Who watches the watchmen?
In their ongoing efforts to discredit, marginalize, and silence all those who dissent from their agenda, leftists are still trying to fool the public by establishing ostensibly neutral “fact-checking” organizations that purport to identify “fake news,” but which actually apply that label only to those who don’t parrot their nonsense. One of the most notorious examples of this is Snopes, which claims to be an objective arbiter of the accuracy of news reports, but which is actually a deeply biased and misleading site: see, for example, here and here.
Along with Snopes, one of the foremost exponents of this scam is NewsGuard, an initiative of the hard-left self-appointed news arbiter Steven Brill that received $749,387 from the Department of Defense in 2021. What conceivable benefit could a leftist propaganda outfit masquerading as a neutral fact-checking have to the Department of Defense? Well, if you’re a corrupt and politicized government agency that is more concerned about defending the Biden-Harris regime from its political opponents than with defending the United States of America from its enemies, you might find NewsGuard to be quite handy.
The Biden-Harris regime, of course, loves this sort of thing. Remember, it even set up an abortive “Disinformation Governance Board” supposedly to help Americans (whom regime wonks clearly regard as stupid and undiscerning) distinguish the truth (that is, the left’s line) from lies (that is, whatever Trump was saying). The whole thing went up in flames, however, when some of the nation’s top intelligence professionals labeled Hunter Biden’s laptop “disinformation,” yet it turned out to be real.
Yet the left still remains committed to its hollow and self-serving “fact-checking” game. Recently, NewsGuard senior apparatchik Eva Maitland sent me a series of “when did you stop beating your wife?”-type questions, assuming that NewsGuard has some right to judge the accuracy of news sites, and holding out the false hope that NewsGuard would give my website, Jihad Watch, a clean bill of health. Here was what I sent her in response:
Dear Ms. Maitland
Please first answer these questions and provide this information.
1. What establishes NewsGuard as a reliable, objective, and trustworthy authority?
2. Given the ideological differences between NewsGuard and Jihad Watch, would it ever be possible for Jihad Watch to achieve a positive grade from you, no matter how scrupulously we complied with your demands?
3. NewsGuard received $749,387 from the Department of Defense in 2021. Doesn’t that undermine your claim to be an objective resource?
4. NewsGuard in Nov. 2023 denied established facts about the hospital bombing in Gaza, and covered for jihadis. Have you retracted this false information and apologized? Why not? Details here, in case you’re unaware of this incident.
5. Do you share the Biden administration’s desire to demonize, marginalize and silence dissident voices?
6. Does it not trouble you that evil totalitarian regimes throughout history have behaved in a similar way?
7. Does it not trouble you to be an employee of an organization that is a central part of such a sinister endeavor?
8. Are you an avowed Marxist, or just a useful idiot?
9. Do you admit that your questions to me and previous sets of questions to me from NewsGuard apparatchiks are leading, tendentious, and based on false assumptions? If you don’t see this, I’d be happy to explain it to you once you answer my other questions.
10. The Consortium for Independent Journalism has filed suit against NewsGuard for defamation. Your comment, please.
11. Have the forces calling for censorship of alleged “disinformation” ever once been on the right side of history? Where and when? Kindly explain fully.
12. Do you agree with the assessment of 51 top US intelligence agents that Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation”? Kindly explain the implications of the fact that the laptop was labeled “disinformation” by these supposedly reliable “fact-checkers” and then turned out to be 100% authentic.
13. Given that you’re an agent of a force that is dedicated to discrediting and destroying organizations that are trying to counter the lies and distortions of the establishment media, and to create an environment in which only what the political elites allow will be published, how do you sleep? Or alternatively, when will you quit your job and try to regain some integrity?I look forward to your answers to these questions and will be glad to answer your questions below once I receive them and judge them to be adequate and honest answers.
Kindest regards
Robert Spencer
Needless to say, Ms. Maitland did not deign to answer the questions. NewsGuard judges; it is not judged. That’s how the left wants it, and that’s how it’s going to be, as long as there are enough suckers around who keep falling for the scam.
