Drop Site News

George and Alex Soros’s Open Society Foundations gave $250,000 to Drop Site News in 2024.  ⁴ Drop Site News publisher Nika Soon-Shiong is an activist for universal basic income. ³

One Drop Site News co-founder criticized U.S. Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) for a “double standard” when Khanna did not agree that Hamas was justified in the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. ⁵ Another co-founder criticized CNN’s Jake Tapper for reporting rapes occurred during the Oct. 7 attack, claiming no evidence. ⁶

Background

Drop Site News is a left-leaning news organization that launched in July 2024 with a strong anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian focus. ^{1  2}

Drop Site News was established by journalists who previously worked at The Intercept: Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim, and Nausicaa Renner. ³ Scahill said that the name “drop site” is a term of espionage and is “a place where spies can leave a secret for one another.” ⁷

Palestinian Advocacy

After the second Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, Drop Site News sent a fundraising email to readers with the subject line, “New president, same war crimes.” The message said most of American media was focused on Washington, D.C., while Drop Site News would focus on Gaza and “documenting Israel’s crimes, which are facilitated by the US government, and ensuring perpetrators face justice.”  ²

Drop Site News has touted it has published extensive interviews with senior officials in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.  ³

Co-founder Jeremy Scahill did a series of interviews with Hamas leaders that was meant to provide the “public deeper insight into [Hamas’s] decision to launch the October 7 attacks in Israel.” ⁴ Scahill wrote of the Hamas interviews: “It is essential that the public understand the perspectives of the individuals and groups who initiated the attack that spurred Israel’s genocidal war—an argument that is seldom permitted outside of simple sound bites.”  ²

Drop Site News has attacked other media outlets as being biased toward Israel in news coverage. One story alleged 16 journalists, including from the New York Times and CNN, worked in a program to help Israel win its “information war.” Another story accused the Free Press website of working with a “shadowy think tank tied to pro-Israel advocacy.” ⁴

In an interview, Drop Site News pressed U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) on whether Hamas was justified in its attack on Israeli soldiers and civilians on October 7, 2023. ⁸  Scahill accused Rep. Khanna of promoting a “double standard.” ⁵

Ryan Grimm asserted in a post on X, “No independent human rights organization … has confirmed a single rape on October 7.” CNN’s Jake Tapper shared an X post that called Drop Site News “Ryan Grim’s terror propaganda and fake news site denying that there were any rapes on 10/7.” Grim responded to Tapper saying, “I don’t know why, but @jaketapper has never corrected his now demonstrably false reporting on 10/7 sexual violence.” Both Amnesty International and the United Nations concluded that rape and sexual violence were committed by Hamas during its Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. ⁹

Drop Site News also says it has investigated the “links between Jeffrey Epstein and U.S. and Israeli intelligence circles continues to reverberate.”  ³

Funding

Drop Site gained 800,000 free subscribers and 60,000 paid subscribers, as of July 2026, the Associated Press reported.  ⁸

George and Alex Soros’s Open Society Foundations contributed $250,000 to establish a Middle East desk at Drop Site News.  ⁴ The Open Society Foundations first gave to the Social Security Works Education Fund, and earmarked the funding “to support establishing a Drop Site News MENA desk to [sic] bridge a critical information gap in independent journalism.”  ⁴

Leadership

Jeremy Scahill is the co-founder and a senior investigative reporter for Drop Site News. He is the author of Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield. Scahill was previously a founding editor at The Intercept. Scahill has been the national security correspondent for The Nation and Democracy Now!. ³

Ryan Grim is the co-founder and a senior investigative reporter for Drop Site News. He has covered Washington, D.C. for The Intercept and the Huffington Post. Grim is the author of The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution. ³

Nausicaa Renner is the founding editor of Drop Site News. She was formerly the deputy editor at The Intercept. ³

Nika Soon-Shiong is the publisher of Drop Site News. She is the daughter of billionaire biotech entrepreneur and Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong.  ¹⁰  She previously worked for her father’s newspaper and posted on social media criticizing the Times’ coverage of crime. ¹¹ She founded the Fund for Guaranteed Income, which advocates universal basic income programs. Previously she worked for the president of the World Bank Group. Soon sits on the boards of the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Compton Development Corporation and is the board chair of One Fair Wage.  ³

Casey Quirke is the chief operating officer of Drop Site News. Previously, he was the associate director of development at The Intercept. Before that, he led donor services as the senior coordinator at MoveOn.org. ³