Arnold reports: “Few outlets rely on this simple trust more than Morning Brew. A popular daily newsletter network with more than 4 million claimed subscribers, whose meteoric rise led to an acquisition by publishing giant Axel Springer, parent company of both Politico and Business Insider. Hunterbrook’s analysis found that Morning Brew placed these crowdfunding ads in 165 editions of their flagship newsletter in 2025 alone. It also continued to run them regularly even after we requested comment – to which we still have not received a response.
“But it wasn’t just them. We found dozens of disturbing examples in newsletters of Sherwood News (managed by a subsidiary of investment company Robinhood), The Wall Street Journal, 1440 (over 4.6 million claimed subscribers), TLDR (1.6 million) and Tangle News (460,000).
Tangle, an independent publication, provided Hunterbrook with a lengthy and serious response. The founder confirmed that it conducted both internal and referral-based due diligence. This does not appear to have extended to comparing the provided ad copy with the publishers’ disclosure documents. Tangle is reviewing its policy.
“Benzinga, with some 25 million monthly readers, went even further a promotional postseemingly presented as his own independent research, that was largely just the fundraising company’s marketing copy. Exec Sum, a financial newsletter run by Twitter/X personality Litquidity, did the same for its more than 350,000 subscribers.”
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