Free Republic

The Biden administration could not get around the First Amendment in silencing dissent, but it has effectively found a way through the State Department paying NewsGuard to defund conservative media, according to a trio of researchers from the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER). The First Amendment is "is so clear that only a politician could manage to miss the point," AIER senior researchers Phillip Magness, James Harrigan, and Ryan Yonk wrote in the New York Post this week. "And when politicians miss the point of a straightforward, necessary protection, they manage to find all kinds of people willing to...

Journalists and activists across truth-telling media, were commemorated Saturday night at The American Liberty Awards in Austin, Texas. The Gateway Pundit won “Most Trusted Print Media” and was nominated alongside other booming news organizations that have sustained amid Big Tech’s unprecedented censorship against conservative media and the truth. Other nominees for Most Trusted Print Media included InfoWars, Natural News, ZeroHedge, National File, The Epoch Times, LifeSite News, Summit News, Political Signal, Breitbart, Uncover DC, Human Events, Revolver News, Valiant News and The Post Millenial. Additional awards will be presented including “Most Truthful Writer” with The Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft...

Jen Psaki thought she was being cute. So much so that the former Biden spox turned MSNBC host actually chuckled as she said, "I don't spend too much time on right-wing websites." Psaki's dismissive sneer came in response to Mika Brzezinski's question on Tuesday's Morning Joe as to how the Biden "White House" [sic, campaign] can exploit Donald Trump's legal challenges, given that people getting their information from "right-wing websites or certain TV channels" don't hear much about those matters? Psaki's boast about her ignorance of right-wing websites reflects how relatively easy it is for liberals to live in a...

A State Department-backed group is severing its connections with a disinformation index group also backed by progressive megadonor George Soros following reports about the group's efforts to muzzle conservative media outlets by blacklisting them with advertisers. The National Endowment for Democracy, a private foundation created by Congress whose funding is part of the State Department budget, said it will no longer provide grants to the Global Disinformation Index, according to The Washington Times. "Recently, we became aware that one of our grantees, the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), was engaged in an initiative, funded by a different donor, that focused on...

A British leftist group calling itself the Center for Countering Digital Hate has issued a report on what it calls the "Toxic Ten," which are so-called fringe websites spreading "climate change denial." The ten include our group, the Media Research Center, as well as Breitbart, The Daily Wire, Townhall Media, Newsmax, The Washington Times and The Western Journal. So, any challenge to Greenpeace climate-crackdown orthodoxy is now classified as "toxic" and "digital hate." Their solution? To press Facebook and Google to "stop monetizing" these conservative sites, stop allowing them to buy ads and to "comprehensively label" their climate reporting as...

Like many of you, I’ve been swallowing a series of “red pills” as world events unfold. And I’ve finally seen the light regarding most of “conservative media”–it sells a product, and that product is outrage. Much as government and the Left have no desire to actually fix problems, and instead exacerbate them for power and money, conservative media appears designed to do the same. I’d say at least ninety percent of the programming I see or hear, particularly from the major sources, can be classified as b*tching–complaining about what some evil guy or people are doing. What do we expect...

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! Isaiah 14:12 KJV I’ve noticed something strange in the conservative movement for decades now—the desire to call our enemies (those who are stripping away our rights and aiming to do us harm or worse) “stupid.” I’m not sure where this idea came from, or why exactly its been employed. I remember, for instance, fundraising letters I’d read in the Nineties that would use phrases such as “loopy liberals.” I hated that phrase even back then....

This week Liberty Island charted its new course for the future. Click here to read the press release announcing the new books coming out this year, the new team of editors joining, and that I will now be acting as the company’s President, Editor-In-Chief, and Publisher. There are 4 main reasons why I decided to accept the opportunity to lead Liberty Island, relaunching it in this, its now fourth publishing arrangement: 1. I believe in our authors and their books. 2. I want to try and build a new, 21st century independent publishing house which is author and editor-centered. 3....

Spoken like a true Soviet Marxist– Failed impeachment star witness Alexander Vindman wants conservative media to be sued into oblivion in order to silence opposing voices in the United States. Vindman wrote about this at the Lawfare blog on Tuesday. .Snip. Breitbart reported: Vindman wants the First Amendment restricted so that leftists who believe as he does can shut down unapproved speech in America. This guy took a little bit of the Soviet Union with him when he moved to America. Recent events have made the need for accountability more pressing than ever. Should anyone be surprised that viewers of...

Briefings could be restricted to mainstream media? President Joe Biden’s press team may move to restrict the briefings held at the White House to liberal mainstream media outlets, if language from the new President’s deputy press secretary if more than just talk. “Organizations or individuals who traffic in conspiracy theories, propaganda and lies to spread disinformation will not be tolerated,” TJ Ducklo, Biden’s deputy press secretary, said in a statement to Politico, “and we’ll work with the WHCA to decide how to handle those instances moving forward.” Given liberal media figures’ extremely wide-ranging definition of “disinformation,” it appears possible to...

Former President Barack Obama blamed conservative media and Republicans after supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the United States Capitol on Wednesday. Obama said in a statement that Trump incited the violence on Capitol Hill, but he blamed the Republican Party and “its accompanying media ecosystem” for not telling their supporters the truth. “Their fantasy narrative has spiraled further and further from reality, and it builds upon years of sown resentments,” Obama wrote. “Now we’re seeing the consequences, whipped up into a violent crescendo.”

The very raison d'etre of NewsBusters and its parent, the Media Research Center, is combating the left's domination of the media. To this day, every major newspaper [with the occasional exception of the WSJ's editorial pages] and every TV network with the exception of FNC, spews a steady stream of liberal propaganda. But Axios co-founder Jim VandeHei, formerly of Politico, warned on today's Morning Joe of a Republican media "infrastructure"—why not come right out and call it a vast right-wing media conspiracy?! Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

Rarified conservative arguments that we should remove Confederate monuments is tantamount to accepting the left’s vision of America as irredeemably racist. Last week, as statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson—among many others—were pulled down by angry mobs, conservative writers Rich Lowry and Philip Klein were penning throat-clearing columns explaining how it’s wrong to pull down monuments to the Founders but okay to remove Confederate statues, because you see, Confederates were traitors who fought for slavery.Which, of course they were. But at this point it would be hard to imagine an argument more detached from reality. Lowry and Klein—and all...

The liberal Columbia Journalism Review has published a lengthy special report from the Town Center for Digital Journalism on the values and practices of online conservative news sites. Three professors, Anthony Nadler, A.J. Bauer and Magda Konieczna, interviewed 22 journalists at 14 websites, and their overall picture of the conservative media is straightforward. Among their findings about conservative journalists are the following: -- They espouse journalistic ideals such as accuracy and fairness, if not objectivity. -- They express an interest in engaging the broader public, not just conservatives. -- They're dedicated to reporting stories they felt were "consistently underreported" by...

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, President Donald Trump’s allies are trying to acquire the conservative-leaning privately owned One America News Network and to potentially take on Fox News Channel directly. The Journal said that investment firm Hicks Equity Partners—which is owned by the family of Thomas Hicks Jr., co-chairman of the Republican National Committee and a close friend of Donald Trump Jr. is looking to acquire the company with the help of other wealthy GOP donors for roughly $250 million from San Diego based Herring Networks. Even though Fox News dominates cable news and conservative cable...

He’s addressed the nation as White House Press Secretary and made to the quarterfinals on “Dancing With the Stars.’’ Now Sean Spicer will be hosting his own show – “Spicer & Co.” – on Newsmax TV. “Spicer & Co,’’ a cable news program, debuts Tuesday, March 3, at 6 p.m. ET and will air daily Monday through Friday on Newsmax TV, America’s fastest-growing cable news network. The Washington-based “Spicer & Co’’ will broadcast from studios near the White House, where Spicer will lead an ensemble of Washington insiders, experts, journalists, and power brokers to analyze the day’s top headlines from...

The California-based broadcaster's digital acquisitions have turned heads, but the company's revenues primarily come from 116 radio stations in 39 markets. In 2019, with a soft advertising market and a big-tech duopoly that isn't letting up, the digital media landscape is largely bereft of hungry buyers. But in late March, radio giant Salem Media Group quietly disclosed the purchase of a sixth digital media company, PJ Media, for just $100,000. Salem's conservative-leaning digital arm, Townhall Media, which includes right-leaning sites like HotAir and RedState, now reaches more than 15 million unique visitors a month, and is a "nicely profitable business,"...

Donald Trump Jr. said in a new interview that he would back a conservative version of Facebook. “I’d love to do it. But what I prefer is, take one of the two Silicon Valley conservatives and let them start it,” Trump Jr. told Axios when asked if President Trump’s 2020 campaign might create such a platform. “And then I'd help promote the platform and be all over that.” Trump Jr.’s comments come on the heels of a report from The New York Times that more than 100 Facebook employees are forming a group to challenge what the group’s founder, senior...

Some fascinating data points I picked up while investigating how partisan media has changed under Trump: Right-wing killing it on Facebook and online: In studies done for Axios by Newswhip, which measures social media engagement, and Chartbeat, which measures website engagement, it is conservatives — not liberals — who have seen the bigger explosion of new, high-traffic sites and pages taking off in the Trump era. While everyone obsesses about Trump on Twitter, his Facebook fan base was much larger and probably more consequential in shaping public opinion. (Roughly half of U.S. adults say they get news from Facebook, per...

The angry Left looks to punish conservative media for Trump’s victory Someone behind an anonymous Twitter account is trying to destroy the influential conservative Breitbart News website by smearing it as “racist” – and he’s already scared at least 47 advertisers away from Breitbart. In the current atmosphere of left-wing hysteria over the surprise election of Donald Trump as president, this blacklisting project has already earned an impressive return on investment. Breitbart is a target of the wrath of social justice warriors because it reports the truth about the Left and it used to be run by Stephen Bannon, now...