Published on May 4, 2019
POYNTER ‘BLACKLIST’ OF CONSERVATIVE NEWS SITES WAS CREATED BY SPLC EMPLOYEE
List contains sites such as Free Beacon, Daily Caller, Breitbart
By Joe Schoffstall
A journalism institute released a “blacklist” of media outlets they deemed as “unreliable” that was created by an employee of the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center and overwhelmingly contains conservative new media outlets.
The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a Florida-based nonprofit journalism school, released the list on Wednesday and declared dozens of mainstream conservative sites such as the Washington Free Beacon, Daily Caller, Daily Signal, CNS News, and Breitbart as “unreliable” while listing few liberal sites,” Newsbusters reports.
The study notes it trimmed the list “by removing several sites whose stories, though highly politicized, were mostly not fake: alternet.org, cato.org, heritage.org, nationalreview.com, thedailybeast.com, the intercept.com, thinkprogress.org, and weeklystandard.com.”
A majority of the removed sites lean left. Of the removed conservative sites, the Heritage Foundation, a think tank – and not in itself a news site — was taken off the list. However, the Daily Signal, which is hosted by the Heritage Foundation, is included on the list. Another conservative site that was removed from the list, the Weekly Standard, was shuttered in December.
While most of the sites are labeled as “unreliable”, “fake”, or “conspiracy” – or a combination of the three — the Free Beacon is listed as “bias”, a label that prompted further review of the sites that were ultimately removed from the list upon further review and before its release.
Barrett Golding, an employee at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left nonprofit embroiled in controversy over accusations of internal racism from its top management that led to its co-founder, Morris Dees, and president, Richard Cohen, being ousted from the group, created the list for Poynter.
Golding appears to have followed the SPLC “list” model in its creation of “unreliable” news sites, as many of the mainstream conservative sites on the list are thrown in with actual sites that push conspiracy theories. This mirrors the SPLC’s “hate group” list, which contains mainstream conservative organizations alongside racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. The SPLC’s “hate” list, which it is perhaps best known for today, has helped the controversial — and allegedly internally racist group itself towards its black employees – to garner more than $500 million in total assets, $120 million of which is parked overseas.
“These sites stood next to conservative organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented baker Jack Phillips in the Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission,” Newsbusters writes. “While the ADF is not a news site, it was likely targeted because Golding works for the SPLC. The ADF is considered a ‘hate group’ by the SPLC and is marked on the ‘hate map.’ The Washington Post even questioned SPLC’s ‘political activism’ and ‘bias.'”
“SPLC has been dropped by Twitter from its Trust and Safety Council and slammed by the mainstream media after multiple scandals rocked the organization. Its hate map even helped shooter Floyd Lee Corkins find the location of the Family Research Council, where he shot and wounded five people.”
Factcheck.org, Fake News Codex, OpenSources, and PolitiFact were also involved in the study alongside Golding.
Washington Post Scrubs Headline Calling Louis Farrakhan ‘Far-Right’
By Justin Caruso
UPDATE 5:23 PM EST: The Washington Post has added a correction to the post in question — after this article was published. The paper held off on a correction on its site for nearly two hours after acknowledging the error on Twitter. The headline on Breitbart’s story has been updated to reflect this change.
The Washington Post described Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan as “far-right” Thursday, then scrubbed the error from the article’s headline and text without acknowledging the edit.
The far-left newspaper’s coverage of Facebook’s latest move to ban controversial and anti-establishment figures linked Farrakhan with conservative activists, originally posting the headline “Facebook bans far-right leaders including Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos for being ‘dangerous.’”
The false label was also included in the first line of author Elizabeth Dwoskin’s article.
The publication’s official Twitter account posted the same headline with this false information. In a followup tweet, the Post said, “We have deleted this tweet because it incorrectly included Louis Farrakhan, who has espoused anti-Semitic views, in a list of far-right leaders. Facebook banned extremist figures including Farrakhan, Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos for being ‘dangerous.’”
However, the paper has not acknowledged any error on the article page itself — or told readers that its editors altered the headline, lead paragraph, and URL after publication.
Despite the stealth correction, the article has received the endorsement of NewsGuard, a Microsoft partner that marks news sources as reliable or not in a web browser extension — even on a cached version of the article with the false “far-right” label still included in the URL.
“This website adheres to all nine of NewsGuard’s standards of credibility and transparency,” a pop-up reads when users mouse over the green checkmark next to the Post‘s name. Among those criteria: “Regularly corrects or clarifies errors.”
NewsGuard similarly defended a stealth edit from corporate media in February, saying that the New York Times did not run afoul of its policy by altering a headline without acknowledging the update.
Another article published in The Atlantic about the Facebook bans used the headline “Instagram and Facebook Ban Far-Right Extremists,” with a photo of Farrakhan in the featured image. As of this writing, it has not been corrected.
Farrakhan, who has praised Adolf Hitler and promotes an anti-Semitic and black nationalist worldview, has a number of well-documented relationships with Democratic lawmakers.
Former president Barack Obama posed for a photo with Farrakhan, and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) have long associatedwith the hateful preacher.
Last October, Farrakhan said during an address that he was not an “antisemite” but an “anti-Termite.”
“So when they talk about Farrakhan, call me a hater, you know they do, call me an antisemite–stop it! I’m anti-termite! I don’t know nothing about hating somebody because of their religious preference,” he said
TUCKER RESPONDS TO BRIAN WILLIAMS FACT-CHECKING GRAHAM: ‘PLEASE, GET SOME SELF-AWARENESS’
“Just another fact-check from a guy suspended for lying.”
By Phillip Stucky
Fox News host Tucker Carlson responded to MSNBC’s Brian Williams’ decision to fact-check Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham’s speech during Attorney General William Barr’s Wednesday hearing on Capitol Hill.
“MSNBC, if you were watching, you may have noticed, could not contain its excitement during the Attorney General’s testimony. During the hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham noted quite correctly that Mueller’s report found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Brian Williams wouldn’t have it, they cut in to call Graham a liar,” Carlson began. (RELATED: Trump Lawyer Reads Directly From Mueller Report To Push Back Against Brian Williams)
“Just another fact-check from a guy suspended for lying. Nice guy, but please get some self-awareness. That wasn’t the only time something like that happened though today, an hour later they cut away again to say that Barr was a big fat liar, too,” he continued.
The Hill’s Joe Concha agreed, “Conforming to the hive, Tucker. Look, I’m a Jersey guy, he grew up down the New Jersey river, he is a nice guy by all accounts. The environment that he is in, he realizes that he has to give his audience comfort food, what they want to hear at this point.”
“And the scary part about that is that he could just pivot into being what he’s become now, which is completely and totally partisan,” Concha concluded. “Remember, he was the anchor, the NBC Nightly News for many many years. And he’s gone the full Dan Rather I would say. These guys were people that you trusted because there they are, CBS and NBC giving you the news and now instead they’ve gone completely and totally from one side to the left and they’ve destroyed legacies in the process, unfortunately.”
The segment came after Williams cut into both Graham’s and Barr’s testimony during Wednesday’s hearings to say that they were lying about the facts in the Mueller report.
“We’re reluctant to do this, we rarely do,” Williams said about interrupting the broadcast of the hearing. “The chairman of the Judiciary Committee just said that Mueller found there was no collusion. That is not correct.”
Graham asserted that Mueller reported no collusion occurred between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, something Williams apparently disagreed with.
It wasn’t the first time Williams called Barr’s statements into question. In April, the MSNBC host called Barr “Baghdad Bill Barr,” a reference to an Iraqi Defense Minister known as “Baghdad Bob” who misstated Iraqi victories under Saddam Hussein.
“It’s already been mentioned around here — it would hearken back to a conflict decades ago — we would not be surprised if some headline writer somewhere came up somewhere with ‘Baghdad Bill Barr’ for what we saw today,” Williams claimed at the time.
Williams spent a great deal of time defending himself against claims of lying about his past when it came to light there were several stories that he reported on that were either complete fakes or greatly embellished.
‘Still salty about losing’: Twitter users stunned by Hillary calling for China to hack Trump
Hillary Clinton appeared on TV proposing China illegally hack into President Donald Trump’s tax returns, prompting Twitter users to question both her ability to move on from her presidential election defeat, and her sanity.
Clinton made the call on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show Wednesday night, suggesting Democratic 2020 presidential candidates should seek out the help of the “only other adversary of ours, who’s anywhere near as good as the Russians” to hack Trump’s tax returns.
Ignoring the outcome of the Mueller Report and doubling down on her years of unfounded accusations that Russia colluded with election rival Donald Trump, Clinton said: “Since Russia is clearly backing Republicans, why don’t we ask China to back us?”
“And not only that, China, if you’re listening, why don’t you get Trump’s tax returns?” Clinton continued, echoing comments by Trump in Florida during the 2016 campaign in which he asked if Russia might find Clinton’s deleted emails, but did not outright call for her to be hacked.
READ MORE: ‘Mind-bendingly bizarre’: Barr hearing shows ‘Russiagate’ still has hold on US politics
The fact that Clinton is still peddling a three-year-old ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy theory after it was debunked by the Mueller report, and calling for a foreign power to hack the US president, did not go unnoticed by Twitter commenters, including Kim Dotcom, who called the former secretary of state “salty.”
It appears Hillary was toeing the Clinton family line, as the comments come days after her husband and former US President Bill Clinton questioned how it would be received if a Democratic presidential candidate asked China to hack opponents during the 2020 election.
NEWSBREAKING: Nick Sandmann Sues NBC And MSNBC
By Patrick Howley
Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann has filed a lawsuit through his Atlanta libel lawyer L. Lin Wood against NBC and MSNBC for their smear campaign against Sandmann and his classmates after a Native activist named Nathan Phillips confronted them outside the Lincoln Memorial at the March For Life.
(READ: Nathan Phillips Identified As Actor From 2012 Skrillex Video).
L. Lin Wood, the Atlanta lawyer representing Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann in upcoming litigation, spoke with Big League Politics Wednesday to offer some insight into his firm’s investigative process, and the strategy of his client. The Covington Catholic students were smeared by the media after they were confronted by left-wing activists near the Lincoln Memorial at the March for Life.
“The members of the mob who falsely attacked or threatened Nick Sandmann should be on notice that his attorneys will identify them and will take aggressive legal action against them to achieve full accountability for their wrongdoing and willful mistreatment of this young man,” Wood told Big League Politics.
“While our focus is to seek redress for the damage wrongfully inflicted upon Nick, we hope that a byproduct of our efforts for Nick will be to effectuate a sea change in how people in our society treat each other, especially when our children are involved. Nick is not the first victim of a premature rush to judgment based on false information, personal or political agendas, rumors and speculation. Hopefully, through our efforts for Nick and the efforts of an army of individuals and entities who support him and the rule of law, a lesson will finally be learned. We will be relentless in our pursuit of justice for Nick. This is not a threat – this is a fact.”
L. Lin Wood has stated that he is aware of the profane rant that Bill Maher went on against his client.
On Capitol Hill, Democrat congressman John Yarmuth from the students’ home state of Kentucky called for a “complete shutdown of teenagers wearing MAGA hats,” then claimed he was joking after the media’s narrative fell apart.
Kentucky Republican congressman Thomas Massie offered a much more useful perspective.
In an exclusive interview with Big League Politics, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) defended the students of Covington Catholic High School who were unfairly smeared by the mainstream press and subsequently attacked by the political left on social media.
“These kids got a lesson in social media mobs,” Massie said, “and the mob that forms in social media forms quickly, and it is there to bully anybody from saying what they really think and what they believe, particularly if it’s a conservative viewpoint.”
Several boys from Covington Catholic became the object of press and social media scorn after video clips emerged of their interaction with a Native American man named Nathan Phillips last Friday at the March for Life in Washington D.C. Shortened clips showed Nick Sandmann, a student at the school who was wearing a #MAGA hat, smirking at Phillips as Phillips beat his drum in Sandmann’s face. The press narrative, which has now been thoroughly debunked as full videos of the interaction have emerged, was that the students were bullying Phillips. In reality, Phillips and a few other Native men approached the boys first, in a clear attempt at provocation.
“The social media mob is a left-wing mob.” Massie said, “The right does not do this. It’s considered harassment if it comes from the right, and if it comes from the left, it’s just free speech – and there’s your double standard.”
Massie also admonished the left for moving their social media efforts into the real world, attempting to destroy the personal lives of the objects of their ridicule.
“What happens with the left, though, is they cross over into reality,” he said. “They migrate off of social media and they start calling the city of Covington to get tax records and figure out where people live. They go to their houses, and figure out where they work, and try and get the parents fired. That’s the difference. I mean, we all know Twitter’s a dumpster fire, but they try and take that fire and spread it into real life. That’s what this is. This is bullying.”
Massie said that a prosecutor in northern Kentucky named Rob Sanders has already publicly warned the political left that it is against Kentucky law to threaten schools, and that there will be prosecutions for such actions. He described Sanders’ efforts in pushing back against the hate-filled mob as “admirable.”
Massie, who reserved judgment about the students until all of the facts came to light, also cautioned against jumping to conclusions when the mainstream press makes these types of accusations.
“It’s almost like this was a big psychology experiment – like freshman psychology 101,” he said. “You were told, before you saw the video, what you were watching so that when you watched the video, you completely fell for it. So, for instance, you were told before you watched this video that these kids were chanting ‘build the wall,’ and you can’t make out the words. You assume, yeah, they’re chanting ‘build the wall.’ In fact, they were not. You were told this kid was smirking, and that he had gotten in the face of this Native American. But that’s not the case. This kid was smiling – he was trying to diffuse the situation and broadcast to his friends that he wasn’t feeling threatened, so they didn’t need to feel threatened either. And then you were told that these kids surrounded that older man, and that was not the case.”
“But if you were told all these things, and then you watched the video, it was hard not to fall for it,” Massie continued. “But after watching the longer videos I know that Nick Sandmann didn’t do anything wrong. He did what most 16-year-olds don’t have the composure to do, which is to diffuse the situation that was not of his own making and was a situation he’d never been in before. Everything he’d been taught in his life prepared him to do the right thing, and that’s what he did.”
“They’re raising our future leaders at Covington Catholic,” Massie finished. “These are kids of very high character. Many of them are going places. So I guess my main takeaway is to admonish, not just the left, because there are always going to be people on the left pandering to their base, but to admonish the Democrats who I know are reasonable, and the people in the middle who don’t associate with either party but form their own opinion, and even the people on the right who got spoofed by this, to just take a step back and wait a day before they form opinions next time, based on something in social media.”
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