In this current age, the right-wing media has become more prevalent and vocal, with fringe groups such as One America News Network and Breitbart gaining popularity and becoming a platform of conspiracies and fake news type stories to be promulgated. Even more prominent, less fringe, conservative groups like Fox News have been taken in to promulgate conspiracies. Fake news is a growing problem both on the right and left and has become a real threat to societal critical thought and can have an extremely detrimental effect upon the conduct of domestic and foreign policy. Because the other examples of fake news discussed have been merging the line between right-wing and leftist conspiracies and fake news tactics, I am focusing on one that is solidly right-wing.
The Gateway Pundit is a notable example of extreme right-wing media engaging in fake news. Again, this is a source most people have not heard of unless one is explicitly searching for it. However, the Pundit is a popular right-wing blog, engaging in all the trappings consistent with modern day, rightist media such as pro-Trump coverage, anti-Democratic and liberal writings and notions. However, unlike Fox News which engages in semi-conspiratorial coverage (Sean Hannity’s coverage of Seth Rich, promoting of certain conspiracies, etc.), the Pundit is blatant in their proliferation of fake news and conspiracies.
A History of The Gateway Pundit
As this may be surprising to some, the Pundit is not a new creation, developed in the days leading up to Donald Trump’s election nor in response to Obama’s presidency, but during the 2004 Presidential Election between incumbent George Bush and Senator John Kerry.
However, while searching the site’s archives, the first article I can find posted on the site, which simply notifies the reader that a rally was held in Trafalgar Square and then rerouting the reader to another site which previously documented it. A variety of the first posts on the site are rather clunkily formatted, with bolded sentences and pictures interspaced throughout the text of the article. The placing of ads off to the side and within the article doubly makes comprehending the article difficult. A variety of the other initial posts also seem to be reposts from other sites, blogs, or commentators.
In 2011, the site thanked all of their supporters in a statement published on the site and stated, “Last month [September 2011] was a record month here at Gateway Pundit. It was the first month that we saw over 2 million visitors”. According to The New Yorker, “During the 2016 Presidential campaign, the Gateway Pundit received more than a million unique visitors a day…”.
The site has certainly expanded with the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, which saw an increase in far-right, populist rhetoric and policies. The Gateway Pundit’s reach and ability to influence the masses has only increased since then, with President Trump repeating one of the site’s false and dubious claims in a March 2020 Fox News interview and the organization even being granted White House press credentials. The site, due to an increasing sentiment on the right of being fed up with the Republican establishment and desires for a person reflective of their own views or something resembling themselves and their thought-process, has been able to hold a significant amount of power upon the cogitation of many Americans and has been able to influence many, even when the site posits articles or stories that are lacking evidence to back up claims, simply create content to further their agenda, and cast President Trump and the Republican Party in a good light.
The Gateway Pundit and the Facts
The Pundit has published many, many stories in their lifetime. With this, there have been many distortions, falsities, and outright lying that has been published. Based on my research of the site, the amount of falsities and misinterpretations put forth by the site are massive and serious, having an extreme effect and drastically changing the content of the story. Simply put, there’s a lot of content to go through here.
To start, the Pundit published a story on 17 March 2020 titled, “EXCLUSIVE: Evidence Shows Director General of World Health Organization Severely Overstated the Fatality Rate of the Coronavirus Leading to the Greatest Global Panic in History,” which makes the claim the WHO’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, “claimed in a press conference in early March that the fatality rate for the coronavirus was many multiples that of the fatality rate of the common flu…[he] used the fatality rate of coronavirus with known numbers and used this as his prediction of eventual mortality rate”.
The story continues on by saying that the Director-General’s statement of, “Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died. By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected,” is false and began in early March of 2020. However, as Lead Stories was quick to point out, “That statement by the director-general is accurate, backed up by flu health data dating back to the 1970s that has consistently shown the death rate from flu is less than 1%, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC’s most comprehensive study on deaths associated with season flu looked at data from 1976 to 2007. It found deaths ranged from a low of 3,349 in the 1986-87 flu season to a high of 48,614 in 2003-04,” while also noting, “the article did not include the context he provided in the same statement. With the context, it makes clear that the fatality rate he cited describes the proportion of deaths among confirmed coronavirus cases. The article goes on to say that Tedros “used the fatality of coronavirus with known numbers and used this as his prediction of eventual mortality rate.” Tedros did not say – and has not said – that the 3.4% fatality figure would prove to be the “eventual mortality rate”.
To put it simply, Jim Hoft (the author of the article and founder of Gateway Pundit) and the Pundit went in with an already, preconceived determination about scientific evidence and the reputability of Tedros and the WHO, found information to confirm their assumptions and (either) deliberately created or misinterpreted Tedros’s comments.
In another article, this one written on 10 November 2017 by Hoft again, revolved around the sexual misconduct allegations of Roy Moore, who was at the time running for Alabama’s U.S. Senate seat in a special election.
The Pundit ran an article based upon a Twitter user’s (name Doug) allegations that, “a family friend who lives in Alabama told his [the Twitter user’s] wife that a Washington Post reporter “named Beth” approached her and offered her THOUSANDS [sic] to accuse Judge Roy Moore of inappropriate sexual advances”. The story relies entirely on this one Twitter user’s account for the claim while also noting that the FBI and DOJ cannot be trusted to properly investigate the claims (and calling Washington Post “far left”).
This allegation brought into the spotlight by the Pundit came after, “Leigh Corfman told the Post that she was 14 and Moore was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney when they met. Corfman said Moore picked her up around the corner from her home and took her to his residence, where he undressed and molested her. Three other women also went on the record and said Moore had made advances towards them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his thirties. After the Post story broke, a fifth woman, Beverly Young Nelson, came forward and said Moore had tried to rape her when she was 16”. To quote Snopes:
“While the Washington Post‘s story was based upon interviews with no fewer than thirty sources, the only source cited by GatewayPundit.com was hearsay from a questionable Twitter account… In follow-up tweets, “Doug” stated the a [sic] family friend (purportedly named “Jean”, but of course with no last name provided) recorded the conversation in which “Beth” (probably Washington Post journalist Beth Reinhard, who co-wrote the Moore report) offered a source money to accuse Moore of sexual improprieties. The tape of that conversation was supposedly turned over to law enforcement, according to “Doug.” We contacted the Washington Post to ask whether there was any possibility the reporters on their story had paid their sources and received a flat denial from spokeswoman Molly Gannon Conway… We called the Etowah County district attorney’s office to check whether any such allegations had been brought to their attention, but as of yet we haven’t received a response. Notably, however, the accusatory tweets from the “Doug Lewis #MAGA” were deleted, and then, a few hours later, the entire account was deleted as well”
An article in The Daily Beast also detailed how the user made a series of audacious claims that, at varying points, contradicted each other (e.g., claiming they had “the Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts”, “the Bronze Star and four Purple Hearts,” and “the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts,”) and could not be verified by U.S. Navy or National Archives and Records Administration documents.
Quite simply, using an extremely disreputable and unverifiable source, the Pundit ran with the story after doing zero in the way of confirming the story true and put it out as fact. Despite the fact that the Pundit put out an update and treated the story as a “report” (which does not distinguish itself from what journalism normally is as report means, “an account or statement describing in detail an event, situation, or the like, usually as the result of observation, inquiry, etc.”), the fact that they utilized so very little information to make such an important argument is rather dishonest and shows the level of credibility and honesty they hold as journalists. Also, as the Daily Beast article mentions, Hoft previously had utilized the Twitter user’s allegations in a February 2016 article in which the Twitter user claimed that he got a call “from a Nazi group,” and tracked it back to Conservative Solutions Project, a 2016 U.S. Presidential fundraising group for Marco Rubio. Again, the user was the only source listed for this claim and, by this time, he was absolutely an incredible source.
In another article, this one a 08 December 2017 article by Joshua Caplan titled, “WE CALLED IT! Gloria Allred Accuser ADMITS She Tampered With Roy Moore’s ‘Signature’ (VIDEO),” and alleges, as the title suggests, that one of Roy Moore’s sexual misconduct accusers tampered with his signature, indicating a signature forgery; the article notes how “CNN published photos of the signature showing two different inks. The signature says “To a sweeter more beautiful girl I could not say, ‘Merry Christmas.’ Love, Roy Moore DA, 12-22-77, Olde Hickory House.” Strangely, “To a sweeter more beautiful girl I could not say, ‘Merry Christmas.’ Love Roy,” is written in black ink, while “Moore DA, 12-22-77, Olde Hickory House,” is in blue ink”.
However, according to PolitiFact and backed up by all the evidence provided by the Pundit’s article, “…Nelson says she added the time and location to the inscription. But she says the note and signature was from Moore”. So, the accuser (Nelson) never claimed in the interview that she tampered with his signature, merely added notes below to indicate when this occurred. It’s obvious why PolitiFact would rate this article “Pants on Fire” as there is literally no spoken evidence nor any real hard evidence that backs up the claim that the accuser forged the signature or otherwise doctor the most important evidence.
Another, related article, published on the same day as the previous article, and written by Hoft and alleges how, “…after we posted our story this morning Facebook shut down our story. The far left website PolitiFact said our story was not accurate and Facebook shut it down. No one will be able to see our story on Facebook. Breitbart wrote a similar story and it was also blocked by Facebook. So Facebook shut down the story on Judge Roy Moore’s accuser. Facebook is picking sides”. This is also false as PolitiFact again points out, writing, “After we rated the story as Pants on Fire, Facebook flagged our report for its users as part of its effort to combat fake news. But both the Breitbart and Gateway Pundit articles are still searchable. We found them by scrolling down the Breitbart and Gateway Pundit Facebook pages. The claim that no one will be able to see the story on Facebook is flat-out wrong.
Unless an article violates Facebook’s community standards, it’s not removed. Facebook does, however, downrank disputed articles. That means they are pushed lower down on users’ newsfeeds, although the severity of downranking varies”.
As well, having logged onto Facebook and searched explicitly for this article (typing in Gateway Pundit and searching for articles from “December 2017”), I can confirm that this story is still up and was not taken down by Facebook as shown below;
It is really no wonder why PolitiFact rated the story false as it simply never occurred and was deliberately manufactured by the Pundit to increase sympathy for their position and sow further hatred for “Big Internet” and the media in general.
Another article, again written by Hoft in 2017, noted that, “only 20% of [San Juan, Puerto Rico Teamster Union] drivers arrived at the ports to distribute the relief supplies,” effectively trying to blame the Teamsters Union (while noting that the liberal media is blaming Trump).
The Pundit predominantly got their information from The Conservative Treehouse (a far-right, borderline questionable news agency) and Huffington Post while predominantly quoting U.S. Air Force Colonel Michael A. Valle.
PolitiFact illuminates by writing:
“”It’s a lack of drivers for the transport trucks, the 18 wheelers,” the website quoted Valle as saying. “Supplies we have. Trucks we have. There are ships full of supplies, backed up in the ports, waiting to have a vehicle to unload into. However, only 20 percent of the truck drivers show up to work. These are private citizens in Puerto Rico, paid by companies that are contracted by the government.” [echoing what the Pundit said too] Valle did say in the Huffington Post interview that there was a lack of drivers, but he also went on to add the drivers deserved “zero blame:” “They can’t get to work, the infrastructure is destroyed, they can’t get fuel themselves, and they can’t call us for help because there’s no communication. The will of the people of Puerto Rico is off the charts. The truck drivers have families to take care of, many of them have no food or water. They have to take care of their family’s needs before they go off to work, and once they do go, they can’t call home”
The Treehouse article also quoted a CNBC reporter, yet did so selectively, neglecting her statement, “”You’re looking at truck drivers who can’t be reached by their businesses by cell phone, they don’t have the gas to get to work, and then even when they do get to work, their semi-trucks don’t have fuel,” Brewer said. “The problem is the supply chain.” She added that Crowley Puerto Rico, a shipping and logistics company, said that getting drivers to the port and back out again was proving to be a challenge”. In the end, PolitiFact gave the article a “Pants on Fire” rating, their lowest rating in terms of factuality. Due to deliberate editing and selectively taking excerpts from those on the ground and from official statements, as well as trusting less than reputable sources (like Treehouse), the Pundit engaged in promoting a skewed view of what was really occurring in San Juan and flipping the entire, real narrative of what was occurring.
A 2016 article details (this being a generous term) how paid protestors are being bused into Austin, Texas, stating, “Paid fake protesters were bussed in to the anti-Trump protests in Austin, Texas. They must have spent a lot of Soros money on this operation. There was a whole string of busses. It figures. Everything they do is fake or paid for”. First, this is literally the entire meat of the article, these five sentences, before showcasing the tweet which promoted the theory. The rest of the article was predominantly ads for cycling underwear, clickbait articles about luxury cruise ships and liars, and quizzes sponsored by the “Trump Make America Great Again Committee”.
However, looking at the actual content, there is extremely little evidence to base the claim that anti-Trump protestors are being trucked in. Essentially, the claim comes from a Twitter user (as it seems most of the Pundit’s content comes from) who saw large buses rolling through a large metropolitan area; that is the entire evidence for the article’s claims. As Snopes notes:
“The Gateway Pundit did not see protesters getting on or off the bus, and they offered no proof that any protesters had been paid (by George Soros or anyone else). The web site published three pictures of buses and then fabricated a story about paid protesters based on the mistaken observations of a sole Twitter user. Although the above-displayed photographs are real, and protests did take place in Austin on 9 November 2016, these two things were not connected. According to Austin station KTBC, the buses seen here were lined up outside of the Austin Convention Center, where the Tableau Conference, which had about 11,000 attendees, was taking place”
The person who the Pundit used as the sole source for their article later even apologized for misleading people with his Tweet. While the Pundit did update their article too, their update is not an admission of wrongdoing or inaccuracy but rather states, “Controversy: media reports that buses were not protest buses”.
So, what we have is the Pundit taking the word of the average day person with the flimsiest evidence ever and proceeds to concoct a story that backs up their political perspectives and views. I am truly curious if the Pundit does any real reporting as they seem to be the online incarnation of New Orleans infamous District Attorney, Jim Garrison, who brought forth a case about the Kennedy assassination that even some conspiracy theorists found tentative.
The Pundit not only leaves up stories (many without updates) that contain patently false information, but they also delete previous stories that contained false information and were recognized as such by the public at large.
Another article, written by Jim Hoft in the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting and titled “Las Vegas Shooter Reportedly a Democrat Who Like Rachel Maddow, MoveOn.org, and Associated with Anti-Trump Army,” makes the claim that the perpetrator of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting was “Geary Danley…a far left loon [and] fan of Rachel Maddow, People’s Action, Democrats, MoveOn.org, etc….”. The website cites Everipedia as their source which is a, “for-profit, wiki-based encyclopedia” and has been criticized for publishing inaccurate information and sensationalizing breaking news.
Now, on the same day the Pundit ran their article, law enforcement was already saying who the shooter was (which has been confirmed by numerous authorities as being Stephen Paddock). As well, the shooter also was seemingly not a liberal nor affiliated with any liberal or Democratic Party groups, with Sheriff Joe Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department stating that, “[Paddock] was happy with Trump because the stock market was doing well”. Also, while normally not important to note, I feel it is important to note that Lombardo is a Republican, so having such a remark coming from him carries some extra weight when dealing with such politicized issues, in my view.
The Pundit’s reliance upon a Wikipedia-esque source (actually, Everipedia is seemingly less reputable than Wikipedia) for this information is quite wrong. Genuine journalism requires legitimate investigation and fact-finding missions to get at the truth or core of a problem, story, or event. With this, what can be seen is that the Pundit wanted to create a story that could back up their political point of view and turn what is otherwise an extremely terrible and horrible event into a tool for political gain. This is completely beyond the pale of what any media organization should do and is extremely disrespectful.
As well, not only does the Pundit rely upon shoddy journalism to get stories, but they rely upon a common source that almost every other fake news website up until now has relied upon; Russia. In one article titled, “GOP Alleges VOTER FRAUD in Broward County – Democrats Opened Up TENS OF THOUSANDS of Ballots (VIDEO),” the author (as per the title) alleged that voter fraud had occurred in Florida, with this information coming from (as you may have suspected) a Twitter account that was apparently managed by the Tennessee Republican Party (@TEN_GOP). However, this account was actually, “part of this effort to swing the election and alter U.S. politics…[as per] an indictment from the U.S. Department of Justice against 13 Russian operatives employed by the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency “troll factory””.
Another article, this one titled, “VIDEO=> Pennsylvania Trump Voter Can’t Get Voting Machine to Accept His Vote,” apparently showed a voter desiring to vote for Trump while the light stayed on for Clinton. The @TEN_GOP twitter account also posted this information, however NBC News clarified the story, stating:
“It turned out that the machine was working properly, and [the voter] wasn’t following the instructions for changing his vote,” while also noting, “Propublica, CNN, and Buzzfeed, all debunked the idea that Tyler’s video illustrated a rigged election. In a fact check that attracted little attention and a fraction of the original video’s social engagement, Propublica reported Tyler’s video showed the machine was working “exactly as it should,” and included a video explainer of the voting machine that clearly established Tyler had simply not followed the posted directions to change his selection… [this] story highlights how Russia’s disinformation campaign was able to seize on political content posted to social media by politically motivated Americans in order to spread distrust in the election”
The Pundit, in my own view, was simply duped by Russian intelligence and promulgated the story because it seemed logical in their mind and suited their goals. They are effectively a “Useful Idiot”.
Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog website has also found multiple articles in which there are extreme reporting problems. To excerpt their large article on the Pundit which documents specific times when the site has misinformed people, here are links to their analyses;
(separate from other incidents, this one concerns Jared Lee Loughner)
As well, these are just the tip of the iceberg, with many other of the Pundit’s news stories exhibiting a similar lack of veracity, accuracy, or proper and clear interpretation based on events. In fact, I am willing to wager that nearly every article or form of content produced by the Pundit is either outright false, misconstrues pertinent information, deliberately twists the words of a government official, reporter, document, or relies upon an untrustworthy source (a single social media post for example).
As we can see, through a lack of understanding and deliberate misinterpretation of key material, a desire to see a liberal conspiracy in every single mainstream news article, flat out lying, selective editing of testimony, cherry-picking facts and details, and utilizing sources that are disreputable and incredible or contain very little credible information, the Pundit repeatedly and consistently has proven themselves to be a very skewed source of information that has the one single goal of promoting a far-right ideology, blatantly supporting the President and his policies, and confirming already held biases and preconceived notions. The factual content here is very strongly showing that the Pundit is not a reliable source of information. The amount in which the Pundit relies solely upon Twitter user and social media claims is astounding and does not meet the bare minimum for even consideration as evidence in any piece of investigative journalism nor in a legal setting.
As well, many of the headlines are sensationalized. NewsGuard Technologies provides their interpretation of the site, writing;
“Headlines are often sensational and misleading, and information is regularly distorted. For example a July 2018 article “PUTIN DROPS BOMB AT HELSINKI PRESSER: Says US Intelligence Helped Move $400,000 to HILLARY campaign!!“ cited Putin speech and opinion article by the Washington Post as its sources. However, Putin stated that financier Bill Browder has moved the money, and suggested that “we have a solid reason to believe that some intelligence officers accompanied and guided these transactions.“ The Gateway Pundit changed “some intelligence officers“ to “some [US] intelligence officers“ when quoting Putin, although this was not part of his speech. The Gateway Pundit also failed to disclose that the Washington Post article was an opinion piece stating “The Washington Post reported.”
Predominantly, many of the article are written by the site’s creator, Jim Hoft, however, there have had notable, far-right figures on their staff in the past. Yet, many of these persons no longer work there as the Pundit quickly dropped them to save face and to preserve whatever tiny shred of credibility they have. Two of the most prominent faces who worked on the Pundit were Jacob Wohl and Lucian Wintrich. Provided one is fluent in far-right media organizations and the political conspiracies that are seemingly proliferating daily, then these names will sound familiar.
Wohl is notorious within the media, being characterized as a right-wing conspiracy theorist.
Wohl previously, as a teenager, was a hedge fund manager which resulted in his being:
“investigated by the National Futures Association, a government-authorized financial regulator that looks for fraud and responds to investor complaints. NFA started looking into Wohl after they reviewed promotional material for his fledgling hedge fund, NeX Capital Management. A series of NeX videos were “unbalanced in their presentation of profit potential and risk of loss” for investors, the NFA claimed in a 2016 filing before its internal Business Conduct Committee, which rules on disciplinary issues. he NFA added that Wohl claimed to have acted as a fund manager before he or NeX were registered to do so. The NFA also cited a complaint from an investor, who claimed he wired Wohl $75,000, which Wohl claimed had grown to $89,500 in just months. But when the investor tried to withdraw his money, Wohl allegedly sent back a meager $44,000, blaming the difference on losses.
“Wohl Capital’s trading account appeared to have made, not lost, money overall,” the NFA wrote… In early 2017, the NFA gave Wohl a lifetime ban from registering with them. The Arizona Corporation Commission also slapped Wohl and his businesses with a cease and desist order in late 2016, accusing them of violating the Securities Act, by selling unregistered securities”
The article further notes that Wohl contacted one woman on Craigslist under the guise of helping her get into professional modeling, only to then use “intimate photos” of her in creating a “Wohl Girl of the Month” website; in both of these examples, he sold himself as an older, more experienced businessman than as a teenager.
However, exploring Wohl’s credibility while as a public reporting/blogging figure, his track record is just as shoddy and unreliable as when he was a teen. First, it appears that, Wohl’s blog, The Washington Reporter, plagiarized their code of ethics from ProPublica’s to a serious degree (something Wohl did not explicitly deny, merely stating, “I did not write that part of the website”).
He worked for the Pundit for less than a year, eventually being fired by the news site due to having engaged a very public attempt to frame Special Counsel Bob Mueller for sexual assault (going as far as to create a fake LinkedIn profile for a private intelligence firm which used famous actors and a darkened picture of Wohl himself as the employees) (this is all documented expertly in HBO’s recent documentary After Truth). It was due to this that Wohl and the Pundit “suspended [their] relationship”. As well, in the days since his departure, he has continued fabricating sexual assault allegations against figures who pose a threat to Trump and his policies, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, in which he is recorded in a phone call telling his girlfriend turned accuser, “…she “readily volunteered” and asking who cares if she “made up a story”.
Wintrich is a lower level right-wing (or alt-right, as he once desired to be known) figure who was employed by the Punditas a writer until he, “[appeared] on a podcast hosted by Nicholas Fuentes, a white nationalist who marched in the 2017 Unite the Right rally…”. Hoft notified in August of 2018 that Wintrich would no longer be employed by the site. This came long after Wintrich had tweeted conspiracy theories alleging that some of the students interviewed in the aftermath of the Parkland high school shooting were, “crisis actors…[and] agents of Democratic donor George Soros, the liberal media or the anti-Trump FBI”.
It is also worth noting that the Pundit did not take action against Wintrich after, “[He gave a speech at the University of Connecticut] titled “It’s Okay To Be White” [and] was arrested after a woman attending the event appeared to grab his speech from a lectern before racing off, according to several cellphone video posted on social media. Wintrich grabbed the woman from behind in an attempt to get the speech back as she was walking away, which led to several people jumping in before security broke it up. Wintrich was charged with a misdemeanor of breach of peace and released after posting a $1,000 bond”. It is also worth pointing out that he was the Pundit’s White House correspondent at this time and, by all available evidence, remained in such a role until he was finally let go from the Pundit in August of 2018.
Another writer for the group (and now Associate Editor) is Cassandra Fairbanks. A former leftist and supporter of Bernie Sander’s 2016 presidential campaign, she eventually turned to writing at the The Free Thought Project and Sputnik before joining the site Big League Politics, created by a former editor of Breitbart (all of which are highly discredited news outlets).
Mentioned on her profile for the Pundit is that she has been a correspondent for RT, another state-sponsored news organization for the Russian Federation alongside Sputnik. As an example of her journalism style, take this article published on 13 May 2020, which has the headline, “Government Forbids From Putting American Flags on Veterans’ Graves for Memorial Day”.
The headline seems off and, while that is true, the article’s headline neglects to reflect that the reason for this was due to COVID-19, making it appear as though the government is simply banning Boy Scouts from planting flags on the property. In fact, Fox News exercised better reporting and judgment by including this in their own headline on the situation. As well, the Pundit repeats a line in Fox News’ article, claiming that the Calverton National Cemetery “holds more veterans than any other cemetery in the nation,” when this is in fact wrong. As of Fiscal Year 2008, the cemetery held “over 212,000”; being that 6,600 were buried in 2008, it is reasonable to assume that somewhere close to such a number would be buried continually in the cemetery yearly, making the total number of those interred (in 2020) around 300,000. Arlington National Cemetery, on the other hand, holds “more than 400,000” according to a 2019 CNN article on the subject.
So, Fairbanks is doubly wrong for neglecting pertinent information in a headline, creating a title that, while accurate, leads people down a poor and inaccurate line of thought and for repeating faulty information. As well, it is commonly known that the majority of people do not continue reading an article past the headline, so I am close to chalking this mistake up as a deliberate one.
Jim Hoft, one of the most prominent writers, and his brother Joe were both also guests on The Alex Jones Show on 17 March 2020. This probably goes without saying, but Alex Jones is a widely known figure who has made numerous outlandish claims and completely ridiculous allegations via his website InfoWars, seemingly showing that he is only involved in the show and making such claims because he sees the value in it. As one can see through this, he is a conspiracy theorist who is only engaging in such action because it is economically viable (and perhaps because he truly believes in some of it).
While it may seem like these associations are not important, they actually are. Who a site or the site’s editor-in-chief/founder allows to post on their forum (thereby giving them a platform) gives them credibility to a broad majority of people and, seemingly, endorses their views. If The Washington Post were to allow the now discredited reporters Judith Miller and Sabrina Ederly to write articles for their paper, then that would be seen as legitimizing their views and not caring about their past behavior, which was abhorrent and extremely poor journalistically. The same can be said with the Pundit, in that they are allowing posters who exhibit poor judgment, questionable veracity in reporting, even prior to the scandals that got them fired.
Conclusions
To be put it simply, the Pundit has a consistent record of distorting information, selectively editing pieces, aligning themselves with less than reputable people, utilizing little or disreputable evidence, not effectively updating their articles or issuing corrections, cherry picking facts, neglecting contradictory evidence, and simply creating news that is faulty or otherwise suspect. They have shown themselves to be so far in their support of the President’s policies and views that they will concoct information and severely misinform the public on a variety of different issues.
What is most striking and infuriating to me about the Pundit is that they have a White House Press credential. While this may not seem at first glance to be that infuriating, it is incredibly frustrating as this lends them a nationwide credibility that the site would not otherwise have received. While most would not see the giving of a press credential by such a controversial figure as the president, this has worldwide implications. Whatever the president does is magnified infinitely and when the most visible part of the federal government endorses a news agency that is so disreputable and extremely conspiratorial, then that carries a lot of weight. Even though this president is quite controversial and a lot of people do not find him credible (a valid criticism), he is seen as credible to a significant amount of people and the endorsement by Trump’s White House Office of Communications and Office of Press Secretary only bolsters the amount with which the site’s defenders utilize and defend the site. The fact that the White House even granted such an incredible news organization a press credential is ridiculous and beyond the pale.
I think it is also important to note that I don’t believe the Pundit is putting out the articles and making the arguments they have is not because they are engaged in some large scale disinformation or are doing it because they believe it is economically beneficial. Though the site is economically advantageous, taking in roughly $14 million USD in revenue, I believe that the Pundit is engaging in this type of reporting because it furthers goals they believe are important and allows them to retain a position of power within politics and the media. It is my belief that their worldview is motivated by the end goal of total power within these respective fields and further more right-wing, conservative goals.
This, as one can see, can be incredibly detrimental to the overall critical thinking and essential public discourse that helps our nation progress onward.
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