When Alan Suderman and Garance Burke wrote a story on former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale’s pivot to artificial intelligence, they got ahold of his pitch material to potential customers. One thing stood out: Parscale boasted of having access to a large network of “anti-woke” social media influencers. The pair took a closer look at these influencers and noticed many disliked Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy. They learned that some of these conservative stars, including Donald Trump Jr. and Libs of Tik Tok’s founder, were promoting an anti-Zelenskyy documentary that looked like it could have been made by the Kremlin. It was produced by a former U.S. TV anchor working for Russian state media. Suderman and Burke managed to get interviews with the producer, Ben Swann, who talked about his company’s financial ties to Russian media and how he creates content for U.S. audiences.
They scoured social media archives, FARA and Justice Department filings to uncover a wealth of material documenting Swann’s work, connections and relationship to key influencers tied to the Trump 2024 campaign.
Suderman and Burke worked with data reporter Aaron Kessler to analyze the reach of these conservative influencers and their broader social media networks. Using data provided by Syracuse University and the tech firm Bright Data, Kessler and Interactive News Editor Caleb Diehl built an interactive experience for readers that showed how Swann and his companies’ messages spread on X.
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