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4 Biblical Ways to ‘Counter the Deception’ Rampant in Modern Media

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“Even the AP is acknowledging that there is deception” in modern media, said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, host of “Washington Watch,” on Wednesday. Perkins referenced an Associated Press headline published on January 31, which read, “Grave peril of digital conspiracy theories: ‘What happens when no one believes anything anymore?’” That’s “a very profound question,” said Perkins, but he added that the AP failed to “get to the real problem and the source or the solution.”

The nearly 3,000-word article “focused on bloggers and others using the internet” to spread or adopt conspiracy theories, said Perkins. With a predictable skew toward right-fringe conspiracy theories, the article featured everything from QAnon and 2020 election claims, to government complicity in the Maui wildfires and the Sandy Hook school shooting.

On one hand, technology is a tool that cuts both ways, Perkins acknowledged. “Today’s technology … has benefits such as allowing you to watch or listen to ‘Washington Watch’ on a device you carry in your pocket. It also allows the false prophets to amplify their message with what today we might call conspiracy theories or fake news,” he said. David Closson, director of FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview concurred. “Someone can fire something off on social media and it can make it around the world … before there’s even a chance to do a fact check.”

On the other hand, “the legacy media is a part of this problem,” Perkins argued. “The reason [people are] susceptible” to conspiracy theories is “because [the legacy media] were the first ones that rejected truth and therefore set the stage for these conspiracy theories to prosper.” As the media becomes less trustworthy, they are shocked to find a corresponding decrease in people trusting the media.

“The media and journalists of all stripes really have had such a casual relationship with the truth,” agreed Closson, “or worse, … even suppressed legitimate news.” On some networks like CNN, he said he can’t even trust “the premise of some of their arguments when [in] the previous segment, you know, they’re using preferred pronouns.” At The New York Times, staffers complained internally that an article on detransitioners created “a hostile work environment for the queer people who work here.” Readers will surely recall their own encounters with mainstream media outlets choosing narrative over news.

People eschewing the legacy media for alternate sources of information represents an existential crisis to those outlets, and they have responded accordingly. Last month, a Washington Post analyst known for favoring false narratives over true ones concluded that ordinary Americans shouldn’t do their own research. Ironically, the study he relied upon actually demonstrated that the cottage industry of fact-checking has become so subjective that fact-checkers agree on what is disinformation less than half the time.

The AP article, which extended a multi-part series on the rising threat of conspiracy theories, noted with alarm that the increase in conspiracy theories corresponds to a decrease in authority, institutions, and the mainstream media. “And even when they fail to convince people,” they wrote, “the conspiracy theories embraced by these groups contribute to mounting distrust of authorities and democratic institutions, causing people to reject reliable sources of information while encouraging division and suspicion.”

“When you have a breakdown in authority … especially in media, … you sow the seeds on fertile ground for these conspiracy theories to thrive,” Closson warned. He pointed to a 2023 Gallup poll which, for 11 out of 16 public institutions they asked about, found “the lowest level of confidence that [the public has] had in 40 years.”

“We live in a time when people simply don’t trust institutions,” said Closson. “Nor should they, given where we are,” Perkins argued. “When you have people denying the revealed truth that is so fundamental — male and female, the institution of marriage … these people are not worthy to be trusted or followed.”

Closson pointed out that conspiracy theories and misinformation have been around for a long time, “really since the beginning of time,” beginning with the serpent in the garden. “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” the serpent said to Eve (Genesis 3:1). There, the serpent challenged the truth of God’s Word, “sowing doubt, sowing confusion,” said Closson, and Adam and Eve swallowed the lie. “Ever since then, we’ve lived in some sort of a post-truth world.”

However, Closson added, conspiracy theories seem to be gaining more traction now because of America’s culture-wide rejection of truth. “Even in our churches, we’re not immune from these things,” he lamented. He cited research FRC commissioned in 2023 that found “48% of regular church goers say that they don’t believe in absolute moral truth, … a basic tenet of a biblical worldview.”

“Deception comes when we depart from truth,” Perkins responded. He cited Paul’s warning to the Thessalonians about the age of lawlessness, which would bring “all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12). “We should take that as an indication that these latter days are going to be filled with deception,” said Perkins.

Perkins and Closson identified four ways that Christians should respond to the epidemic of deception poisoning America’s media, public discourse, and even the church. In a refreshing contrast to America’s prevailing buffet of lies, they served up courses of hearty, wholesome truth — all of which were grounded in God’s infallible Word.

1. Don’t Be Led Astray

The Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24-25) opened with Jesus’s disciples asking him to teach them about “the sign of your coming and of the end of the age” (Matthew 24:3). Jesus answered, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray” (Matthew 24:4-5). Paul, having learned from Jesus, later issued similar instructions to the Thessalonians, “Let no one deceive you in any way” (2 Thessalonians 2:3). In other words, the latter times would feature many anti-Christ deceivers peddling counterfeit gospels, and Jesus wanted his followers to be on their guard.

These instructions from our Lord were the “first words out of his mouth,” Perkins noted, after quoting the passage. “You see, Jesus warns his followers to be on guard against deception and those who will peddle deception. … So, repeatedly he says, ‘Don’t be deceived.’”

Jesus had already warned his followers against deception. “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves,” said Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:15). Closson quoted these words and added that Jesus gave “a litmus test” by which to recognize false teachers: “You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). He endorsed applying this litmus test to “the people reporting the news. Let’s recognize them by their fruit.”

In a culture of confusion and lies, Christian, don’t be led astray by false teachers.

2. Don’t Be Alarmed

Jesus proceeded to instruct his disciples, “See that you are not alarmed” (Matthew 24:6). Jesus foretold wars, calamities, persecutions — intense trials that could throw Christians off-balance. Nevertheless, Jesus instructed his followers that these things must happen, preparing them beforehand to remember that God is sovereign over all things.

Paul repeated this instruction, too. “Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come” (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2).

“We should not be surprised,” said Perkins, who quoted from Matthew 24. “Jesus warned us over and over … that this was going to occur.”

3. Return to the Truth

Christians must also “go back to the truth,” as an antidote to the epidemic of deception, said Closson. “We need to stand on God’s word …, which is our ultimate source of truth” (see John 17:17). “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

“We should put our confidence in that which does not change,” Perkins agreed. He added, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever [Hebrews 13:8]. The Word of God does not change.” Jesus also said this on the Mount of Olives, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

Perkins applied this truth to the moments in which we’re tempted to believe a lie, especially one that questions God’s Word (“Did God really say?”). Our response, he said, should be, “‘Well, wait a minute. Let me check. Let me go back to the source.’ … You go back to the source. That’s how you counter the deception.”

Perkins argued that American Christians should use their access to the source of truth to counter the deception of the evil one in the public square. “We have the ability, here in the United States, to use the freedoms that we still have to advocate for others. We have the ability to expose these things that are occurring in the end times that Jesus warned about,” he said. “He said they were coming, I think, to prepare us so that we could stand against the evil.” Invoking Matthew 24:12, “Because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold,” Perkins urged, “We have to act on legitimate information we have, so that we can be the salt and light that allows the gospel to go forth.”

4. Use Discernment

Countering error with truth is not always simple, which is “why we need discernment,” said Closson, “today more than we have ever needed it.” When Jesus first sent his disciples out into the world, he told them to “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16), he quoted. Additionally, Jesus quoted the greatest commandment in the law, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37).

Using discernment is easier said than done, but Perkins and Closson discussed several helpful tips for evaluating the news:

A. Pause and Pray

“The first step that I would take when I see something on the social media or the news, is just take a pause,” said Closson. “There’s the impulse that we like to know everything at once. In a social media age, we’re used to getting our news instantaneously. And so I think we need to slow down. We need to pray.”

“You don’t have to be the first one to pass [a news article] on,” Perkins concurred. Because here’s what happens when you do that. Most of these [conspiracy theories] are exposed within time. If you’re associated with that, you lose credibility among your friends.”

So, counseled Perkins, “Resist this temptation to forward it on or to post it or embrace it. … Pray over it. Just have discernment.”

B. Read Critically

Second, “Don’t believe anything you see just because you see it in print,” said Closson. Perkins put the same concept in different words, “Be careful what you read online. Be careful about just forwarding something on” without considering first if it’s true.

As part of this step, Christians should compare what they read in the news to what the Bible says, Perkins advised.

In the same discourse, Jesus predicted, “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. … Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. … And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray” (Matthew 24:7, 9, 11).

“When you hear those things happening,” we know that “the Scripture says, ‘Yeah, those things are going to happen,’” said Perkins. “So, we can say, ‘Well, all right, this lines up with what Jesus said was going to be happening. Let’s go the next step and validate and verify the source.’”

C. Corroborate Information

“It’s always good to corroborate. If you see something on social media, don’t just assume it’s true,” Closson said. “Don’t forward the email to a friend. Don’t forward the post, but corroborate it. Go to some valid news organizations.”

Closson recommended Family Research Council’s own news organization, The Washington Stand, noting that it has “a whole team of reporters” dedicated to “coming at [the news] from a biblical worldview.” This means that they are “trying to connect it to Scripture, trying to connect it to facts, objective truth, things that are reportable, things that can be verified.”

Perkins suggested a “rule of thumb” that “anything you see that is detached from a specific, reliable news or organizational site like The Washington Stand, … don’t trust it if it’s not connected to a site that it can be verified.”

One way to find reliable news is to “get as close to the source as you can,” said Perkins. “That’s why we bring you the actual news makers. We go right to the source. We’re not, you know, reporting on what someone else said.” That’s one reason why social media is an unreliable place to peruse the news; it’s far removed from the source.

D. Be Honest

Everyone is liable to make mistakes. This is even easier in a rapidly changing news environment, where first reports often turn out to be wrong, misleading, or at least lacking critical information. The question is, how do we respond when we make mistakes?

Perkins exhorted “Washington Watch” listeners to be honest. “I do my very best to make sure that everything we say here is validated and it’s true,” he said. “And, if we do get something wrong, I’m going to take ownership of that, and I’m going to correct it when we find out.”

“So,” Closson summarized, “prayer, discernment, corroborating objectivity — all of these things, I think, ought to mark a Christian as they take in, read, understand, and share the news.” Christians should speak the truth in love, which means we should not be led astray or alarmed, but stand firm on the Word of God, the only infallible source of truth. To accurately handle the Word of truth amid a culture of deception, Christians must navigate with all discernment, never losing sight of him who is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Deplatforming Works’: Left Learns Wrong Lesson from Week of Media Firings

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Far-left Democrat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) raised eyebrows — not to mention blood pressures — with her response to Tucker Carlson’s abrupt departure from Fox News. Her most offensive comment was not the mean-spirited joke, “couldn’t have happened to a better guy,” nor the possibly libelous claim that Carlson was “arguably responsible for driving some of the most amounts of death threats, violent threats, not just to my office but to plenty of people across the country,” but the political conclusion she drew, “deplatforming works, and it is important, and there you go.”

By “deplatforming,” Ocasio-Cortez means more than just someone losing a platform (in the abstract, modern sense of “platform” that includes all digital-age equivalents for mounting a literal platform to deliver a speech). For her and other leftists, “deplatforming” describes a particular form of censorship achieved by disallowing those who express undesirable views from using the media by which they reach their intended audience. She also seems to have in mind not only the act of removing someone from a platform, but the activism and pressure campaigns that lead to that result — in two words, cancel culture.

This is emphatically the wrong conclusion to draw.

For starters, Ocasio-Cortez completely overlooks the context of Carlson’s firing. Unless you’ve been reading the news about “the news” — which, let’s be honest, you probably shouldn’t — you’re probably unaware that Carlson’s departure from Fox is only one item in a string of high-profile firings across cable and network television. In just the past week, CNN booted left-wing gadfly Don Lemon, Comcast (which owns NBC) parted ways with NBC Universal CEO Jeff Shell, Disney-owned ABC (which owns election data site FiveThirtyEight) did not renew a contract with FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver, and Fox fired commentator Dan Bongino in addition to Carlson. With all this sacking, it’s a wonder the price of burlap hasn’t gone through the roof.

Surprisingly, these clustered separations seem to be unrelated to one another. Lemon got the hammer after engaging in a racially charged tirade against Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, of Indian heritage. Shell was pushed out at NBC over an inappropriate sexual relationship. Silver got swept up by Disney-wide layoffs (apparently subsidizing the rainbow renders other colors unaffordable).

Meanwhile, Fox has given no public reason for the firings, but they might be related to the company’s legal problems. The pair of firings came days after settling a defamation lawsuit in which Carlson was mentioned frequently with voting machine manufacturer Dominion for a stunning $787 million; the company still faces a defamation lawsuit from another voting machine company, Smartmatic, and a hostile work environment lawsuit from a former booker for Carlson’s show, Abby Grossberg. Another possible reason for at least Lemon’s and Carlson’s ousters is that the CEO or owner disliked them and was actively looking for an opportunity to show them the door.

These details indicate that there are many possible reasons why a network might terminate a relationship with an anchor — reasons which might be totally unrelated to a cancellation campaign against them. Without knowing the reason why a host lost his show, it’s impossible to prove that “deplatforming works” in the strategic sense Ocasio-Cortez means.

Left-wingers tried to cancel Carlson on numerous occasions. In 2021, the Anti-Defamation League called for an advertising boycott, but that failed to drive audiences away. On former White House press secretary Jen Psaki’s MSNBC show, Ocasio-Cortez herself on Sunday endorsed government action to end his show, calling for “federal regulation, in terms of what’s allowed on air and what isn’t. And when you look at [what] Tucker Carlson and some of these other folks on Fox do, it is very, very clearly incitement of violence. Very clearly incitement of violence. And that is the line that I think we have to be willing to contend with.” But what Ocasio-Cortez called for did not happen.

In fact, the coincidental cancellation campaign may have had no more effect on Carlson’s firing than a child attempting to use “the Force” on a supermarket’s automatic doors.

A separate issue from the factual accuracy of Ocasio-Cortez’s position — and a more important one — is whether the “deplatforming” she envisions is acceptable in a free society. Ocasio-Cortez explicitly called for government suppression of the distribution of opinions with which she disagrees. The policy outcome flies so obviously in the face of the First Amendment’s protection of free speech and a free press that Ocasio-Cortez felt the need to justify herself by claiming the speech that offended her was “very clearly incitement of violence.” If that case could be proven in court, surely someone would have sued Fox News over that by now.

A giant chasm yawns between what actually happened to Tucker Carlson and what Ocasio-Cortez wanted to happen to him. Opinions will differ about whether Rupert Murdoch (owner of Fox’s parent company News Corp) made the right decision or for the right reasons. But at root, Carlson’s employer no longer wanted to employ him, so he terminated his employment. One bedrock principle of a free market is that no one is forced to do business with anyone they don’t want to do business with. Ocasio-Cortez wants the government to dictate to broadcasters who they can put on air.

The Left seems not to recognize or understand this difference, as Ocasio-Cortez’s recent “deplatforming works” claim underscores. Left-wing cancellation efforts target not only Fox News, but virtually every right-wing news outlet you can think of. Ironically, the self-proclaimed opponents of fascism have ripped a page right out of the fascist playbook (and every other dictator in history) in agitating to shut down dissenting media outlets.

This trend has increased in recent years. Pew Research Center found that the percentage of Democrat or Democrat-leaning U.S. adults who agree that “the U.S. government should take steps to restrict false information online, even if it limits freedom of information,” increased from 40% in 2018 to 65% in 2021. Even more (76% of Democrat or Democrat-leaning adults) believed in 2021 that “tech companies should take steps to restrict false information online, even if it limits freedom of information.”

This notion is dangerous to America. But rather than censor it, proponents of free speech must defeat it through persuasion, which is far more challenging.

If Ocasio-Cortez and other leftists have taken the “wrong” — both incorrect and totalitarian — lesson from Carlson’s departure from Fox News, what is the right lesson? Combined with other recent media departures, it’s clear that the American news media — for all of its problems — remains capable of self-adjustment. Different outlets continue to represent different points of view, cycle between spokespersons, and remain accountable both to the public and to the legal system. The media landscape continues to remain open to independent new players, such as The Washington Stand or (possibly soon) the Tucker Carlson Network. No one has a monopoly on the facts, the right opinions, or the press. That’s how things are supposed to work in a rambunctious popular government.

There is, and will always be, a fundamental difference between government regulators taking a popular program off the air and that program’s broadcast cutting that program from its lineup. The difference is freedom.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Tucker Carlson Out at Fox News Days After Asking Americans to Wage Spiritual Warfare, Pray for Our Country

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Fox News Channel announced it cut ties with the top-rated host in cable news, Tucker Carlson, on Monday, just days after he gave a widely praised speech imploring leaders to pray that God will preserve America from the progressive movement’s “evil” agenda.

Promoting transgender surgeries for minors and describing abortion as a good thing are “manifestations of some larger force” exerting its nefarious influence over us, he said over the weekend. Fox’s announcement, which removed Carlson’s reliably populist-conservative voice from the increasingly moderate network’s schedule, caused the corporation’s stock to tank by more than half-a-billion dollars.

“FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor,” said a press release from Fox News Channel. Neither the network nor Carlson disclosed the reason for the abrupt contract cancellation. The host did not get to give his audience a farewell broadcast. “Mr. Carlson’s last program was Friday April 21st,” said the release. Carlson’s Friday episode discussed the Nashville shooter’s still-unreleased manifesto, the longstanding Obama-Biden plan to establish permanent Democratic power by moving low-income people into suburbia, America’s uncontrolled border with Mexico, and the mysterious meaning of the “plus” in “LGBTQIA+.” Carlson closed the show by eating pizza with local hero Tyler Morrell, a delivery man who tripped a criminal suspect eluding police.

“Tucker Carlson Tonight” ended its six-and-a-half-year run as the highest-rated show in all cable news with an average of 3.39 million viewers. Even in his departure, Carlson outperformed his competitors, as his exit from Fox News drew far more headlines than CNN’s decision to fire low-rated 17-year host Don Lemon the same day.

Carlson’s eponymous primetime show has featured exclusive footage of the January 6 Capitol riot, reports from a Chinese whistleblower that COVID-19 originated inside China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, and proof that prisons released hundreds of violent criminals thanks to the First Step Act. He also invited guests who did not agree with his conservative views to discuss the transgender movement’s grooming of children, oppose current or potential wars, and expose Deep State censorship.

Carlson and frequent guest Jason Whitlock increasingly analyzed political problems through a spiritual lens. Earlier this month, Carlson said, “Transgenderism is this country’s fastest growing religion.” Transgender ideologues “believe that they themselves are God with the power to control nature” by changing their gender by taking careful thought.

Tucker Carlson’s analysis turned especially prophetic shortly after his last show Friday night, when he gave the keynote address at the Heritage Foundation’s 50th anniversary gala. The political debate had shifted radically since 1991, when he got his first job as the copy editor of Heritage’s quarterly publication, Policy Review, for $14,000 a year. At that time, think tanks engaged in fact-based debates over mutually shared goals: for instance, whether Keynesian or Austrian economics created maximum prosperity. “I don’t think we’re watching a debate over how to get to the best outcome,” he said.

Today, the progressive political movement promotes laws allowing surgeons to “sexually mutilate children … I don’t think anyone could defend that as a positive outcome, but the weight of the government and a lot of corporate interests are behind that,” he said.

Similarly, in the Clinton era, Democrats portrayed abortion as a necessary evil. “But if you’re telling me abortion is a positive good, what are you saying? Well, you’re arguing for child sacrifice, obviously,” he said. “That’s like an Aztec principle.”

“None of this makes sense in conventional political terms,” he said. When political leaders embrace “destruction for its own sake … what you’re watching is not a political movement; it’s evil.”

“Those ideas won’t produce outcomes that any rational person would want under any circumstances. Those are manifestations of some larger force acting upon us,” Carlson said.

Carlson noted his spiritual insight is hampered by his background in the liberal Episcopal Church USA. “I’m an Episcopalian, so don’t take any theological advice from me, because I don’t have any. I grew up in the shallowest faith tradition ever invented,” Carlson said. “It’s not even a Christian religion at this point, I say with shame.” Yet his views derive equally from the Christian tradition and classical Athenian notions of the good, the true, and the beautiful. “Good is characterized by order, calmness, tranquility, peace … lack of conflict, cleanliness.” Evil “is characterized by their opposites: violence, hate, disorder, division, disorganization, and filth.”

“If you are all in on the things that produce the latter basket of outcomes, what you’re really advocating for is evil,” Carlson said. “I’m not calling for a religious war, far from it. I’m merely calling for an acknowledgement of what we’re watching.”

Carlson described the spiritual power that emanates from following God’s commandments. “The truth is contagious,” and “the second you decide to tell the truth about something, you are filled with this power from somewhere else,” he said. “The more you tell the truth, the stronger you become.” Entertaining lies, and “Drug and alcohol use are the same way: They make you weak and afraid.”

Carlson then hailed those who would not engage in the pageantry of sharing their pronouns for faith-based reasons. “I’m not doing that. It’s a betrayal of what I think is true. It’s a betrayal of my conscience, of my faith, of my sense of myself, of my dignity as a human being, of my autonomy.”

“I am not a slave. I am a free citizen, and I’m not doing that,” Carlson said, likening their steadfast obedience to the Apostle “Paul on trial.”

In a heartfelt moment, Carlson shared how he “was overcome a little bit with emotion” during a prayer offered by Fr. Paul Scalia, the son of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, which convicted him of an oversight in his patriotic duties. “I don’t pray enough for the country, and I should,” Carlson said. “We all should be.”

He closed his speech by exhorting his audience to set aside a substantial block of time to pray for the United States. “Maybe we should all take like 10 minutes a day to say a prayer about” America’s future. “I’m saying that to you not as some kind of an evangelist. I’m literally saying that to you as an Episcopalian. … and even I have concluded it might be worth taking just 10 minutes out of your busy schedule to say a prayer for the future, and I hope you will,” he concluded.

Before the news of Carlson’s departure from Fox broke, Christians hailed the spiritual content of Carlson’s Heritage speech. “He is so spot on! God bless him for his clarity and his courage,” said Christian talk show host Janet Parshall. “He understood we are in a war between good and evil — and dared to say so,” noted evangelical Christian author and talk show host Eric Metaxas.

During a question-and-answer session immediately after the speech, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts told Carlson, “If things go South at Fox News, there’s always a job for you at Heritage.”

It is not known whether Carlson’s call to spiritual warfare preceded or followed his departure from the network, or whether it influenced the Monday morning announcement. FNC renamed Carlson’s show “Fox News Tonight,” which will be filled by a rotating series of guest hosts until the network names a permanent anchor — a decision that drew international condemnation.

“Tucker Carlson is irreplaceable. This will hurt Fox News,” predicted UK politician and Brexit leader Nigel Farage.

The stock market soon confirmed his words. Within hours of the announcement, Fox Corp. stock tumbled by 5.4%, trimming approximately $1 billion from the company’s value, before leveling out to 2.9%, for a $507 million loss. The plunge reportedly reduced 92-year-old executive chairman Rupert Murdoch’s net worth by $182 million.

But it cheered the hearts of Carlson’s more implacable foes, including numerous Democratic elected officials who had called for the network, or the government, to suppress Carlson. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said “our democracy depends on” Murdoch deciding to “stop Tucker Carlson from going on” his network. Over the weekend his colleague, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), called for harsher “federal regulation in terms of what’s allowed on air and what isn’t,” accusing “Tucker Carlson and some of these other folks on Fox” of unspecified “incitement of violence.”

Fox News’s rift with Tucker Carlson came four days after the network announced it had also parted ways with Dan Bongino — the latest in a number of lurches the network has made to the left since the ascension of Rupert Murdoch’s son, Lachlan Murdoch, and especially after former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (who once voted for the anti-conscience Employment Non-Discrimination Act) joined Fox News’s board of directors in 2019. The network has since platformed such social liberals as former Democratic campaign strategist Donna Brazile, UK presenter Piers Morgan, and former men’s Olympic decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner, who now identifies as female and changed his name to Caitlin Jenner.

The drift evidenced itself in Fox’s news coverage, as well. As part of Fox News’s celebration of Pride Month last June, “America’s Newsroom” anchor Dana Perino introduced a story on celebrating parents who began presenting their five-year-old daughter in public as a boy. The Whittington family showed “extraordinary courage” in transitioning their preschooler based on their “conservative faith,” said reporter Bryan Llenas, adding, “People are afraid of what they do not understand.” Fox News has also parroted pro-abortion rhetoric in its news coverage of late-term abortion.

“For a while Fox News has been moving to become establishment media, and Tucker Carlson’s removal is a big milestone in that effort,” said rival Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy.

Senators and members of Congress weighed in on the latest programming shake-up. “Could a new network emerge featuring (among others) @TuckerCarlson & @dbongino?” asked Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) on his personal Twitter account. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) praised both men as “true trailblazers amid a period where American corporate media controls speech.”

Carlson has yet to speak publicly on the matter or announce his next steps. Glenn Beck, himself a former Fox News host, offered to pay Carlson “a bucketful of money” to take a job at The Blaze. “You won’t miss a beat, and together, the two of us will tear it up,” he promised.

Carlson recently shared his increasingly critical view of the mainstream news media, which he said intentionally denied Americans access to the information necessary to become effective citizens.

“The media are part of the control apparatus,” Carlson told the “Full Send” podcast. “Their job is not to inform you. They are working for the small group of people who actually run the world. They’re their servants and their Pretorian Guard, and we should treat them with maximum contempt, because they have earned it.”

Carlson’s supporters hope he will return to another platform soon — and that Americans will take up his charge to pray for our country in the meantime. “We need to turn to God as a nation, in every way that we can, with everything in us,” Metaxas added. “It is genuinely our only hope.”

Jonathan Cahn, the author of “The Return of the Gods,” did not immediately return this reporter’s request for comment.

AUTHOR:

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

U.S. Media Outlet Has Extensive Partnerships, Financial Dealings With Orgs Tied To Chinese Communist Party Influence Operations

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  • Approximately 20 organizations that may be headed by members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or members of alleged Chinese influence operations have sponsored or partnered with The China Project (TCP), a China-focused New York media outlet, the Daily Caller News Foundation determined.
  • TCP recently denied working for or with the CCP after a former employee sent an Oct. 21 declaration to the Department of Justice and Congress accusing the outlet of harboring a pro-CCP bias. 
  • “We must help defend our fellow citizens and lawful permanent residents from pressure — and in many cases, transnational repression up to and including assassination attempts — by the Chinese Communist Party,” New Jersey Republican Rep. Chris Smith told the DCNF.

The China Project (TCP), a New York-based media outlet renowned for its China reporting, has had professional and financial ties with organizations that may have been headed by members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or members of alleged Chinese influence operations, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.

Over 20 organizations that may have been led by such individuals have apparently partnered with or financially sponsored TCP, including the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) and the Confucius Institute, the DCNF found. Both groups apparently began professional relationships with TCP after the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) identified them as CCP influence operations in 2018. Furthermore, the DCNF found that TCP’s “board director,” Clarence Kwan, may have been simultaneously serving as a director of an alleged CCP front group at the time he joined TCP’s board and provided initial equity in the company.

Kwan did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

These revelations come over a month after journalist Shannon Van Sant, a former TCP business editor, delivered a sworn declaration to Congress and the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Oct. 21, alleging TCP fired her in June 2020 for being out of “alignment” with the organization’s alleged pro-CCP bias.

Van Sant’s declaration also stated that after being fired she “conducted open source research and found links between the organization and China’s Communist Party,” however, Van Sant’s declaration did not provide any documentation to substantiate her claim.

“It is important to me to provide transparency and shed light on my experiences,” Van Sant’s declaration stated. “That is why I am doing this disclosure.”

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Republican Rep. Chris Smith — both of whom sit on the Congressional-Executive Commission on China — recently told Semafor that TCP “should be forced to register” under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires the disclosure of service to foreign entities.

In response, TCP’s attorneys at Boies Schiller Flexner sent a 12-page letter to Semafor on Oct. 31, demanding Semafor retract their piece on Van Sant’s allegations. TCP’s attorneys allege Van Sant had been fired for “poor work performance” and had “an axe to grind.”

“Nothing in Ms. Van Sant’s ‘sworn declaration’ comes close to providing evidence, direct or circumstantial, that TCP is working for or has worked for the Chinese government,” Boies Schiller Flexner wrote to Semafor.

Neither TCP nor their attorneys at Boies Schiller Flexner responded to multiple requests for comment from the DCNF. Van Sant declined the DCNF’s request for comment through her representatives at Whistleblower Aid.

‘A Jewel In The Crown Of China Reporting’

TCP — which until September was known as “SupChina” — is a multimedia group that claims to reach “more than two million people per month” through a variety of platforms including news articles and podcasts. Former Ambassador to China Max Baucus — who recently came under fire for Nov. 11 and 12 meetings with alleged Chinese influence operatives — called TCP “a jewel in the crown of China reporting,” according to the outlet’s website.

The multimedia outlet also runs a nonprofit arm, Serica, which seeks “to educate and cultivate empathy around the issues of Sinophobia and anti-Asian hate,” according to its website. TCP also maintains a “United States Sinophobia Tracker” that’s collected numerous articles on CCP espionage allegations, such as a 2020 NBC News piece about the growing number of FBI counterintelligence cases, which TCP tags on its website as “paranoid rhetoric.”

TCP has also published articles and podcasts critical of the DOJ’s China Initiative — an anti-espionage program launched during the Trump administration which was ultimately terminated in February 2022 after the “civil rights community” expressed concern that the program had “fueled a narrative of intolerance and bias,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said at the time.

China’s United Front

In her declaration to the federal government, Van Sant claims to have discovered links between TCP and the China Overseas Exchange Association (COEA), an organization which billed itself as an “important platform and bridge for people-to-people exchanges,” according to an archived version of COEA’s website.

China intelligence analyst and former senior analyst at the Canberra-based Australian Strategic Policy Institute Alex Joske identified COEA as a “key” United Front Work Department (UFWD) front group that merged with the China Overseas Friendship Association (COFA) in 2019 — an organization which USCC also identified as a UFWD front group.

Joske is the author of “Spies and Lies: How China’s Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World” published in October 2022, which was well-received by the international press.

The UFWD is a Chinese government agency, which oversees CCP influence operations and reports directly to the CCP’s Central Committee, according to USCC. General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized the importance of the UFWD. He even described the agency as the CCP’s “magic weapon” for “realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” in a 2015 speech.

“The UFWD is essentially an intelligence agency of the CCP tasked with infiltrating different communities and organizations, co-opting and influencing them,” Salih Hudayar, Uyghur prime minister of the East Turkistan Government in Exile, told the DCNF.

While TCP’s attorneys conceded in their October letter to Semafor that Kwan formerly served as a COEA “director,” they claim his involvement with the group “was limited to participating in two trips to China in 2013 and 2014.” TCP’s attorneys also claimed Kwan’s COEA tenure preceded his joining TCP’s board and his providing nearly 2% of the outlet’s initial equity.

Yet, the DCNF discovered that archived versions of COEA’s website — which was deleted after the organization merged with COFA around 2019 — list Kwan as a “director” for two consecutive four-year terms running from 2013-2017 and 2017-2021. This appears to indicate that Kwan’s time at COEA overlapped with his $150,000 purchase of SupChina First Notes in September 2016, according to Security and Exchange Commission filings. Likewise, this indicates Kwan may have been serving as COEA’s director when he assumed the role of “director” of SupChina — now called TCP — in May 2017.

Kwan is currently listed as an “advisory board member” on TCP’s website.

Additionally, Kwan appears to have also held leadership positions in several companies that have financially sponsored TCP, including KCY Family Office, East West Bank and Piermont Bank, the DCNF found.

The Committee Of 100

TCP also appears to have partnered with, and donated $25,000 to, a New York-based organization called the Committee of 100 (C100) — a nonprofit that claims to seek “constructive dialogue and relationships between the peoples of the United States and Greater China.”

Yet, C100 members appear to have included Chinese government advisers and 10 COEA directors, including Kwan, who, based on the committee’s website, may have served as C100’s chairman while simultaneously serving as COEA’s director.

Moreover, in addition to TCP’s founder, Anla Cheng — a hedge fund manager by trade, who apparently is also a trustee and former C100 director — seven of TCP’s 23 advisory board members appear to belong to C100, including John Long, S. Alice Mong, Frank Wu, Li Cheng, Ted Wang, Janet Yang and Lesley Ma.

TCP’s attorneys accused Semafor’s article of relying on “racial profiling and stereotypes” by citing a C100 report which claimed “Asian defendants are more than twice as likely to be falsely accused of espionage” without acknowledging any financial or personnel ties between the two organizations.

C100 did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

‘CCP Agents Often Target The Chinese Diaspora’

Van Sant also claims in her 11-page declaration that the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) told TCP’s founder, Cheng, in June 2020 about a Chinese scientist whom the U.S. government had charged with espionage, prompting Cheng to direct staff to “protect him.”

CAST is a unit of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which oversees the UFWD, according to USCC. The CPPCC “operates as a way for the CCP to falsely claim that it represents the full breadth of Chinese society,” according to a 2020 report written by Joske, the intel analyst.

“In practice, those organizations are controlled by the CCP,” Joske wrote. “Their leaders are often party members, and, historically, some have been manipulated through inducement and coercion, including blackmail.”

Although TCP’s attorneys did not deny Van Sant’s allegation in their letter to Semafor, they claimed that “protecting a ‘wrongly investigated’ Chinese scientist” did not amount to “evidence of espionage.”

Yet, TCP listed CAST as a “partner organization” on flyers from a 2022 “Women’s Conference,” the DCNF found.

Furthermore, TCP appears to have partnered with around 10 organizations that may be led by members of the CCP or alleged UFWD fronts, the DCNF found. For example, the “About Us” tab on CAST’s website includes a section on “Leading Party Members” and features CAST’s Party Secretary Zhang Yuzhuo and five other Communist Party members.

Likewise, TCP partnered with another organization called NYO China for its 2019 “Women’s Conference.” NYO China appears to be headed by He Mei, vice chairman of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), which was identified by USCC as a UFWD front back in 2018.

The year before the State Department designated the Confucius Institute as a UFWD “foreign mission” in 2020, TCP also partnered with the Chinese government-run propaganda center to host an event on “China’s Food Revolution.” Li Changchun, former CCP propaganda chief, once called Confucius Institutes “an important part of China’s overseas propaganda setup,” according to the State Department.

“Confucius Institutes are the United Front’s most well-known overseas outreach program,” Helen Raleigh, author of “Backlash: How China’s Aggression Has Backfired,” told the DCNF.

“Confucius Institutes have been noted to present students with only the CCP-sanctioned version of Chinese history, which omits the CCP’s human rights violations, and Chinese teachers at Confucius Institutes are all thoroughly vetted by Beijing,” Raleigh said.

In total, about 10 organizations that appear to have been headed by CCP members or alleged UFWD front members financially sponsored TCP, the DCNF determined. These organizations paid as much as $50,000 to sponsor events hosted by the multimedia outlet, according to various flyers.

Youhe Invest — whose website identifies its chairman Su Jie as a member of the CCP and CPPCC — is listed on TCP’s website as a sponsor of past events. Likewise, the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) sponsored a TCP screening of a documentary on “the history and evolution of Afro-Chinese relations in America” in 2021.

CUSEF is a Hong Kong-based nonprofit registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act that is involved in UFWD “influence operations,” according to USCC.

Several companies run by individuals from CUSEF’s leadership have also sponsored TCP, such as Wisdom Valley — whose founding director, Victor Fung, is listed as CUSEF’s vice chairman — and Value Partners — whose co-chairman, Cheah Cheng Hye, is one of CUSEF’s “counsellors.”

Rep. Smith told the DCNF that once Republicans take control of the House it will become a priority to investigate Chinese influence operations.

“Beyond national security concerns, we know that CCP agents often target the Chinese diaspora in the United States,” Smith said. “We must help defend our fellow citizens and lawful permanent residents from pressure — and in many cases, transnational repression up to and including assassination attempts — by the Chinese Communist Party.”

AUTHOR

PHILIP LENCZYCKI

Investigative reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: EXCLUSIVE: CIA Director’s Former Think Tank Hired Experts From Nonprofits Controlled By Chinese Spy Agencies

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘My Son Hunter’: An imperfect but necessary indictment of media’s corruption

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This satirical film reveals a disturbing truth about modern mainstream journalistic standards.

We all love the literary motif of the unwilling prostitute who, at the end of the story, does virtuous deeds to save herself and others. In Crime and Punishment, Sonya is instrumental in Raskolnikov’s redemption. Director Robert Davi uses the same formula to tell the story of President’s Biden son in My Son Hunter.

Grace struggles to pay for her college tuition, so she is a favourite escort of powerful men. As she encounters Hunter Biden in a world of cocaine, wild sex, and rampant corruption, she offers him a path to redemption — and of course, he rejects it.

Now, Davi is no Dostoevsky — nor does he intend to be. My Son Hunter is first and foremost political satire, all-too-frequently engaging in cheap shots. But it does take a stab at Dostoevskyan psychological profundity, and in that endeavour, it partly succeeds.

The shadow of successful Beau Biden — Hunter’s deceased brother — looms large over Hunter, who struggles to find meaning in life. Very much as Raskolnikov, he comes across as a pathological narcissist who engages in criminal activity as a way to prove to himself that he is so great so as to be above the law.

Overblown

Unfortunately, My Son Hunter often goes overboard and loses effectiveness. I lost count of the number of times Joe Biden sniffs the hair of women in the film. Is that necessary? That portrayal runs the risk of playing into the left-wing narrative that criticisms of the Bidens focus on petty things that can be easily dismissed.

The stakes are high, so a more focused and incisive portrayal was needed. Say what you want about Oliver Stone’s leftist politics and penchant for conspiracy theories, but he surely can strike an opponent in his films — Richard Nixon and George W. Bush being the most notorious cases.

The story of Hunter Biden lends itself to Stone’s sober cinematographic style, but My Son Hunter misses an opportunity, to the extent that it aims for low-hanging fruit. Yes, the Bidens are corrupt, but one is left wondering: can they be that corrupt? While the dialogues between Joe and Hunter are clever and amusing, the perversity defies credibility. Perhaps Davi was deliberately aiming more for Saturday Night Live’s lampooning style all along. If so, the film works at some level, but never entirely.

I would have personally enjoyed a more sober style because there is a far darker theme in the film. My Son Hunter is not about the moral failings of a privileged, corrupt drug addict. It is not even about crony capitalism and globalist elites. The real central theme is the media’s rot.

Media manipulation

Two scenes are particularly frightening. At the beginning of the film, Grace is at a Black Lives Matter protest, and records some of her comrades engaging in violent deeds. A fellow activist says: “You can’t post that video… it will make the protest look bad… Those people are too ignorant to understand complex moral issues. You have to withhold things for their own good. We choose truth over facts.” Grace acquiesces.

Towards the end of the film, Grace summons a journalist to expose Hunter’s corruption. The man tells her: “Even if what you are saying is true, it’s not news. We have the chance to take down a fascist dictator [Trump]… I’m sorry Grace, this one is not for me.” We now know that Twitter and Facebook — with their disturbing algorithms — were not the only ones trying to bury Hunter’s laptop under the sand.

As Mark Zuckerberg recently acknowledged, the FBI itself pressured him to do so, because they did not want the bad Orange Man to win the election — all with the excuse that the whole story was Russian disinformation. Later on, both the Washington Post and the New York Times had to reverse their stance and admit that, in fact, the laptop does contain compromising emails.

Plato infamously recommended telling people the Noble Lie. Very much as the Black Lives Matter activist in this film, Plato believed such lies were for people’s own good, as they were too stupid to understand things. In his seminal study of totalitarianism, Karl Popper persuasively argued that Plato’s plan became a central tenet of totalitarian regimes. That is the real fascism.

While being far from a perfect film, My Son Hunter provides meaningful insight on this issue, and hopefully it might become an important step towards much-needed media accountability in this woke age.

For the time being, we need to be realistic. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Hollywood to make an Oliver Stone-like blockbuster about the corruption and hypocrisy of the Left.

Rather, keep an eye out for low-budget productions like My Son Hunter that are bypassing the Hollywood production and distribution system. These include Uncle Tom I and II, various Christian films, such as Run, Hide, Fight.

They will not be great works of art, but at least they will be something. And from there, the quality of such films may gradually improve, until we again see mainstream studios portraying corrupt politicians from both sides of the political spectrum.

AUTHOR

Gabriel Andrade is a university professor originally from Venezuela. He writes about politics, philosophy, history, religion and psychology. More by Gabriel Andrade

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Still No Deaths From Omicron: Americans Are Getting On With Their Lives Despite Unhinged Media Frenzy

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The pandemic was a hoax. The American people have had it.

WATCH: Biden laughs and walks away when asked about his “responsibility” for COVID deaths.

Still No Deaths From Omicron, And Americans Are Getting On With Their Lives

By Jordan Boyd The Federalist, December 14, 2021:

Americans are returning to normal despite the media’s attempts to drum up alarm over the supposedly ‘highly transmissible’ Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Americans are returning to normal despite the corporate media’s attempts to drum up alarm over the supposedly “highly transmissible” Omicron variant of COVID-19.

While corporate media outlets panicked and revived permanent pandemic narratives and talk of more lockdowns, a new poll from CBS News and YouGov found that of 1,731 people surveyed, 81 percent said they have not rearranged plans because of the Omicron variant or the hype surrounding it. In fact, a majority said they still plan to keep their normal holiday traditions and routines. Sixty-eight percent still plan to “gather with friends and family,” 64 percent said they will do their Christmas shopping in person, and 52 percent said they will eat in a restaurant.

Only 17 percent of those surveyed said they were “very concerned about Omicron,” while about 42 percent said they were not concerned at all about Omicron despite the initial media and bureaucracy-induced panic about it.

These Americans’ thoughts on Omicron are validated by the data. As it turns out, not one single COVID-19-related death in the U.S. from Dec. 1-8 was found to be caused by the Omicron variant. As of Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that of the 43 people infected with the Omicron strain of COVID, most cases manifested only mild symptoms such as “a cough, fatigue, and congestion or a runny nose.”

The CDC report also found that “one individual, who was vaccinated, required a brief hospital stay” and that a majority of cases, 79 percent, were in fully vaccinated individuals.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s measures of Omicron produced similar results in a report released Sunday.

“There have been no Omicron-related deaths reported thus far,” the European health agency claimed, noting that most cases of Omicron-related COVID presented as “either asymptomatic or mild.”

Read the rest at the Federalist.

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Poll: Florida Governor DeSantis Far More Popular Than The Media

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A new poll has found that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is enjoying overwhelming public approval among Floridians regarding his year-long handling of Covid and the vaccine distribution. The media? Not so much.

Cygnal, a less well-known firm that the New York Times called the most accurate polling firm in 2018 and which had the highest number of correct Congressional projections in 2020, conducted a survey of 800 likely general election voters in Florida. Considering the unrelenting, Democrat-operative attack media in Florida and nationally over the past year, the results are stunning.

The statewide Cygnal survey conducted April 8-11, 2021, shows that DeSantis is viewed favorably by a substantial number of likely voters. He is +17 among uninformed voters but +25 among informed voters. So the more a voter knows the issues, the more likely that they approve of the Governor. (I suspect this dynamic of more issue knowledge translating into higher approval is true of Republicans in general.) But even casual voters give him strong approval. Meanwhile, the poll found that the mainstream media has a negative approval rating of -14.

DeSantis’ handling of the Covid virus has even higher approval among Floridians than President Biden’s handling — 60 percent for DeSantis and 58 percent for Biden, while former President Trump’s stood at 49 percent.

A whopping 72 percent of Florida voters in the poll said they approve of the state’s vaccine distribution. Seventy-four percent of voters said they approve of DeSantis’ decision to prioritize the elderly and vaccinate seniors first; 72 percent approve of making Florida one of the first states where anyone over 18 can get a vaccine; and 58 percent approve of keeping the economy open throughout the year of Covid when most states locked down for a short or long period.

The last one was one of his most controversial decisions, and one the media slammed him on repeatedly. Likely a poll six months ago would not have been as positive, but the data is incontrovertible now and Florida voters see it, even if the media is reluctant.

As someone who firsthand watches the Florida media savage Gov. DeSantis in blatantly unfair, opposition operative ways — 60 Minutes is hardly alone in that respect, they just got nailed because of the video and a couple of brave Democrats stepping up to call them out — it is particularly heartening to see how many Floridians distrust the media and rightly approve of the DeSantis decisions that the media assailed.

The survey has a margin of error of 3.46 percent.

RELATED ARTICLE: DeSantis spurns CDC advice, says vaccines are effective and ‘you’re immune, and so, act immune’ – Geller Report News

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Federal Judge: ‘The increased power of the press is so dangerous today because we are very close to one-party control of these institutions’

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The American press is the enemy of the people and has done incalculable, irrevocable harm to our Constitutional Republic.

Federal judge pens dissent slamming decades-old press protections

D.C. Circuit Senior Judge Laurence Silberman’s diatribe amounted to an assault on a Supreme Court decision
Politico reports: A federal appeals court judge issued an extraordinary opinion Friday attacking partisan bias in the news media, lamenting the treatment of conservatives in American society and calling for the Supreme Court to overturn a landmark legal precedent that protects news outlets from lawsuits over reports about public figures.

D.C. Circuit Senior Judge Laurence Silberman’s diatribe, contained in his dissent in a libel case, amounted to a withering, frontal assault on the 1964 Supreme Court decision that set the framework for modern defamation law — New York Times v. Sullivan.

D.C. Circuit Senior Judge Laurence Silberman’s diatribe amounted to an assault on a Supreme Court decision that set the framework for modern defamation law.

Could the Courts Wheel on the Press?

Special to the NY Sun, March 20, 2021:

Could the United States federal courts turn against the press that emerged in the Age of Trump? Feature the dissent uncorked Friday by one of America’s greatest judges, Laurence Silberman of the District of Columbia circuit. In an otherwise prosaic libel case, the judge seems to have taken a satisfying swig of the ink of liberty before issuing a blistering rebuke of a press that he reckons has become dangerous to our democracy.

Pass the flask, we say. We bow to no one in our fealty to the press. We get that the First Amendment was designed to protect an irresponsible press (the non-irresponsible press, after all, has never really needed protecting). Yet we’ve never seen anything like the nihilism that has entwined our biggest newsrooms with the woke Democratic Party. At some point our courts are bound to take notice.

The case that ignited Judge Silberman was levied by two former officials of Liberia. They claimed that a human rights organization called Global Witness defamed them by publishing a report, as the court put it, “falsely implying that they had accepted bribes in connection with the sale of an oil license.” The District Court allowed them to shelter under the Supreme Court precedent known as Times v. Sullivan.

That case, decided in 1964, involved an advertisement that was run in the Times by supporters of the Reverend Martin Luther King. The police commissioner of Birmingham, Alabama, L.B. Sullivan, won a $500,000 libel judgment. It was overturned by a U.S. Supreme Court that, at the time, was all too willing to proclaim rules that hadn’t been passed by any legislature and didn’t appear in the Constitution.

The justice who wrote up Sullivan, William Brennan, would later craft the most famous farrago of judicial law-writing in American history, Roe v. Wade. In Sullivan, the rule the Court produced did not involve trimesters of pregnancy and the like. What Sullivan established was a system of unequal justice, where private citizens had an easier time suing for libel than public figures.

Public figures would have to prove any libel had been uttered with “actual malice.” That is, the libel would have to be not only untrue and defamatory but also made with “with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it was true or false.” We newspaper roughnecks loved that license, since we could accuse public officials without knowing what was true. Henceforth, the press ruled the roost.

In Global Witness, Judge Silberman spent the first part of his dissent arguing that the court majority had tried to “stretch the actual malice rule like a rubber band.” He then announced outright that he was “prompted to urge the overruling of New York Times v. Sullivan.” He proceeded to do so with astonishing bluntness, even while acknowledging the uphill nature of the legal contests ahead.

In one footnote, Judge Silberman likened the precedent on libel to the Brezhnev Doctrine, named after the Soviet party boss who proclaimed that, as Judge Silberman paraphrased the point, “once a country has turned communist, it can never be allowed to go back.” Wrote Judge Silberman: “Apparently, maintaining a veneer of infallibility is more important than correcting fundamental missteps.”

The Sullivan precedent, Judge Silberman warned, has allowed the press “to cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity.” That, he averred, would be one thing were it a two-sided phenomenon. The “increased power of the press,” he averred, “is so dangerous today because we are very close to one-party control of these institutions.” He singled out the Washington Post, the Times, and even National Public Radio.

“Our court was once concerned about the institutional consolidation of the press leading to a ‘bland and homogenous’ marketplace of ideas,” Judge Silberman warned. “It turns out that ideological consolidation of the press (helped along by economic consolidation) is the far greater threat.” He doesn’t map out how he thinks all this can be won, but he seeds his opinion with grist for the Supreme Court to focus on.

It is a moment to remember that our doctrines on libel, as on other things, can change. When America’s first great libel case, was brought by New York’s colonial governor, Wm. Crosby, against the printer John Peter Zenger, the doctrine was the greater the truth of a defamation, the greater the libel. Zenger began the process of turning truth into a defense of libel. A time of reckoning could well be at hand where truth gets the premium part.

RELATED ARTICLE: Jewish groups condemn CNN’s Don Lemon for vile antisemitism in remarks suggesting Black and Brown Jews don’t exist

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Bezos-Owned Amazon Opposes Mail-In Voting For Union Election

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Online retail giant Amazon opposed mail-in voting for a union election, according to a filing with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Amazon’s position on mail-in voting conflicts with that of the Washington Post editorial board’s position on mail-in voting. Both companies are owned by Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man.

In a petition filed with the NLRB on Jan. 21, Amazon argued that mail-in voting would decrease turnout and create security concerns in a unionization election at the company’s Bessemer, Alabama warehouse.

Amazon argued in the petition, uploaded by The Verge, that “concerns about election security run particularly high” due to the use of “an unreliable electronic signature platform.”

Amazon further claimed that mail-in voting in union elections is fundamentally different from that in political elections. In political elections, the Amazon lawyers wrote, a “continuously updated voter address roll” and the ability to vote in person or by mail “promote security and voter turnout.”

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized Amazon on Twitter, saying that the company had to let its workers form unions.

The company’s position on mail-in voting contradicts that of owner Jeff Bezos’s other major company, the Washington Post. The Post’s editorial board ran multiple articles assailing then-President Donald Trump’s criticisms of mail-in voting. One op-ed, published August 17, called his comments “bogus fear-mongering.”

Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron said in 2019 of Bezos’s tenure as owner of the newspaper, “He hasn’t interfered with a single story. He hasn’t suggested a story. He hasn’t squelched a story. He hasn’t critiqued a story, hasn’t criticized a story,” according to Deadline.

If Amazon’s efforts to force an in-person vote fail, the Bessemer warehouse will hold the union election between Feb. 8 and March 30, according to AL.com

COLUMN BY

MICHAEL GINSBERG

General assignment reporter.

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PODCAST: Media’s coverage of the Democratic National Convention, dishonest and unfair!

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TOPIC: Media’s coverage of the Democratic National Convention, dishonest and unfair!

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RELATED VIDEO: Tucker brings us some of the DNC conference that for some reason, was not on TV

PODCAST: 10 Tips For Confronting the News Media

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One of the great fatalities of the 21st century is the integrity of American journalism. We no longer have confidence in the media’s ability to represent the facts honestly and impartially. America’s trust in the news media is almost as low as their trust in Congress, and that is not a good thing. In fact, many Americans consider the news media as a branch of a political party, and No it is not the Republicans, which is why they look elsewhere for sources of news, mostly trusting live speeches, events and interviews, and not the OpEds of what was said afterwards.

The news media answers to no one except the almighty dollar. Even here though, their soiled integrity has cost them billions and they continue to lose subscribers and viewers. Therefore, the best way to attack them is to eliminate their source of energy, right in the pocketbook. The far-Left is cognizant of this as they have attacked Fox News and their shows in this manner for a number of years. Perhaps now is the time to fight fire with fire. Presidential election years represent boom times for the media. In 2018 alone, representing a minor midterm election, over $2 billion was spent on the media. In all likelihood 2020 will double this. Take away the media’s source of money and you are well on your way to crippling them.

I am often asked by grassroots voters, “what can I do?” Actually, quite a lot. Here are ten suggestions, some rather obvious, others coming from the playbook of the far-Left.

  1. “Just say No,” meaning cancel subscriptions and refuse to watch certain television networks. Ratings are closely monitored by everyone, particularly advertisers. When ratings go down, advertisers look for other avenues to promote their wares.
  2. Boycott sponsors – this is a favorite of the far-Left. Not only do they attack the networks, they also attack the advertisers through a letter writing campaign. Let’s put the shoe on the other foot for a change.
  3. Picket the news media – the media loves to report protests, but not of their own offices. Yet, their competitors are quick to report on such demonstrations. If you are going to do this, assemble an impressive number of people and have someone play press agent to let the media and others know of the picketing. Also, have a rehearsed spokesman ready to answer questions from the press (and have a press release ready). Even better, hold a Trump flag waving event in front of their offices, this will make their heads spin.
  4. “Be Vocal” – instigate a letter writing campaign to the news media for false reporting, aka “Fake News.” This can usually be done on-line through the company’s web site. The more people involved in the letter writing campaign, the better. Even though the news media will likely not print your letter, beat them over the head again and again until they realize people are not happy with them. Your objective is to make them squeamish about writing a similar piece.
  5. Write essays, blogs, podcasts or use social media to call for the resignation of certain reporters, editors and publishers. Again, turn the heat up by doing so over and over again. Conversely, compliment such people when they have done a good job. See a poll with suspicious data? Call them out on it. Do not let their claims go unchallenged. Most do not know how to conduct a fair and impartial survey. Let the world know about it.
  6. Seek out polls on news media performance – It is difficult to be put on a list to participate, but if a media related poll is revealed, be sure to tell your colleagues about it and encourage them to vote accordingly. Such polls are also monitored by advertisers.
  7. Distribute news yourself through social media – By doing so, you are discrediting “Fake News” and weakening their power.
  8. Push for electoral reform – the news media makes its billions thanks in part to a long electoral cycle, usually two years for presidential candidates, but if this was reduced in time to one year, six months or whatever, it would have a devastating effect on the cash flow of the news media. Here is another idea, instead of giving everything to the news media, how about establishing a $1-for-$1 concept, meaning for every dollar spent on marketing by the candidate, another dollar would be placed in a separate account for either a charity or to improve the nation’s infrastructure. In addition, to cutting the news media’s income in half, we could actually do some good with the campaign money.
  9. Demand certification – ask your congressman to introduce legislation mandating certification of journalists covering government. Journalism is one of the few professions that does not require certification. One program I am familiar with is the Constitution First Amendment Press Association (CFAPA). Their pledge is a sort of Hippocratic oath as applied to journalists. The CFAPA pledge means they will conform to ethical standards, imagine that.
  10. Report flagrant errors in news reporting to the FCC. This applies to news as presented on television, radio, the Internet, and by telephone. Again, the more complaints, the more effective you will be.

This is quite a list, and much more than one person can do alone, but if everyone did just one thing from the list, imagine how far we could go in terms of correcting the problems of the press.

Please note, I am certainly not asking you to break the law or spread fallacious lies, that is what the far-Left does. I am just trying to review alternatives to combat an out-of-control news media.

And finally, if you are part of an organized political group, appoint a news media coordinator who will solicit and train volunteers, devise strategy and lead the troops into battle.

Good luck.

Keep the Faith!

P.S. – Also, I have a NEW book, “Before You Vote: Know How Your Government Works”, What American youth should know about government, available in Printed, PDF and eBook form. This is the perfect gift for youth!

EDITORS NOTE: This Bryce is Right podcast is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies.

Here Come the Speech Police

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Recently, I ran across a piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer that lays out four racist words and phrases that should be banished from the English language. It begins like this:

“Editor’s note: Please be aware offensive terms are repeated here solely for the purpose of identifying and analyzing them honestly. These terms may upset some readers.”

Steel yourself, brave reader, here they are:

  • Peanut gallery.
  • Eenie meenie miney moe.
  • Gyp.
  • No can do.

The same grammarian who authored the piece had previously confronted the “deeply racist connotation” of the word “thug,” noting that President Donald Trump “wasn’t the least bit bashful” when calling Minneapolis rioters “thugs” in a tweet, despite the word’s obvious bigoted history.

In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>

In 2015, President Barack Obama referred to Baltimore rioters as “thugs” as well. He likely did so because “thug”—defined as a “violent person, especially a criminal”—is a good way to describe rioters.

It’s true that not everyone in a riot engages in wanton violent criminality. Some participants are merely “looters”—defined as “people who steal goods during a riot.” That word is also allegedly imbued with racist conations, according to the executive editor of the Los Angeles Times and others.

Attempting to dictate what words we use is another way to exert power over how we think.

Few people, rightly, would have a problem with referring to the Charlottesville Nazis as “thugs.” Only the “protester” who tears down a Ulysses S. Grant statue or participates in an Antifa riot is spared the indignity of being properly defined.

The recent assaults on the English language have consisted largely of euphemisms and pseudoscientific gibberish meant to obscure objective truths—“cisgender,” “heteronormativity” and so on. Now, we’re at the stage of the revolution where completely inoffensive and serviceable words are branded problematic.

CNN, for instance, recently pulled together its own list of words and phrases with racist connotations that have helped bolster systemic racism in America.

Unsuspecting citizens, the piece explains, may not even be aware they are engaging in this linguistic bigotry, because most words are “so entrenched that Americans don’t think twice about using them. But some of these terms are directly rooted in the nation’s history with chattel slavery. Others now evoke racist notions about Black people.”

CNN tells us the term “peanut gallery”—as in “please, no comment from the peanut gallery”—is racist because it harkens back to the days when poor and black Americans were relegated to back sections of theaters.

Now, I hate to be pedantic, but “peanut gallery” isn’t “directly rooted” in the nation’s history of “chattel slavery.” As CNN’s own double-bylined story points out, the cliche wasn’t used until after the Civil War. For that matter, few of the words and phrases that CNN alleges are problematic are rooted, even in the most tenuous sense, in the transatlantic slave trade.

Not even the word “slavery,” which is a concept as old as humankind, is in any way uniquely American. Yet, last week, Twitter announced that it was dropping “master” and “slave” from its coding, to create a “more inclusive programming language.”

Only in this stifling intellectual environment is striking commonly used words considered “inclusive.” Other tech companies are now “confronting” their use of these innocuous words to atone for their imaginary crimes.

We should feel no guilt using the word “master.” Her performance was masterful. She mastered her instrument. The score was a masterpiece. The composer was a mastermind.

Even CNN concedes that “while it’s unclear whether the term is rooted in American slavery on plantations, it evokes that history.”

It’s not unclear, at all. The etymology of the word “master” is from the Old English and rooted in the Latin “magister,” which means “chief, director, teacher, or boss.” “Master’s” degrees were first given to university teachers in the 14th century in Europe.

Until a few months ago, the “master bedroom” evoked visions of the larger bedrooms, and the Masters Tournament evoked images of golfing legends like Tiger Woods, winner of four titles.

Simply because the Nazis used the word “master” in their pseudoscientific racial theories—not in the 1840s, but in 1940s—doesn’t mean I am offended by the postmaster general. We’re grown-ups here, and we can comprehend context.

Or we used to be.

Honestly, I’m disappointed that CNN missed the commonly used “blackmail” —a word that appears in 439 stories on its website. The phrase was first used to describe protection money extracted by mid-16th-century Scottish chieftains. Maybe it’s the Scots who should be offended.

In and of itself, depriving Americans of “eenie meenie miney moe”—a phrase with an opaque and complicated history—isn’t going to hurt anyone. Allowing ideological grievance-mongers to decide what words we’re allowed to use, on the other hand … well, no can do.

“If thoughts can corrupt language, language can also corrupt thoughts,” George Orwell famously wrote. Every time some new correct-speak emerges, CNN and all the media will participate in browbeating us into subservience.

Progressive pundits will laugh off concerns about the Orwellian slippery slope. If we allow the seemingly innocuous attempts to control words and thoughts go uncontested, more-nefarious control will be a lot easier in the future.

COMMENTARY BY

David Harsanyi

David Harsanyi is a senior writer at National Review and the author of “First Freedom: A Ride through America’s Enduring History With the Gun, From the Revolution to Today.” Twitter: .

RELATED ARTICLE: 1619 Project Stokes Racial Division, but Offers No Real Solutions

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This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.

The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.

They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

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Media Displays Double Standard For Protests Vs. Trump Rally

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Gallup study: Media rank dead last in public trust

While the liberal media has been condemning President Donald Trump’s rally over coronavirus concerns, it has also been praising Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests despite the same risks.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, Media Research Center (MRC) and others have pointed out the apparent hypocrisy in recent months. Protests over the death of George Floyd began in May and have since grown to cover the entire country.

“It’s hard to imagine a more blatant double standard at work: political gatherings for me, but not for thee,” Bill D’Agostino, the media editor for Newsbusters, noted during a June 18 article pointing out the double standard.

MRC compiled a video depicting some egregious examples of double standards by liberal networks.

WATCH:

MSNBC host Joy Reid was just one person to criticize Trump’s rally. She wondered if the White House understands “that people showing up to his precious rallies might get sick” during a segment on June 11, according to MRC.

Meanwhile, just days before on June 2, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell interviewed a protest organizer and simply wondered what it was like “to be marching arm-in-arm there with the police chief.” O’Donnell said just over a week later that the president was “pretending the coronavirus has disappeared,” according to MRC.

CNN host Chris Cuomo criticized Trump’s June 20 rally, saying it is “the worst thing you could do” during a global pandemic.

ABC, CBS and NBC have also appeared to downplay risks associated with the protests, the publication pointed out. One person referred to the protests as “a celebration … a carnival-like atmosphere.” Meanwhile, another said that people “might get sick and die” at a Trump rally, according to MRC.

McEnany herself noted this during a press conference June 17, using the front page of the New York Post – which also pointed out the double standard among the media.

The Post’s front page showed both a “black trans lives rally” protest and a Trump rally, Fox News reported. The protest was captioned “This is OK” and the Trump rally was captioned “This is dangerous.”

“While we appreciate the great concern for our rally goers, you should exhibit that same concern for the protesters who are out there not socially distancing in many cases,” McEnany said.

COLUMN BY

SHELBY TALCOTT

Follow Shelby on Twitter

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

2018 Government Report Card

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As 2018 comes to a close, I thought I would grade how our federal government did this past year, and ask if we truly got our money’s worth:

115th Congress – Grade=D – Blew it due to weak leadership; should have done much more. The Brett Kavanaugh hearing was an embarrassing political nightmare we didn’t need. Congress let the country down on immigration reform, health care and financial responsibility. Then again, what’s new? Now it’s the Democrats’ turn to show their incompetence. As Will Rogers said, “We all joke about Congress but we can’t improve on them. Have you noticed that no matter who we elect, he is just as bad as the one he replaces?”

President – Grade=A – Did great considering he had to work under extreme pressure from an incompetent Congress, a resistance movement delaying his every move, and a news media bent on his destruction. Mr. Trump proved to be a worthy adversary to push back against his detractors, something few presidents knew how to do. The Mueller investigation proved itself to be a witch hunt and that we were investigating the wrong people. President Trump persevered and made inroads in appointing judges, a Supreme Court justice and new appointments for his administration, revising trade agreements and stoking the economy, and keeping his campaign promises, something he received little credit for.

Supreme Court – Grade=A – Finally back to a full court, but remains somewhat partisan, always will be. They ruled on such things as the Presidential Travel Ban, Immigration, Internet Sales Taxes, Voting Rights, Gay Rights and Religion, Sports Betting and more. Nothing earth-shattering, but they did their job without much fanfare.

News Media – Grade=F – as in “F”ake News. The “F”ourth Estate has let the American people down due to their partisanship and hatred of the president. Americans no longer trust the press and desperately seek information from other sources, including social media. As in 2016, the political polls again let us down and were incapable of predicting accurate results. For those concerned with collusion, start with the relationship between the news media and polls.

Happy New Year and let us hope 2019 is better. Frankly, I am not holding my breath as we will likely experience two years of Congressional gridlock, as the Democrats continue to resist the President. God only knows when the government will reopen.

Bottom-line: No, I do not believe the country got it’s money’s worth from the government this year. Our political polarity is preventing us from achieving greatness. The time is rapidly approaching when we must morally decide what interpretation of America is proper, left or right.

Again, quoting Will Rogers, “Last year we said, ‘Things can’t go on like this’, and they didn’t, they got worse.”

Keep the Faith!

EDITORS NOTE: This column is republished with permission. All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies. The featured photo is by Elijah O’Donnell on Unsplash.

America Has Lost Her ‘Voice’

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Born during the life and death struggle against Nazism, the Voice of America recently turned 75. During her long years of service, she provided a beacon of hope to captive nations in Europe, and helped keep that hope alive during decades of Soviet occupation.

More recently, the Voice has provided hope to freedom-seeking peoples in the Far East, Central Asia, Iran and Africa. Companion services managed by the U.S. government’s Broadcasting Board of Governors have provided surrogate broadcasting into Russia and other countries that lack a free press.

But lately, the venerable Voice has been behaving with an immaturity, lack of vision, and unprofessionalism that have dismayed many of her dedicated, long-serving employees, who regularly critique the agency on the BBG Watch blog, as well as her supporters on Capitol Hill.

statue of liberty in flamesFrom “fake news” to the glorification of terrorists, the Voice has lost her way.

VOA’s charter, writ into law under President Gerald Ford, could not be more clear. VOA is supposed to “represent America… [and] present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions.” Instead, the Voice has become an amateurish, partisan outset, which many recently-hired journalists and managers see as a taxpayer funded CNN.

The Voice of America – the same “Voice” that is supposed to hold high our nation as of the torchlight of freedom around the world – now compares America’s President to Lenin, Stalin, and Mao.

Open the VOA’s main website on virtually any day and you will find stories and headlines that wouldn’t pass muster in any freshman journalism class.

The lead story on Monday, March 27, carried the headline, “Trump to Roll Back Obama Era Environmental Rules.”

“White House officials say President Donald Trump will sign executive orders Tuesday that would effectively dismantle Obama era environmental regulations, rekindling the highly-charged partisan debate about how human activity affects the earth’s climate, and deepening concern decades of work on global climate treaties may be unraveling,” it began.

If that were followed by a detailed explanation of what the President planned to do, and what practical implications his executive orders would have, one might be able to excuse the shoddy left-wing slant of that opening graph.

Instead, the next sentence is a quote from a global warming alarmist saying the president’s policies “would be disastrous,” and many more paragraphs of overheated rhetoric, not journalism.

On the same day, VOA noted that the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, would be testifying before the Senate intelligence committee. That certainly qualifies as news. But the VOA headline, “Senate Panel to Question Trump’s Son-in-law on Russia meetings,” suggests that Kushner was compelled to testify, an impression buttressed by the core of the article.

It turns out that Kushner volunteered to testify, a fact missing from the VOA story. Even CNN correctly acknowledged Kushner’s offer to the Senate committee in their lead paragraph.

This type of misrepresentation occurs every day in stories from the VOA Central newsroom, despite hype by VOA Director Amanda Bennett to have reformed and improved its operations.

Even worse are stories that glorify terrorists.

A March 25 story exalted the memory of a Pakistani man who was sentenced to death and executed for murdering a liberal politician who defended religious freedom.

The murderer, Mumtaz Qadri, “is now being hailed as a hero in Pakistan,” whereas the man he murdered was criticized for his “soft stand” on Asia Babi, a Christian woman who allegedly “blasphemed” Islam. “For his followers, Qadri [has become] no less than a saint,” the story gushed.

The day after Somali pirates hijacked a commercial vessel earlier this month, VOA’s Somali service ran an uncritical interview with one of the pirates, titled, “Desperate fishermen?”

VOA Director Bennett proudly posted the reporter’s words to Facebook as if they were her own. “One of the men who seized an oil tanker off the Somali coast this week tells VOA he’s not a pirate,” she wrote. VOA later corrected the headline and toned down the laudatory tone of the piece after criticized on BBG Watch.

In December, VOA ran a long profile of a Turkish-born ISIS fighter who joined the jihad and died in Syria. Clearly intended to be a piece of showcase journalism, it was nothing less than the glorification of a terrorist.

On any given day, you can go to VOA websites and find example after example of shoddy journalism, fake news, misleading headlines, and slanted reporting.

VOA editors appear not to understand or not to care about the VOA charter, which also requires them to “present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively.” This mission has been dropped entirely.

U.S. taxpayers spend over $770 million/year on U.S. government broadcasting. This includes Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Marti, and other media outlets.

For most of her 75 years, the Voice of America has been a powerful tool in the war of ideas, showing by example the attractiveness of American openness, pluralism, compassion, and tolerance.

It’s time for President Trump to appoint new management, so she can be great again.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Daily Caller.