attempting to recruit influencers with $8000 a month retainers and contracts that stipulate that they not disclose that they’re being paid by the group. Taylor has written about Chorus before, and in particular, a disastrous attempt to fly a bunch of influencers to D.C. where they essentially dumped them at the Rayburn building and told them to knock on doors for interviews. (The influencers were not paid for this, and were understandably under the impression that the group would arrange interviews for them. They also had to front the cost of their own travel and submit content in order to be reimbursed.)

Per today’s story:

Creators told WIRED that the contract stipulated they’d be kicked out and essentially cut off financially if they even so much as acknowledged that they were part of the program. Some creators also raised concerns about a slew of restrictive clauses in the contract.

This is so, so stupid. It’s also indicative of why so many of these Dem backed media efforts don’t work. Here are the big mistakes they make: