by William Skink

By now you’ve heard the claim that there is an epidemic of fake news promoted by the Kremlin being consumed by unwitting Americans. This scourge of fake news is apparently so perniciously effective it may have even contributed to the electoral drubbing of HRC earlier this month.

As I indicated in the title of this post, this latest descent into a McCarthyite assault on alternative news sites is part of an information war that the mainstream media is currently losing, hence the explicit naming of allegedly compromised sites compiled into a handy blacklist promoted by the Washington Post.

The success of alternative news sites would not be possible if the propaganda being peddled by corporate media wasn’t so pathetically packaged and cynically delivered to its consumers. The election was the final straw. A media that helped create Trump for the ratings, then turned on him when the joke of his candidacy actually secured the nomination, is a media that should no longer be taken seriously.

The blacklist “reported” on by the Washington Post comes from this website. The evil Russians have apparently been busy, compromising sites like Truthout and the Drudge Report. Zerohedge is on the list, as well as Moon of Alabama. I’ve been reading b’s posts at MoA for nearly a decade and consider myself better informed on matters of foreign policy because of it.

When the attack on Benghazi happened, b correctly described the attack as a well-coordinated assault. At the time, corporate media was still peddling the “fake news” of a spontaneous attack in response to a video. So b was right, and mainstream news was wrong. And that is what corporate media finds threatening.

In this post, b responds to being put on a list of useful idiots for the Kremlin. From the link:

I wholeheartedly recommend to use at least parts of the list that new anonymous censorship entity provides as your new or additional “Favorite Bookmarks” list. It includes illustrious financial anti-fraud sites like Yves Smith’s Naked Capitalism, Wikileaks, well informed libertarian sites like Ron Paul and AntiWar.com and leftish old timers like Counterpunch. Of general (non-mainstream) news sites Consortiumnews, run by Robert Parry who revealed the Iran-contra crimes, is included as well as Truthdig and Truth-out.org. Some easy to remove nazi sites have been added to that list to smear the serious ones. A rather stupid “trick” of “guilt by association” for which only the very dumb fall.

I am honored to find this site listed next to the above.

Yep, even Counterpunch made the list. If sore loser Pete Talbot hadn’t given up blogging, I’m sure he would describe his delight that Counterpunch has been included in this McCarthyite attack on alternative news sites.

The Intercept took a look at this reckless reporting and easily shot a bunch of holes into The Post’s decision to frame the source of this list as experts:

In casting the group behind this website as “experts,” the Post described PropOrNot simply as “a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds.” Not one individual at the organization is named. The executive director is quoted, but only on the condition of anonymity, which the Post said it was providing the group “to avoid being targeted by Russia’s legions of skilled hackers.”

In other words, the individuals behind this newly created group are publicly branding journalists and news outlets as tools of Russian propaganda – even calling on the FBI to investigate them for espionage – while cowardly hiding their own identities. The group promoted by the Post thus embodies the toxic essence of Joseph McCarthy but without the courage to attach their names to their blacklist. Echoing the Wisconsin Senator, the group refers to its lengthy collection of sites spouting Russian propaganda as “The List.”

How far will this Neo-McCarthy effort to censor alternative news sites go? Maybe a better question to ask is, with America’s trust in mainstream news at an all-time low, who is left to listen to this desperate scapegoating from a corporate media that long ago sold out its journalistic standards for political access?