On November 24, as many of us were enjoying sumptuous Thanksgiving repasts and family time, the Washington Post published Craig Timberg's turkey of a report about how "a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online" to discredit Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump.
On Wednesday, the Post appended an "Editor's Note" to Craig Timberg's original dispatch attempting to distance itself from its own work product. It should satisfy no one.
On November 28, Tim Graham at NewsBusters demonstrated that the Post story, which was front-paged in its November 25 print edition, was "promoting bizarre conspiracy theories using overwrought numbers from a source that won’t identify its own authors or funders." He also noted that the key source the Post cited, PropOrNot.com, had published tweets clearly demonstrating that it is not a "nonpartisan" outpost, as Timberg claimed.
PropOrNot's de facto blacklist of just over 200 websites it identified as "as Russian propaganda outlets" includes Drudge Report, a site which these days with only rare exceptions merely links to others' stories; Naked Capitalism, consistently considered one of the best economics and business blogs; and the economic contrarian blog Zero Hedge.
As best can be determined, to get on PropOrNot's list, the tagged website involved only needs to "consistently" link to "state-owned and semi-official Russian propaganda outlets" like Russia Today (RT), Sputnik News, Russia Insider and the like. It would appear that a site which frequently links to content from Larry King's talk show, which has been at RT since 2013 after decades at CNN, could find itself on the blacklist. Clearly, some of the sites listed go further than that, but PropOrNot's goal appears to have been to cast a wide, attention-grabbing net.
If so, the strategy worked marvelously on Timberg and the Post. After considerable backlash, and likely influenced by the threat of a lawsuit from Naked Capitalism with perhaps others in waiting, the following "Editor's Note" was added to Timberg's story (bolds are mine):
Editor’s Note: The Washington Post on Nov. 24 published a story on the work of four sets of researchers who have examined what they say are Russian propaganda efforts to undermine American democracy and interests. One of them was PropOrNot, a group that insists on public anonymity, which issued a report identifying more than 200 websites that, in its view, wittingly or unwittingly published or echoed Russian propaganda. A number of those sites have objected to being included on PropOrNot’s list, and some of the sites, as well as others not on the list, have publicly challenged the group’s methodology and conclusions. The Post, which did not name any of the sites, does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot’s findings regarding any individual media outlet, nor did the article purport to do so. Since publication of The Post’s story, PropOrNot has removed some sites from its list.
The Post did not alter Timberg's claim that PropOrNot is "a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds." As noted earlier, NewsBusters' Graham has shown that the "nonpartisan" claim is phony.
There appears to be no way that the Post reporter could have known the "backgrounds" of those involved for certain unless he received a complete list of names and dossiers. That's hardly likely, given that, as Timberg reported, its executive director "spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid being targeted by Russia’s legions of skilled hackers."
Additionally, the Editor's Note reiterated that PropOrNot is "a group that insists on public anonymity." If the group did disclose its members to Timberg, why are they entitled to anonymity? If the Post granted them anonymity and yet learned no names beyond that of the executive director, why wasn't that disclosed, so readers could appropriately discount the group's credibility? (By the way, it's not the Post's job to help protect people with an agenda to smear others from dreaded "Russian hackers.")
Andrew Beaujon at the Washingtonian has observed that "verification of its (ProrOrNot's) work was nearly impossible." Knowing that, the Post still granted PropOrNot priceless presumptive credibility. Its wishy-washy Editor's Note excuse that it didn't "vouch for the validity of PropOrNot’s findings regarding any individual media outlet" doesn't make up for that horrible initial failure in judgment.
After it learned of the Post's Editor's Note, Zero Hedge, which appears to be a special target of the PropOrNot propagandameisters, asked a penetrating question:
... by admitting it never vetted its primary source, whose biased and conflicted "work" smeared hundreds of websites, this one included, just how is the Washington Post any different from the "fake news" it has been deriding on a daily basis ever since its endorsed presidential candidate lost the elections?
Answer: It isn't.
But the Post's decision to run with "fake news" serves a larger purpose, as seen in this paragraph from Timberg's original writeup:
There is no way to know whether the Russian campaign proved decisive in electing Trump, but researchers portray it as part of a broadly effective strategy of sowing distrust in U.S. democracy and its leaders. ...
In other words, it's just another excuse bitter leftists can cite to question the legitimacy of Donald Trump's electoral victory.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
