What is it with NBC News? If you thought they'd hit rock bottom , you may have to revisit the question with a look at national reporter Heidi Przybyla's piece on the Gatestone Institute last month: "John Bolton presided over anti-Muslim think tank."
This is an old-fashioned hit piece. The headline reveals the true object of the hit. John Bolton drives the left absolutely nuts. He has their number and he can call them out with great skill. This they cannot abide. Bolton was the target of Pryzbyla's piece; Gatestone was just the club that she took to hand.
Nina Rosenwald is the founder and president of Gatestone. At the invitation of Lawrence Kadish, John and I spoke to a group including Nina in New York in 2005. She is a formidable force in her own right and one of the nicest people with whom I have had the good fortune to cross paths as a result of my work for Power Line. Meeting her was a great kick.
Since its founding, Nina has made Gatestone a go-to source of news and analysis from reporters and knowledgeable observers such as Khaled Abu Toameh, Bruce Bawer, Soeren Kern, Douglas Murray, Richard Kemp, Guy Milliere, Alan Dershowitz, and many others. We feature their work almost every day in our Picks here. It is great stuff.
Today, to take just one example, Gatestone has posted Richard Kemp's "Smoke & mirrors: Six weeks of violence on the Gaza border." It is more informative than the sum total of everything else NBC News has on offer today.
The Gatestone Institute responds to Przybyla's hit in "NBC News defames Gatestone Institute." Here are the bullet points of Gatestone's response to Przybyla:
-
Gatestone Institute, far from being "anti-Muslim," is pro-Muslim. Gatestone does not want to see Muslims deprived of freedom of speech, flogged or stoned to death for supposed adultery. Gatestone is also opposed to "honor" killings, children forced into marriages, homosexuals flogged or killed, and so on. Is one to assume that NBC and its followers do want to see these abuses? Good to know.
-
Gatestone is, however, openly committed to educating the public about an aspect of Islam, namely Sharia law, which, according to the European Court of Human Rights and others, is incompatible with liberal democracy.
-
NBC states that Russian trolls tweeted a total of four Gatestone articles — out of more than 200,000 tweets identified by Twitter as being linked to Russian accounts. By way of comparison, the database shows that Russian trolls tweeted seven articles from Heidi Przybyla, the author of the NBC report.
-
A search of articles on Sputnik, the Russian government-controlled news agency, turns up 1,650 pages of NBC citations. "If getting retweeted 4 times makes you a Russian spy, NBC must be the Kremlin." — Daniel Greenfield, journalist.
-
The crimes are being played down by German authorities, apparently to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments. The director of the Criminal Police Association ( Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter, BDK ), André Schulz, estimates that up to 90% of the sex crimes committed in Germany do not appear in the official statistics.
-
NBC's claims are based on truths, half-truths and untruths all woven together and framed in way not only to misrepresent Gatestone's work, but also to destroy its reputation and that of others.
Przybyla's hit piece can serve as the very model of a smear job. If you seek to learn how to do it, study Pryzbyla's piece. It's in the nature of these things that few far fewer readers will see Gatestone's response than saw the hit piece. That's part of the art of hit. Please pass on Gatestone's response to friends who might find it of interest.
Scott W. Johnson is a Minneapolis attorney and a fellow of the Claremont Institute . For twenty-five years, his articles have appeared in most major news outlets.
This article first appeared in the PowerLine blog and is reprinted here with the kind permission of the author.
Gatestone Institute's response to NBC's defamation is a long read, but for anyone who is interested, here is the link:
I'm somewhat surprised that the NT members who criticize me for posting Gatestone Institute articles had nothing to say about this article, and Gatestone's argument linked in my previous comment.
One comment I have to make is that I'm greatly amused that the NT critics even call articles written by Muslims Islamophobic - which is proof to me of the lack of credibility in the criticisms.
I'm not really surprised, as this comes directly in, there is nothing to refute, becuase it is fact based, so the only other choice is to ignore it. I've been thinking lately at the amount of people, many I consider intelligent members of this site, regardless of their political persuasion, are able and willing to pretend that they see nothing wrong with their actions, as it comes to being 'true believers' of their chosen path.......they ignore logic and continue to pursue their flawed theories, even when the flaws are obvious.
The seeded article is more of a comedy routine than an honest rebuttal. I didn't see the NBC News story so I don't know how accurate it may or may not have been toward Gatestone, but I do know that in this article above the writer mentions some people who have written for the Gatestone site, but leaves out the fact that some of the most anti-Muslim writers and propagandists in America have appeared in Gatestone pages.
-
"The Intercept" is a far left sower of lies and misinformation.
"The Intercept" is very liberal, but it's a fair interpretation. I've been using the following chart for a while. I don't bother with anything in the orange or red boxes except for FoxNews.
Don't worry, John. I'll continue to give you lots of fodder for your expected rebuke.
By the way, don't you think you might be more comfortable in England these days? I get the feeling from what I've been reading recently that persons of your persuasion would be very acceptable there.
Wait so the left made up a bunch of BS to smear someone??? SHOCKING!!!!/S
A search of articles on Sputnik, the Russian government-controlled news agency, turns up 1,650 pages of NBC citations. "If getting retweeted 4 times makes you a Russian spy, NBC must be the Kremlin." — Daniel Greenfield, journalist.
That's perfect.