Govt's Disinformation Board Is Still in Business

The Biden administration’s short-lived "Ministry of Truth" has not been disbanded — it merely changed its office address. And the result may be just as bad as the original.

The Washington Post reported Monday that "The Homeland Security Advisory Council voted unanimously Monday that the Biden administration's disinformation governance board is unnecessary."

That followed outcries that the government board, acting as an official fact-checker and censor, would stifle the free expression of ideas in violation of the First Amendment.

Now National Public Radio, funded by tax dollars, jumped in to take up the slack.

NPR announced that it was launching a "disinformation" reporting team. NPR writer Casey Morell tweeted that he had "some great company news: we're launching a disinformation team."

Federalist senior editor Mollie Hemingway observed, "What are you talking about? You’ve been little other than a disinformation team for many years."

"Omg that’s great!" replied Christina Pushaw, press secretary to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. "They can start by addressing the disinformation produced by NPR," referencing an NPR headline that read, "Florida Dismisses A Scientist For Her Refusal To Manipulate State's Coronavirus Data."

It turned out that Rebekah Jones, the data scientist who made the claims, was the person peddling lies and was more concerned with politics than actual science.

A little investigation — maybe just picking up the phone to call the governor’s office — would probably have unearthed the truth. But it sounds sexier to claim that the governor wanted a state employee to "manipulate data" to make him look good.

And the fact that DeSantis is a Republican more-than-likely entered into the equation as well.

In one over-the-top May 26 broadcast, NPR’s "domestic extremism correspondent" Odette Yousef claimed that one-fifth of Republican state lawmakers want to reimpose slavery and deny women the right to vote.

Without surprise, she didn’t do any actual research, but instead based her claims solely on a report from what NPR called a "social justice group" — an unnamed one.

Ironically, at one point Yousef said "this was really just looking at legislators who occupy an echo chamber --- echo chambers of misinformation online."

Speaking of "misinformation online," NPR also claimed that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil "Gorsuch didn't mask despite [Justice Sonia] Sotomayor's COVID worries, leading her to telework."

Shortly afterwards, SCOTUS Blog, which covers everything having to do with the high court, reported that Sotomayor and Gorsuch released a joint statement:

"Reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask surprised us. It is false. While we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends."

But perhaps NPR’s most egregious act of misinformation was one of omission.

The big "October surprise" of the 2020 election was the New York Post’s stunning disclosure of the contents in then-candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s abandoned "Laptop from Hell."

The information unearthed from the computer disclosed Hunter’s shady foreign business deals and influence-peddling, and how his father profited from them.

NPR released a statement when asked why they refused to report this story.

"We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don't want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions," NPR Managing Editor for News Terence Samuel said. "And quite frankly, that's where we ended up, this was … a politically driven event and we decided to treat it that way."

Breitbart News senior-editor-at-large Joel Pollak reported that "after the 2016 election, NPR’s ombudsman suggested limiting live interviews of conservatives, after [he] was interviewed on Morning Edition and challenged NPR’s reporting, as well as its focus on racial content in programming."

Back in the day, most everyone knew that broadcast journalists like CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite were big city liberals.

But you couldn’t tell it from their newscasts.

They just reported the news — good, bad, or indifferent.

It’s probably too late to get back to that unvarnished style of journalism, but it’s something that the people should expect from an organization supported by taxpayer dollars.

"And that’s the way it is," to quote Cronkite’s signature sign-off each evening. At least that’s the way it was. And that’s the way it should be — especially when taxpayers are footing the bill.

Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter. Read Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.