Kamala Harris has been caught lying in her campaign promotions and now a family whose broadcast outlet was abused and whose reputation possibly was damaged is considering legal action.

The situation is that the Harris campaign has been buying online ads and making up headlines and story descriptions, then using the names of established publications in the ads. The ads link to real news organizations, but those stories don’t support the headlines being fabricated by the Harris campaign.

Harris campaign has been editing news headlines & descriptions in search ads that make it appear as if major outlets support her
—Google believes its sponsored disclosures are enough to keep voters from being misled, but media outlets may feel differentlyhttps://t.co/dU0KFhbeuy

— Sara Fischer (@sarafischer) August 13, 2024

It is an ad scheme that other Democrats earlier had used.

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Now the Daily Caller reports it is WDAY Radio, a broadcaster based in Fargo, N.D., that is reviewing its options for legal action.

The report notes “the Kamala Harris campaign deceptively edited WDAY headlines to make it look like they supported her in an ad campaign.”

Harris’s campaign has taken advantage of the names of publishers including NPR, CNN, the Guardian, Independent, Reuters, AP and WDAY, the report said.

“We feel insulted and violated by what was done here,” explained Steve Hallstrom, president of Flag Family Media, which owns WDAY, in an interview with the Daily Caller.

“You have a political campaign that used our news brand and our URL to effectively lie to people about the headline we wrote. They lied to every single person that saw that ad. It’s misleading, it’s dishonest, and it hurts us as the company, our news brand. So as of today, we’re starting to make some calls here. We are considering all of our options here, including legal action,” he said.

The report explained Harris used three “variations” of an ad that linked to WDAY’s website: “Harris Picks Tim Walz – 215,000 MN Families Win,” “Learn About VP Pick Tim Walz – Harris Picks Tim Walz,” and “Harris Picks Tim Walz – Tim Walz Tapped For VP,” the report said.

The ads then linked to actual articles published by news organizations. But critically, the articles “did not have those headlines, nor did they include parts of the text included underneath,” the report noted.

Hallstrom charged, “We never wrote anything close to what is alleged here. They took two different unrelated stories that we did have on our website, sort of mashed them together, and then from there, they rewrote a few words to make it look like our news organization was cheering on the selection of Walz.”

Google officials said the scheme doesn’t violate any of the leftist company’s policies.

Hallstrom said that’s part of the problem.

“I’ve heard the excuses about how this meets the approval of the Google Ad criteria people, and I don’t care. When you see that ad, you may understand that it’s an ad, that any reasonable human being would look at that and say, ‘Oh, the campaign, they found a story or headline on a website that’s good for them. Who would not use that? Who wouldn’t use that?’ But that’s not what happened here.”

An AP spokesman told the Daily Caller the legacy wire service was unaware of the Harris campaign’s use of its name.

Hallstrom questioned the integrity of the Harris campaign.

“There are things that are right and there are things that are wrong, and this clearly is wrong. This is clearly leading, it’s clearly deceptive, it’s dishonest, and it was done obviously recklessly without thinking about what’s really happening here. And I don’t know who on the Harris staff made the decision that this was a good strategy. But I can’t believe that on the whole that that organization, that campaign would, top to bottom, feel like this is a tactful and a principled approach to getting the word out about their candidate.”

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Bob Unruh

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially. Read more of Bob Unruh's articles here.