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<\/p>\nNorman Solomon<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This article was written by Norman Solomon and originally published at Activist Post<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n We still don\u2019t have any sort of apology or retraction from the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em> for promoting \u201cThe List\u201d \u2014 the highly dangerous blacklist that got a huge boost from the newspaper\u2019s fawning coverage on November 24. The project of smearing 200 websites with one broad brush wouldn\u2019t have gotten far without the avid complicity of high-profile media outlets, starting with the\u00a0Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n On Thursday\u00a0\u2014 a week after the\u00a0Post<\/em> published its front-page news\u00a0article<\/a> hyping the blacklist that was put out by a group of unidentified people called PropOrNot \u2014 I sent a petition statement to the newspaper\u2019s executive editor Martin Baron.<\/p>\n \u201cSmearing is not reporting,\u201d the RootsAction\u00a0petition<\/a> says. \u201cThe\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u2019s recent descent into McCarthyism \u2014 promoting anonymous and shoddy claims that a vast range of some 200 websites are all accomplices or tools of the Russian government \u2014 violates basic journalistic standards and does real harm to democratic discourse in our country. We urge the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em> to prominently retract the article and apologize for publishing it.\u201d<\/p>\n After mentioning that 6,000 people had signed the petition (the number has doubled since then), my email to Baron added: \u201cIf 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 the Post <\/em>piece in question.\u201d<\/p>\n The reply came from the newspaper\u2019s vice president for public relations, Kristine\u00a0Coratti Kelly, who thanked me \u201cfor reaching out to us\u201d before presenting the\u00a0Post<\/em>\u2019s response, quoted here in full:<\/p>\n The\u00a0Post<\/em> reported 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. The\u00a0Post<\/em> did not name any of the sites on PropOrNot\u2019s list of organizations that it said had \u2014 wittingly or unwittingly \u2014 published or echoed Russian propaganda. The\u00a0Post<\/em> reviewed PropOrNot\u2019s findings and our questions about them were answered satisfactorily during the course of multiple interviews.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For one thing, PropOrNot wasn\u2019t just another source for the\u00a0Post<\/em>\u2019s story. As\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em>noted in a\u00a0devastating article<\/a> on Dec. 1, the story \u201cprominently cited the PropOrNot research.\u201d The\u00a0Post<\/em>\u2019s account \u201chad the force of revelation, thanks in large part to the apparent scientific authority of PropOrNot\u2019s work: the group released a 32-page report detailing its methodology, and named names with its list of 200 suspect news outlets\u2026. But a close look at the report showed that it was a mess.\u201d<\/p>\n Contrary to the PR message from the\u00a0Post <\/em>vice president, PropOrNot did not merely say that the sites on its list had \u201cpublished or echoed Russian propaganda.\u201d Without a word of the slightest doubt or skepticism in the entire story, the\u00a0Post<\/em> summarized PropOrNot\u2019s characterization of all the websites on its list as falling into two categories: \u201cSome players in this online echo chamber were knowingly part of the propaganda campaign, the researchers concluded, while others were \u2018useful idiots\u2019 \u2014 a term born of the Cold War to describe people or institutions that unknowingly assisted Soviet Union propaganda efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n As The New Yorker<\/em> pointed out, PropOrNot\u2019s criteria for incriminating content were broad enough to include \u201cnearly every news outlet in the world, including the\u00a0Post<\/em> itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet \u201cThe List\u201d is not a random list by any means \u2014 it\u2019s a targeted mish-mash, naming websites that are not within shouting distance of the U.S. corporate and foreign policy establishment.<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 solid, factual, reasonable \u2014 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.<\/p>\n As\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em>\u2019s writer Adrian Chen put it: \u201cTo PropOrNot, simply exhibiting a pattern of beliefs outside the political mainstream is enough to risk being labeled a Russian propagandist.\u201d And he concluded: \u201cDespite the impressive-looking diagrams and figures in its report, PropOrNot\u2019s findings rest largely on innuendo and conspiracy thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n As for the\u00a0Post<\/em> vice president\u2019s defensive phrasing that \u201cthe\u00a0Post<\/em> did not name any of the sites on PropOrNot\u2019s list,\u201d the fact is that the Post<\/em> unequivocally promoted PropOrNot, driving web traffic to its site and adding a hotlink to the anonymous group\u2019s 32-page report soon after the newspaper\u2019s story first appeared. As I mentioned in my reply to her: \u201cUnfortunately, it\u2019s kind of like a newspaper saying that it didn\u2019t name any of the people on the\u00a0Red Channels<\/em> blacklist in 1950 while promoting it in news coverage, so no problem.\u201d<\/p>\n As much as the\u00a0Post<\/em> news management might want to weasel out of the comparison, the parallels to the advent of the McCarthy Era are chilling. For instance, the\u00a0Red Channels<\/em> list, 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 the\u00a0Post<\/em> has done for \u201cThe List.\u201d<\/p>\n Consider how the\u00a0Post <\/em>story described the personnel of PropOrNot in favorable terms even while hiding all of their identities and thus shielding them from any scrutiny \u2014 calling them \u201ca nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds.\u201d<\/p>\n So far\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em> has been the largest media outlet to directly confront the\u00a0Post<\/em>\u2019s egregious story. Cogent assessments can also be found at\u00a0The Intercept<\/a>,\u00a0Consortium News<\/a>,\u00a0Common Dreams<\/a>,\u00a0AlterNet<\/a>,\u00a0Rolling Stone<\/a>,\u00a0Fortune<\/a>,\u00a0CounterPunch<\/a>,\u00a0The Nation<\/a> and numerous other sites.<\/p>\n But many mainline journalists and outlets jumped at the chance to amplify the\u00a0Post<\/em>\u2019s piece of work. A sampling of the cheers from prominent journalists and liberal partisans was published by FAIR.org under the apt headline \u201cWhy Are Media Outlets Still Citing Discredited \u2018Fake News\u2019 Blacklist?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n FAIR\u2019s media analyst\u00a0Adam Johnson cited enthusiastic responses to the bogus story from journalists like\u00a0Bloomberg\u2019s\u00a0Sahil Kupar<\/a> and\u00a0MSNBC\u2019s\u00a0Joy Reid<\/a> \u2014 and such outlets as\u00a0USA Today<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0Gizmodo<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0the\u00a0PBS NewsHour<\/a>,\u00a0The Daily Beast<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0Slate<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0AP<\/a>,\u00a0The Verge<\/a><\/em> and\u00a0NPR<\/a>, which \u201call uncritically wrote up the\u00a0Post<\/em>\u2019s most incendiary claims with little or minimal pushback.\u201d\u00a0On the MSNBC site, the Rachel Maddow Show\u2019s\u00a0blog<\/a> \u201cadded another breathless write-up hours later, repeating the catchy talking point that \u2018it was like Russia was running a super PAC for Trump\u2019s campaign.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n With so many people understandably upset about Trump\u2019s victory, there\u2019s an evident attraction to blaming the Kremlin, a convenient scapegoat for Hillary Clinton\u2019s loss. But the\u00a0Post<\/em>\u2019s blacklisting story and the media\u2019s amplification of it \u2014 and the overall political environment that it helps to create \u2014 are all building blocks for a reactionary order, threatening the First Amendment and a range of civil liberties.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cloyalty\u201d investigations in every agency of the federal government. Joe McCarthy and the era named after him were soon to follow.<\/p>\n In media and government, the journalists and officials who enable blacklisting are\u00a0cravenly\u00a0siding with conformity instead of democracy.<\/p>\nBut that damage-control response was as full of holes as the news story it tried to defend.<\/div>\n