Media Complicity Is Key to Blacklisting WebsitesBy Norman Solomon On Thursday a week after thePostpublished its front-page newsarticlehyping the blacklist that was put out by a group of unidentified people called PropOrNot I sent a petition statement to the newspapers executive editor Martin Baron. Smearing is not reporting, the RootsActionpetitionsays. TheWashington Posts recent descent into McCarthyism promoting anonymous and shoddy claims that a vast range of some 200 websites are all accomplices or tools of the Russian government violates basic journalistic standards and does real harm to democratic discourse in our country. We urge theWashington Postto prominently retract the article and apologize for publishing it. After mentioning that 6,000 people had signed the petition (the number has doubled since then), my email to Baron added: If you skim through the comments that many of the signers added to the petition online, I think you might find them to be of interest. I wonder if you see a basis for dialogue on the issues raised by critics of thePostpiece in question. The reply came from the newspapers vice president for public relations, KristineCoratti Kelly, who thanked me for reaching out to us before presenting thePosts response, quoted here in full: ThePostreported on the work of four separate sets of researchers, as well as independent experts, who have examined Russian attempts to influence American democracy. PropOrNot was one. ThePostdid not name any of the sites on PropOrNots list of organizations that it said had wittingly or unwittingly published or echoed Russian propaganda. ThePostreviewed PropOrNots findings and our questions about them were answered satisfactorily during the course of multiple interviews. But that damage-control response was as full of holes as the news story it tried to defend. For one thing, PropOrNot wasnt just another source for thePosts story. AsThe New Yorkernoted in adevastating articleon Dec. 1, the story prominently cited the PropOrNot research. ThePosts account had the force of revelation, thanks in large part to the apparent scientific authority of PropOrNots work: the group released a 32-page report detailing its methodology, and named names with its list of 200 suspect news outlets. But a close look at the report showed that it was a mess. Contrary to the PR message from thePostvice president, PropOrNot did not merely say that the sites on its list had published or echoed Russian propaganda. Without a word of the slightest doubt or skepticism in the entire story, thePostsummarized PropOrNots characterization of all the websites on its list as falling into two categories: Some players in this online echo chamber were knowingly part of the propaganda campaign, the researchers concluded, while others were useful idiots a term born of the Cold War to describe people or institutions that unknowingly assisted Soviet Union propaganda efforts. AsThe New Yorkerpointed out, PropOrNots criteria for incriminating content were broad enough to include nearly every news outlet in the world, including thePostitself. Yet The List is not a random list by any means its a targeted mish-mash, naming websites that are not within shouting distance of the U.S. corporate and foreign policy establishment. And so the list includes a few overtly Russian-funded outlets; some other sites generally aligned with Kremlin outlooks; many pro-Trump sites, often unacquainted with what it means to be factual and sometimes overtly racist; and other websites that are quite different solid, factual, reasonable but too progressive or too anti-capitalist or too libertarian or too right-wing or just plain too independent-minded for the evident tastes of whoever is behind PropOrNot. AsThe New Yorkers writer Adrian Chen put it: To PropOrNot, simply exhibiting a pattern of beliefs outside the political mainstream is enough to risk being labeled a Russian propagandist. And he concluded: Despite the impressive-looking diagrams and figures in its report, PropOrNots findings rest largely on innuendo and conspiracy thinking. As for thePostvice presidents defensive phrasing that thePostdid not name any of the sites on PropOrNots list, the fact is that thePostunequivocally promoted PropOrNot, driving web traffic to its site and adding a hotlink to the anonymous groups 32-page report soon after the newspapers story first appeared. As I mentioned in my reply to her: Unfortunately, its kind of like a newspaper saying that it didnt name any of the people on theRed Channelsblacklist in 1950 while promoting it in news coverage, so no problem. As much as thePostnews management might want to weasel out of the comparison, the parallels to the advent of the McCarthy Era are chilling. For instance, theRed Channelslist, with 151 names on it, was successful as a weapon against dissent and free speech in large part because, early on, so many media outlets of the day actively aided and abetted blacklisting, as thePosthas done for The List. Consider how thePoststory described the personnel of PropOrNot in favorable terms even while hiding all of their identities and thus shielding them from any scrutiny calling them a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds. So farThe New Yorkerhas been the largest media outlet to directly confront thePosts egregious story. Cogent assessments can also be found atThe Intercept,Consortium News,Common Dreams,AlterNet,Rolling Stone,Fortune,CounterPunch,The Nationand numerous other sites. But many mainline journalists and outlets jumped at the chance to amplify thePosts piece of work. A sampling of the cheers from prominent journalists and liberal partisans was published by FAIR.org under the apt headline Why Are Media Outlets Still Citing Discredited Fake News Blacklist? FAIRs media analystAdam Johnson cited enthusiastic responses to the bogus story from journalists likeBloombergsSahil KuparandMSNBCsJoy Reid and such outlets asUSA Today,Gizmodo,thePBS NewsHour,The Daily Beast,Slate,AP,The VergeandNPR, which all uncritically wrote up thePosts most incendiary claims with little or minimal pushback.On the MSNBC site, the Rachel Maddow Showsblogadded another breathless write-up hours later, repeating the catchy talking point that it was like Russia was running a super PAC for Trumps campaign. With so many people understandably upset about Trumps victory, theres an evident attraction to blaming the Kremlin, a convenient scapegoat for Hillary Clintons loss. But thePosts blacklisting story and the medias amplification of it and the overall political environment that it helps to create are all building blocks for a reactionary order, threatening the First Amendment and a range of civil liberties. When liberals have green lighted a witch-hunt, right wingers have been pleased to run with it. President Harry Truman issued an executive order in March 1947 to establish loyalty investigations in every agency of the federal government. Joe McCarthy and the era named after him were soon to follow. In media and government, the journalists and officials who enable blacklisting arecravenlysiding with conformity instead of democracy. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. It was sourced from CommonDreams.org (Photo: Elena/cc/flickr) Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death and Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with Americas Warfare State. So the Post is getting its bid in early to be the ONLY newspaper in the US? After they manage to shut down the alt-media then they will start on the other MSM newspapers, until there is only the Post left. Shortly after that there would be a government mandate that all citizens over the age of 15 MUST buy the Post newsrag! Its probably time not to give a hoot what the MSM concern themselves with. In fact its probably best to not read, watch or otherwise engage with The New York Time, Associated Press, Reuters, ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and all its various sub-shoots (eg:MSNBC) or any local affiliate or anything that seems to be a mainstream media outlet. We dont need them. Theyre liars and corrupt to the core and not fixable. Whats the point? Its best to read independent websites/blogs/vlogs, read books, write books, look out the window and walk the streets for your information and by actually talking to your neighbors, which leads me to my next suggestion. Get rid of wifi and smartphones. Lifes not complicated. Its simply a matter of what youre going to give your precious precious life force and time to. Good luck and all the best. I agree arealSJW and JW. The idiocracy of the MSM has been outed. They have become meaningless. 