The 'Washington Post' 'Blacklist' Story Is Shameful and Disgusting

[JesterCS]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/washington-post-blacklist-story-is-shameful-disgusting-w452543


Last week, a technology reporter for the Washington Post named Craig Timberg ran an incredible story. It has no analog that I can think of in modern times. Headlined “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say,” the piece promotes the work of a shadowy group that smears some 200 alternative news outlets as either knowing or unwitting agents of a foreign power, including popular sites like Truthdig and Naked Capitalism.

The thrust of Timberg’s astonishingly lazy report is that a Russian intelligence operation of some kind was behind the publication of a “hurricane” of false news reports during the election season, in particular stories harmful to Hillary Clinton. The piece referenced those 200 websites as “routine peddlers of Russian propaganda.”



The piece relied on what it claimed were “two teams of independent researchers,” but the citing of a report by the longtime anticommunist Foreign Policy Research Institute was really window dressing. The meat of the story relied on a report by unnamed analysts from a single mysterious “organization” called PropOrNot – we don’t know if it’s one person or, as it claims, over 30 – a “group” that seems to have been in existence for just a few months.

[JHan]

1. Methinks Rollingstone doth protest too much..

One WaPo column will not result in our laws being changed in any significant way or a McCarthyite crackdown..

meanwhile these sites will continue to peddle misinformation for clicks, either witlessly or deliberately. About time they got called out on it.

[JesterCS]

2. Whats funny is JPR looks almost exactly the same

As DU with what threads are posted. Would mean 75% of what DU posts would be Russian disinformation....... research and not jumping on the bandwagon helps

[enough]

3. Maybe you should check the list of "these sites."

Just calling someone something does not make it so. If you've lived as long as I have (including through the McCarthy era) you might understand the danger here.

Please do not make yourself a dupe "either witlessly or deliberately."

[JHan]

4. Yes I saw some of the sites...

and they should have been called out.

It is worrying to me that Americans are comfortable with insidious attacks by a Foreign Power, and enable it , through the spreading of misinformation. This is not paranoia.

I am not calling for anyone to be thrown in jail or locked up, but at the very least we should understand ideological warfare when it's staring us in the face.