September 05, 2017
Source: Bigstock
Again and again, Tofel defensively claimed that there was zero cause and effect between ProPublica’s actions and the IHR’s loss of its payment service provider. He repeatedly stated that his “reporters” did nothing more than rely on the list of “hate groups” drawn up by the SPLC. “The SPLC made the list,” he claimed, and his reporters merely chose 69 groups from the SPLC master list to investigate for ties to tech companies (ProPublica provides its list of 69 groups as a download). So I asked Tofel a simple question: Of those 69 organizations, how many of them are nonwhite or non-Christian?
Tofel didn’t have an answer for that.
I do.
The SPLC list that ProPublica credits as its source contains ten categories of “active hate groups.” You can view that list here. Of the ten categories, the one with the greatest number of chapters is “Black separatist,” with 193 active chapters. Since black separatist groups are the most dominant on the list in terms of active chapters, of the 69 orgs that ProPublica pulled for its “hit list,” how many do you think fall into that category?
One.
One out of 69. The most dominant category on the SPLC list is the most underrepresented on the list of groups ProPublica chose to target. Here’s where the bias is. ProPublica took a list in which black separatists are dominant, and chose to target white, Christian, and anti-Islamist groups instead. This is how most media bias occurs. Not in “fake news,” but in selectivity. Which stories are covered, and which are buried. Which “hate groups” are targeted, and which are left alone. The group with the most chapters on the SPLC list is the Nation of Islam. Did ProPublica go after its tech providers? Of course not. Same with the New Black Panther Party. Why? Bias, of course, but also remember, we’re dealing with cowards here. Tofel and his clown-car-posing-as-a-newsroom knew that going after the Nation of Islam or the New Black Panthers could get them hurt. Ditto if they’d have gone after any Islamist sites. The Jewish Defense League is also on the SPLC list, but for some odd reason ProPublica decided not to poke that hornets’ nest, either (ironically, it was the JDL that burned the IHR to cinders back in 1984. You’d think the ProPublica book-burners would have at least contacted the JDL for pointers).
And just to anticipate a lie that ProPublica will probably spew regarding why the Nation of Islam was not one of the groups it targeted, no, their list of 69 was not based on web traffic. The Nation of Islam’s website (57,000 domestic U.S. Alexa ranking) ranks higher than 48 of the groups ProPublica included on its list of 69. Some of the groups ProPublica chose to go after have rankings as dismal as 600,000. The IHR’s ranking is 156,965. ProPublica’s reason for targeting the groups it did had nothing to do with traffic.
ProPublica is a fraud. If the people who work there are “journalists,” I’m an NBA first-round draft pick. ProPublica is run by a charlatan who exemplifies everything that’s bad about his supposed profession. It’s a foul enterprise run by foul people.
A “journalistic institution” funded by Democrat billionaires tried to shutter a publishing house (one that even some of its harshest critics agree is beneficial). This would be big news if the world of American journalism were populated by actual investigative reporters, rather than sock puppets dancing at the end of the strings that accompany their big fat welfare checks.