Biden Admin Taps Leftwing Poynter Institute To Teach Journos How To Be ‘Balanced And Bias-Free’

The Poynter Institute came under fire a few years ago for creating a “blacklist” of conservative news organizations calling them “unreliable.”

But this is to be expected from the journalistic organization behind the left-leaning PolitiFact “fact-checking” site which targets Republican lawmakers more than Democrats.

It’s also not surprising coming from an administration that wanted to combat so-called “dis-, mis-, and malformation” through the Department of Homeland Security with the Orwellian “Disinformation Governance Board” headed up by Nina Jankowicz (aka “Scary Poppins”) who promoted the Russiagate hoax but dismissed the major news story about Hunter Biden’s Laptop From Hell as “disinformation.”

Yes, these are the people that now want to make sure that you have “balanced” and “bias-free” news.

Do you trust them to be able to make that distinction?

The Biden administration tapped a liberal journalism academy that once promoted a “blacklist” of conservative outlets to train reporters on how to create “balanced and bias-free” journalism.
The Poynter Institute held the training course with reporters as part of a contract with the U.S. Agency for Global Media, according to a federal spending database. The agency, which paid Poynter $23,500 for the course through March 31, oversees Voice of America and other government news outlets…
…This is not the first time the U.S. Agency for Global Media enlisted Poynter to train journalists. The agency paid the group $20,100 in July 2021 to conduct four “balanced and bias” training sessions. The State Department has paid Poynter $360,000 over the years to train journalists in Japan, Thailand, Turkey, and India.
Source: Washington Free Beacon

The article in the Free Beacon lists a number of incidents involving the Poynter Institute that shed light on the organization’s own biases:

• Poynter bills itself as “unbiased” but is “funded largely by wealthy Democratic donors George Soros, Pierre Omidyar, Craig Newmark, Bill Gates, and Tim Gill, an LGBT activist whose husband is Biden’s ambassador to Switzerland” according to the Free Beacon.
• In 2019, Poynter created a “blacklist” of conservative news organizations that it deemed “unreliable.” The list was later retracted after backlash.
• Poynter’s fact-checking site, PolitiFact, often favors leftwing viewpoints and displays an anti-conservative bias.
• A Poynter exec took part in an Aspen Institute meeting in September 2020 with journalists and social media execs on how to “handle” a hypothetical “hack and dump” of Hunter Biden’s laptop. It advised participants to treat any leaked Biden documents with skepticism and to check with news organizations and intelligence officials before publishing articles. Poynter was thrilled that the mainstream media mostly ignored the Laptop From Hell. “Hardly any media outlets, except for conservative ones, are giving the story any credence at all,” wrote one Poynter writer.

This is clearly not about learning to be “balanced and bias-free” it’s about silencing conservative views and labeling them “disinformation.”

It’s about creating an echo chamber that only supports left-of-center views and forcing that upon everyone.

The government’s contract with Poynter comes amid heightened scrutiny of this growing network of think tanks and watchdog groups that purport to track disinformation. Many of the organizations involved in the network receive federal funding and have shown a tendency to label conservative viewpoints as misinformation.
The State Department has funded organizations like the Global Disinformation Index, which has advised companies to pull advertising from conservative websites, according to a Washington Examiner report.
Poynter and other organizations in the network have pressured social media companies to crack down on what they dub to be disinformation, raising concerns that doing so could lead to censorship of unpopular viewpoints. That pressure campaign has been lucrative for Poynter, which in 2021 urged Facebook to permanently ban former president Donald Trump over his comments about the 2020 election.
Source: Washington Free Beacon (Emphasis added)

This is all about branding progressives as correct, tolerant, and champions for the rights of minorities, and conservatives as wrong, mean, and bigoted.

We can’t let them get away with it.

We need brave souls to push back against this.

ClashDaily is in this fight and we need your help to stay in the ring. Check out our merch in the ClashDaily store. It helps us keep these articles free to you and not behind some annoying paywall like other sites have.

John The Baptist: A Rude Awakening Precedes A Great Awakening.

This timely little tome chronicles the politically incorrect ministry of one of God’s most effective wildmen, John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Christ’s ministry.

The abrasive message of repentance John preached 2000 years ago is still confrontational and offensive today — but it is also life-changing.

In our putrid, worldly culture that has turned away from God, this book is a must-read for every Christian.

Available in paperback for those of you who like the feel of the pages in your hot, little hands, on Kindle to keep it right at your fingertips, and as an epic Audiobook.

Source:

Ross, Chuck. “Biden Admin Taps Liberal Journalism Institute To Teach Reporters How To Be ‘Balanced and Bias-Free’.” Washington Free Beacon. April 10, 2023. https://freebeacon.com/media/biden-admin-taps-liberal-journalism-institute-to-teach-reporters-how-to-be-balanced-and-bias-free/