The Olympic Herald is free to read. That is the first thing its donate page tells you, and it is true, the hit pieces cost nothing to consume. The business is not access. The business is outrage.
The anatomy was spotted early. In February 2026, when links to the new "Olympic Herald" began circulating in Port Angeles Reddit communities, the original poster in r/PortAngeles2 diagnosed it in one sentence: "Mimicking right wing influencer Nick Shirley's grift of blasting public sector employees with dubious allegations for fun and profit, OH appears to be a one-man op dedicated exclusively to re-tweeting defamation under only the thinnest pretense of passing for citizen journalism."
The poster even accounted for the site's traffic economics, offering readers an archived snapshot link "to avoid your view being monetized by the publisher."
The ask
The Olympic Herald's donate page, archived October 25, 2026, lays out the model in full. "Support The Olympic Herald," the banner reads. "Keep Washington journalism independent."
Below it: one-time gifts at preset tiers of $25, $50, $100, $200, and $500, each opening a Stripe checkout in a new tab, plus "supporting member" subscriptions at $10 per month or $100 per year ("Save $20 a year"). A custom-amount field sits underneath. The page states plainly: "Contributions are not tax-deductible."
An FAQ anticipates the obvious question. "Do I need to pay to read The Olympic Herald?" the page asks. "No. Our reporting is free to read. Contributing is a way to help keep it available to everyone." Under the heading "Your support goes into the reporting," the page lists two functions: "Public records, requesting documents, reviewing the details, and making records accessible," and "Local accountability, following courts, public agencies, and decisions that affect Washington communities."
"Good reporting takes time: to get the records, check the facts, and follow up," the page tells donors. "Your contribution helps us do that work."
The page carries testimonials from named readers. "Olympic Herald provides timely, hard hitting stories that I seldom see reported on other local media," writes Ed Evans. "Your research and links to documents are the receipts the community need," writes Wendy Larson. "We must have fearless reporting like you are doing," writes Susan.
What the contributions fund
"That work," measured by the site's own archive, is a target list. Of 424 published articles TROH captured, 109 name the judge who denied Anthony Tomashefsky's motion to revise a stalking and harassment protection order; 58 name the commissioner who granted it; 17 name the petitioner the order protects; six and five name two local psychologists. The site publishes no ownership disclosure, names no entity that receives the Stripe proceeds, and offers donors no accounting of where the money goes.
The Reddit thread anticipated that opacity, too. Listing what the original poster called the formula of "domain-fronted substacks," he included: "Primarily buoyed by dark money and a few large donors dropping cash into a gofundme." The same poster, conceding the legal landscape, wrote: "The first amendment offers incredible protections for the press, or even a bad actor presenting under the guise of being press... it's practically impossible to prove libel up to the legal standard because these maga bloggers will simply feign ignorance as to the malicious intent behind their publications."
The warning
The sharpest comment in the thread came from a user who wrote that "Anthony Tomashefsky has a history of scamming people," and posted what he called a public warning: "Do NOT donate money to this guy." The commenter continued: "The Author of the Olympic Herald previously operated a business called Advice Chaser, which has dozens of reviews from people claiming they paid between $6,000–$14,000 upfront and never received the services promised," linking the company's Better Business Bureau profile.
That profile remains live. BBB notes its pages cover a rolling three-year reporting period, and the older reviews the commenter described have aged out of view; the claims are the commenter's, attributed here as such. What remains verifiable is the structure: a man whose last venture faces complaints of collecting upfront fees, and which left a $42,128 default judgment behind, now runs a "news" site collecting upfront donations, up to $500 at a time, not tax-deductible, from readers moved by stories about his courtroom enemies.
Outrage, monetized, is still outrage. The donate button just makes it renewable.
This article relies on public court records and public complaints. TROH welcomes a response from Mr. Tomashefsky and will publish it in full.