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Salon: Republicans Are Launching Fake Local News Sites To Spread 'Propaganda' (salon.com)
"The Tennessee Star claims to be the 'most reliable' online local paper in the state," reports Salon. "In fact it's just a GOP front." An anonymous reader quotes their report:
An investigation by the fact-checking outlet Snopes found that several new local news websites are actually being launched by Republican consultants whose company is funded in part by the candidates the sites cover. Politico first reported last year that Tea Party-linked conservative activists Michael Patrick Leahy, Steve Gill and Christina Botteri were behind the "Tennessee Star," a website that purported to be a local news website but mostly posted content licensed from groups linked to big Republican donors. Snopes discovered that the trio has since launched similar sites in other battleground states ahead of the 2020 elections: the Ohio Star and the Minnesota Sun...
The group behind the sites does not appear content with just three outlets. According to Politico, Leahy has purchased domain names associated with Missouri, New England, the Dakotas, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, most of which are electoral battleground states that will be vital in 2020.
Kathleen Bartzen Culver, who heads the Center of Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told Snopes that political operatives are free to launch their own news platforms, but it's a problem if they are trying to deceive readers into believing the sites are nonpartisan local news. "I have no problem with advocacy organizations creating content that reinforces the positions they take on public policy issues on the left, right or center. The issue comes in when they're not transparent about that advocacy," Culver said... "The information sphere is so polluted right now that the average citizen has trouble telling what is real and what is not," Culver told Snopes. "I find that very troubling within a democracy."
An investigation by the fact-checking outlet Snopes found that several new local news websites are actually being launched by Republican consultants whose company is funded in part by the candidates the sites cover. Politico first reported last year that Tea Party-linked conservative activists Michael Patrick Leahy, Steve Gill and Christina Botteri were behind the "Tennessee Star," a website that purported to be a local news website but mostly posted content licensed from groups linked to big Republican donors. Snopes discovered that the trio has since launched similar sites in other battleground states ahead of the 2020 elections: the Ohio Star and the Minnesota Sun...
The group behind the sites does not appear content with just three outlets. According to Politico, Leahy has purchased domain names associated with Missouri, New England, the Dakotas, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, most of which are electoral battleground states that will be vital in 2020.
Kathleen Bartzen Culver, who heads the Center of Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told Snopes that political operatives are free to launch their own news platforms, but it's a problem if they are trying to deceive readers into believing the sites are nonpartisan local news. "I have no problem with advocacy organizations creating content that reinforces the positions they take on public policy issues on the left, right or center. The issue comes in when they're not transparent about that advocacy," Culver said... "The information sphere is so polluted right now that the average citizen has trouble telling what is real and what is not," Culver told Snopes. "I find that very troubling within a democracy."
One that goes back to our oldest elections, though I think those papers were mostly focused on slandering opponents.
for the party the coined the term 'fake news' (and 'alternative facts'), the Republicans seem to generate more of it than the rest of the world combined.
This has nothing to do with nerds. Nor is it news... /.
Salon is the biggest piece of shit masquerading as journalism out there right next to Mother Jones and The Daily Stormer. Who gives a rat's ass what they think?
Do better,
When did slashdot become a politics site where propaganda sources are allowed like salon? Np, we do not want this in our nerd news. Keep this crap on twitter.
Salon is one of the worst left wing ones pretending to be neutral.
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No. None of what you said is true. Even "Let the GOP have one too." Fox News is a prominent "news" source, wholly run for the Republican party. You have got to be troll to claim to be unaware of Fox. You might not know of Sinclair, which is also a conservative news organization, that has been buying up local stations. They are converting local news programs into propaganda machines for the Republicans. So the right is not hurting for "news" outlets.
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
Why are political news on Slashdot all of a sudden? Actually there has been an increase of this garbage. I don't give a fuck if you are Republican, Democrat, anarchist, whatever, don't post your garbage here. Fuck off already.
Maybe Salon doesn't know this but it been like FOREVER that CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, etc are all in bed with the democrats. Clinton or Obama says something and the media forwards it on as truth but if Bush or Trumps says something they are suddenly obligated to "fact check" and doubt everything the say and filter it to the people with "the Republican is claiming that allegedly water is wet and the sky is blue but we have some political pundits here who disagree with those outrageous claims".
Simply because a website sources some of their news from large national sources does not make it fake news. Local news companies source stories from Reuters and the Associated Press all the time. Why do you think you can find the exact same article in a range of news outlets?
Presuming news to be fake simply because it comes from a different political perspective is hubris at best.
I'm sure a local news service founded by a man with the following description (taken directly from his publisher's website):
Michael Patrick Leahy is an innovative leader in both the tactics and strategy of grassroots conservative new-media activism. As cofounder of Top Conservatives on Twitter, Leahy helped to form the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition....He lives in Tennessee
will be a bastion of fair, accurate and unbiased reporting. And, while I can see him being concerned about local news in TN since he lives there, it is hard to see what ties he may have to Missouri, New England, the Dakotas, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, as mentioned in the summary. Unless he is just really concerned about local news.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
You know Fox is basically controlled opposition and that any time one of their, in many cases real conservative hosts, start talking too close to the core about what's wrong they get shit-canned right? Fox news is right-wing news with a restraining bolt.
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The Republicans of today are not what they claim to be. I'm old enough to remember the 70s. I grew up with people who remember WWII. Today's "conservatives" are anything but. A conservative would never endorse homosexual marriage. There would be zero waffling on the issue. A conservative would not happily go to war at the drop of a hat. A conservative would not want a wall built, because it means more government meddling. True conservatives are penny pinchers. True conservatives want term limits, no lobbying, and far less meddling in foreign affairs. If Ron Paul would have been elected, we would be a lot better off. Not saying he was the panacea, but we don't have true conservatives in office. True conservatives wouldn't make deals with the left. There is not a single true conservative in office in America at the federal level. All of them have shown their true colors in some way.
Of course, if a bunch of Democrats get together and put together a biased newspaper, then it's okay?
If that's restrained, I don't even want to know what they be like totally unhinged.
Salon is going to lose a lot of readers by publishing something so contrary to blindly held beliefs of their readership.
Its probably true, but Snopes is no longer a reliable source. They compromised integrity for partisanship a couple years ago and its going to take a long time to regain credibility. Snopes is supposed to call out misinformation. Deciding to rank certain and provable false claims as a 'we arent sure, its possible but we just dont know' for DNC related stuff was a stupid ass move. If your going to call out misinformation, you have to have a religious level of commitment to the truth, regardless where it leads you. Using influence to sway opinion was never what the site was intended for. Thats an abuse of trust that is hard to regain. I have never seen them call a truth a lie, but I have seen them abuse the in-between-ratings and thats poor journalism if you ask me.
Yes, the so-called "facts" should not be trusted. The so-called "theories of evolution" are a lie. The so-called moon landings are a hoax. The so-called "space" does not exist. "Free markets" and "trickle down" are not fantasies, but actually work. Both the victims and the perps share the blame. It ain't bigotry and racism when we do it. Religious fundamentalism of our kind is good.
And so on.
Correct. The GOP managed to...
Get Buzzfeed to run a story that Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress, which CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, ... all ran as well.
They then got them all to run the story on how racist the kids from Covengton were despite overwhelming evidence showing otherwise. Now WaPo and CNN are both being sued for $250 million for these "Fake News" stories.
The GOP followed that up with all those same outlets running the fake Jussie Sommellet story as well.
They are getting good at planting blatantly "Fake News" stories in NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and so on. They have gotten so good at it those news outlets have lost all credibility.
So you are correct GOP has managed to destroy the left's credibility on issues.
OR
The left is so dip shit stupid they can't figure out a fact to save their own lives.
Which is more believable?
Is Full On Venezuela Communist Now?
It's an old Soviet tactic that was borrowed and perfected by a GOP operative named Karl Rove. Take whatever your faults are and accuse your opponent of them. It puts them on the defensive and distracts from you and your problems. It wouldn't work if we had a media that wasn't owned lock, stock and barrel by mega corps but, well, we do.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I think it's funny you pointing to Salon's political bias (which it certainly does have) while making claims of an eminent communist revolution in this country. You either don't understand what communism is or have a personal political bias so far departed from reality that you're consciously choosing to characterize the mild Leftist push the Democrats are actually experiencing as communism.
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the difference is that our old debates were about us discussing how we are marching right toward an orwellian future. This blind loyalty to one side is new. I mean who would ever suspect that the company making radar detectors was the same company selling the radar enforcement equipment to law enforcement. Or that the anti-virus companies released virus' to drive product demand. Oh wait, we heard that and it totally made sense. Tell someone that their picking a side in a 1-sided battle and no matter who you pick your going to get the same result, they think your crazy. The more they can get us to sign up for the blame game the less work they have to do. The ultimate goal is to keep it 50/50 so as to always claim the other side is the reason nothing gets done. We fall for it, they collect paychecks and backdoor cash. We get screwed in the end no matter which way the wind blows.
How about some specifics. Your accusations are too general to evaluate. And a couple of mistakes doesn't necessarily mean the whole kit and caboodle is rotten. They are run by people, and people make mistakes. I've disagreed with the scoring myself on occasion.
Table-ized A.I.
sure, It was pretty dissapointing when it happened. I did not know before then it was just a husband and wife and after they got caught, it then came to life all the photos with high level players in politics, specifically left leaning. While Im digging that up though, read this. Its not political but it is from a left-leaning site that outed them for doing the same pretending a false is a 'maybe true' thing, this time for monsanto.
https://foodbabe.com/do-you-tr...
I find it highly concerning that googling 'snopes fails to report false' that the first 5 hits are articles written BY SNOPES about how non-biased snopes is. Thats like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coup.
heres an earlier forbes article where they outlined other credibility issues with snopes
https://www.forbes.com/sites/k...
"I think it funny that you believe that AOC is "mild Leftist"."
I think it's funny that you think that AOC is the entirety of the Democratic party and not just one of 235 Democratic house members who represent's only one of New York's 27 congressional districts. Is the entire Republican party libertarian because the people of Kentucky elected Rand Paul to the Senate?
" What they want is to take my money so that the politicians can decide who deserves it."
Every government, no matter where on the political spectrum, does this. It's what governments do and the odds are fairly certain you're in favor of government doing this in some sort of context so you can quit with the delusion that only those on the Left practice what you describe.
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crap I hate citing this source, because using a right-leaning source to discredit an alleged left-leaning one is subjective at best... the takeaway is that you'll need to independently verify the claims outlined here..
https://dailycaller.com/2019/0...
it its true then its a very recent excample of what I saw them do a couple years ago. Are you any good at using the wayback machine? I never used it and would need to verify this screenshot that showed they were both on the board of that PAC.
Go ahead, take a quick look, I'll wait. Quickly scanning a few of the stories should tell you how the site leans. While the stories are not out and out right fake, they are misleading. Much like almost every other "news" source I've ever seen, I'm looking at you CNN, Times, FOX, New Yorker, LA, etc... What is not said is often just as important as what is said. All this illustrates is that you should never rely on news from one source. Try to compare at least three different sources, with different takes on the news, and the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Also I don't know how much digging was needed; just look at the Contact Us -> Privacy Policy. It clearly states this is a product of "Star News Digital Media, Inc" and lists all the associated websites. Really it looks like some company started a business selling political sites to candidates. It wouldn't surprise me if they offer the same type of sites to the other party and make money from both side.
This also reeks of the common "Voters Guide" that each party mails out to me every voting year, of which the slant is so bad even my kid knows something is up (and he's only 9).
P.S. The weather forecast is hilarious, "Today is forecast to be Much Warmer than yesterday."
here is one where WaPo attacked their credibility and I wouldnt call WaPo right-leaning at all.
https://www.washingtontimes.co...
That's the Washington Times, not Washington Post. Washington Times was created as the conservative alternative. It was created be Unification's Revered Moon, and a prominent proponent of the Obama birther conspiracy.
It appears to be a character attack on employee(s) of Snopes. Judge the content by the content. Where is the evidence the content itself is systematically wrong or biased? If character attacks on editors are the best you have against it, your argument is weak and you have homework to do.
Something along the lines of, "Article 13 says Bob Smith was in NJ on March 3rd, but these 5 court documents clearly show Bob was in NV."
Table-ized A.I.