 Drop Site News logo | |
| Formation | July 2024 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim |
| Type | Nonprofit news outlet |
| Purpose | Investigative reporting |
Official language | English |
| Website | www |
Drop Site News is a nonprofit investigative news outlet founded by Ryan Grim and Jeremy Scahill in July 2024. It is based in Washington, D.C., United States. [1] [2] It describes itself as non-aligned and anti-establishment. [3]
In July 2024, Ryan Grim and Jeremy Scahill founded Drop Site News, [4] [5] [6] [7] [1] with Nausicaa Renner as a founding editor. [2] All three formerly worked at The Intercept , [2] which had seen significant staff turmoil and departures in the preceding months. [8] [9] The board of The Intercept rejected an offer from Grim and Scahill to take over the company. [9]
The New York Times described the establishment of Drop Site News—comparing it to Taylor Lorenz's User Mag, Oliver Darcy's Status, and 404 Media founded by former staff of Vice Motherboard—as an instance of "a series of journalists leaving legacy media institutions in recent years to strike out on their own". [1]
In February 2025, the Palestine Laboratory Podcast, hosted by investigative journalist Antony Loewenstein of Drop Site News, was a finalist for the Melbourne Press Club's Quill Award for best podcast. [10]
In September 2025, Grim announced that Nika Soon-Shiong, daughter of Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, would serve as Drop Site News's publisher. [11] [12]
Grim has said that Drop Site News focuses broadly on "power and greed". [2] He has expressed a belief in the importance of alternative media in "debunking disinformation that often goes unchallenged by corporate journalism", citing his assertion that "many Israeli propaganda narratives fell apart under pressure from alternative media", such as claims that Hamas beheaded 40 babies or committed systemic rape during the October 7 attacks. [13]
In December 2024, citing 13 anonymous BBC staffers, Owen Jones reported for Drop Site News that BBC Middle East editor Raffi Berg was acting to skew coverage of the Gaza war in favor of Israel. [14] [15] The BBC denied the allegation. [16] [14] In November 2025, Berg sued Jones for libel, alleging Jones's article had damaged his reputation and resulted in "an onslaught of hatred, intimidation and threats". Jones responded, "I strongly disagree with Mr. Berg's accusations, and I look forward to vigorously defending my reporting in court." [15]
From September to November 2025, Grim and Murtaza Hussain broke a series of stories on Jeffrey Epstein's connections with Israeli intelligence. [17] [18] Jeet Heer of The Nation wrote, "The blockbuster reporting in Reason and Drop Site has not been matched by any comparable investigations in The New York Times or The Washington Post , on CNN or the major networks." [18]
On July 8, 2024, the Meta Platforms-owned social media platform Instagram took down several interviews about the Gaza war posted by Democracy Now! . An interview of Scahill by Amy Goodman on his interviews with Hamas officials for Drop Site News was among those taken down. Instagram's takedown notice said that the removed interviews included "symbols, praise, or support of people and organizations we define as dangerous". [19]
In September 2024, Drop Site News reported that it was blocked in Pakistan after reporting that July on the Army Agahi Network, a secret online operation run by the Pakistan Army. Pakistan's military followed the ban with legal threats and accusations that Drop Site News is "being funded by Jew and Indian lobbies". [20]
The Intercept provided startup funding for Drop Site News. [5] [2] In November 2025, according to The Washington Free Beacon , the Open Society Foundations awarded $250,000 to the Social Security Works Education Fund, the nonprofit that acts as a fiscal sponsor for Drop Site News "to support establishing a Drop Site News MENA desk to bridge a critical information gap in independent journalism". [21]
Drop Site's journalists include Grim, Hussain, Scahill, Renner, and Sharif Abdel Kouddous. [2] During the Gaza war, Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat reported from the northern Gaza Strip for Drop Site News before he was killed in March 2025. [22] [23]
Yesterday was a busy one for media-jobs news. Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim announced that they are leaving The Intercept and founding a new investigative outlet called Drop Site News; The Intercept said that it is providing 'startup funding' and will continue to host the pair's podcasts.