Poynter, a journalism school, has published a comprehensive index of so-called unreliable news websites. As expected, it targeted conservative and libertarian websites with such tags as “bias,” “fake,” “conspiracy,” “unreliabe,” “satire,” and “clickbait.”
Also, as expected, it utilized left-leaning websites, like Snopes and Politifact, as its guiding compass through the online media landscape. Snopes has been known for not only getting the facts wrong, but for also analyzing satire websites like The Babylon Bee. Politifact is known for ranking liberal lies a lot lower than conservative fibs.
It lists some of the most popular conservative and libertarian websites with these tags:
– Breitbart
– The Daily Caller
– The Daily Wire
– Lew Rockwell
– Newsmax
– Tom Woods
– Zerohedge
Of course, CNN.com, thewashingtonpost.com, tyt.com, Think Progress, and Mother Jones did not make the list. Shock!
So, what’s the reason for this list? That’s easy: getting advertisers to stop advertising on right-wing media.
“Fake news is a business. Much of that business is ad-supported.
Advertisers don’t want to support publishers that might tar their brand with hate speech, falsehoods or some kinds of political messaging — but too often, they have little choice in the matter.
Most ad-tech dashboards make it hard for businesses to prevent their ads from appearing on (and funding) disreputable sites. Marketers can create blacklists, but many of those lists have been out-of-date or incomplete.
Aside from journalists, researchers and news consumers, we hope that the index will be useful for advertisers that want to stop funding misinformation.”
While this is a ridiculous list, it could be considered an honor to make the list, since it is unimportant to be factually correct in these times.
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