Mountain Top Media: An Emerging Tool for Shasta County Politics

A local news organization known as Mountain Top Media (MTM) is linked to the campaign financing of a politician who promotes it. 

In comments on a recent Facebook live, Shasta County Supervisor Kevin Crye called the privately-owned organization “a great source” for local news, saying he hopes it “grows exponentially.” 

While no information about MTM’s ownership, funding or staffing is provided on its site, the for-profit is registered under the name of political activist Mark Kent, who also managed the PAC that helped fund Crye’s ascent to political office and ward off his nearly-successful recall.

Kent was also a principal officer in the other two local PACs funded by wealthy East Coast donor, and former Shasta County resident, Reverge Anselmo. All in all, Kent has helped funnel about $2 million from Anselmo into local political campaigns, bankrolling a significant shift in Shasta County politics over the last four years.

Content produced by Kent’s media organization promotes a similar perspective to that espoused by the candidates those PACs supported. Interviews conducted by MTM hosts have endorsed political candidates for the Shasta County Office of Education (SCOE) Board, supported self-described citizen militias, amplified the work of the national political organization Moms for Liberty, and perpetuated the unproven concerns of elections activists associated with New California State, a secessionist movement seeking to partition California along ideological lines. 

In several interviews with Shasta Scout over the last several weeks, Crye said he was unaware of Kent’s connection to MTM, explaining that he believed the organization was owned by local businessman Jon Knight. While Kent has not responded to a request for comment, Knight did speak briefly to Shasta Scout last week, confirming that Kent owns MTM.

Knight, who Crye helped appoint to the Shasta County Mosquito and Vector Control Board in 2023, told Shasta Scout he, not Kent, is the primary funder of the organization, saying MTM has only one paid staffer and is otherwise run by volunteers. While Knight did not name that staffer, the Chair of Shasta County Moms for Liberty, Leslie Sawyer, lists a role at MTM as “Production Manager” on her LinkedIn profile. She did not respond to a request for comment.

Kent registered MTM with the state in February 2023 as a for-profit entity, but donations submitted on the MTM website are being funneled through a second organization also registered to Kent: the non-profit Patriots Educating Concerned Americans Now (PECAN). That organization is currently listed as “delinquent” on the state’s charity website, due to failure to provide annual reports and pay registration fees. A January 6 letter sent from the state to the PECAN Board, also notes concerns with planned raffle activities. 

ProPublica filings show that as of 2022, PECAN’s revenue was just under $80,000 with 100% of funds coming from “contributions.” It’s not clear how much, if any, of those funds were used for MTM. But the planned use of nonprofit funds by MTM moving forward raises concerns about the organization’s decision to allow shows hosted on its platform to promote specific political candidates and groups. Under federal law, money raised through a registered nonprofit such as PECAN cannot be primarily used for partisan purposes.

A social media posting says donations to the MTM site will be used to “train new journalists.” But it’s not yet clear who MTM’s current journalists, if any, are. The company appears to act as an umbrella organization for several hosted shows and a Substack newsletter known as the Mountain Top Times. Most articles so far have been written by Chriss Street, a former Orange County Treasurer who’s also CFO of the political movement New California State, which MTM shows have promoted. 

Street has also just been approved to fill a “healthcare consultant” role for Shasta County and is working with newly-elected Redding Council member Dr. Paul Dhanuka on the idea of bringing a medical school and substance use facility to Shasta. In a recent interview with an MTM host, Dhanuka lauded the media organization’s work as “exemplary” and encouraged the public to attend MTM’s upcoming dinner and fundraising auction.

In the hours after this article was published, Dhanuka reached out with a response to Shasta Scout’s earlier request for comment, saying “the media in this town are all exemplary because they’re all doing the hard work of giving a voice to the people” and noting that he donates to many media organizations, including Shasta Scout.

Reading Between the Lines 

The interplay between MTM and some of the County’s political players provides a localized example of a larger dynamic that researchers have identified across the nation. Some, like journalist David Folkenflik, have begun calling content organizations designed to look like they’re producing news while serving as a mouthpiece for specific political groups or individuals, “news mirage.” 

Outlets that present information in this way, Columbia Journalism researcher Pryanjana Bengani says, mimic the look and feel of news outlets to gain the trust of consumers who rely on local journalism, while working to manipulate public opinion. In June 2024, the media watchdog agency Newsguard reported that the “number of partisan-backed outlets designed to look like impartial news outlets has officially surpassed the number of real, local daily newspapers in the United States.”

Poynter journalist Annie Aguiar says in order to avoid what’s sometimes been referred to as “pink slime journalism,” news consumers should begin by looking at both who runs local media and who funds it, keeping a watchful eye out for the role of partisan perspectives in producing the news. Ethical local news sources, she indicates, provide transparent access to both staffing and funding sources.

In response to questions about providing transparency for large funding sources, Knight said while MTM hasn’t yet received funding from East Coast donor Anselmo, he wouldn’t disclose such a donation to the public anyway because MTM is a for-profit and he doesn’t have to.

Similarly, Supervisor Crye told Shasta Scout if he could donate $1 million to MTM he would, explaining that the organization does “a better job than any other media.” Asked if it would be ethical for him to provide a large donation to a media organization that covers his work as an elected official, Crye responded, “who follows journalism ethics these days anyway.”

“If we could just get to real journalism, real stories, that’s what I want,” Crye continued, before expressing his disappointment that Shasta Scout would write a story about a fellow news agency, instead of “focusing on the kind of reporting that matters.”

Editorial Note: Shasta Scout accepts donations of no more than $120 yearly, or the approximate value of an annual newspaper subscription, from any individual elected official.

2.4.25 5:12 pm: We have updated the story to include a comment from Dr. Dhanuka and to add a related editorial note.

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