Ubiquitous
2017-08-21 12:05:59 UTC
When a news organization reports an impending weather event based on
forecasts from the National Weather Service, or warns of potential
seismic activity anticipated by the U.S. Geological Survey, or
alerts the public concerning an infectious-disease outbreak being
tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, no one
questions the news organizations motives, because the underlying
information is factual and derived from a reliable, nonpartisan, and
authoritative source.
CNN presents itself as a news organization, yet today it posted a
dubious story titled Here are all the active hate groups where you
live, based entirely on data from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The SPLC is not the equivalent of the National Weather Service, the
USGS, or CDC, to put it mildly. It is risible for CNN to recite SPLC
data uncritically, with no additional validation, as a credible list
of domestic hate groups, let alone to describe SPLCs data as
widely accepted. As I recently chronicled in City Journal, the
SPLC is far from a reliable, nonpartisan, and authoritative source.
The SPLC has been criticized from all points of the political
spectrum for its incessant fundraising (resulting in the
accumulation of a surplus exceeding $300 million, some of which is
invested offshore in Cayman Island accounts), lavish executive
salaries (some topping $400,000 annually), and a litigation program
calculated to generate sensational headlines rather than tangible
results alleviating Southern poverty. Morris Dees, one of SPLCs
co-founders, has used the SPLC to promote his political agendaand
enrich himself.
As for chronicling hate groups, the SPLC is principally focused on
maintaining lists of individuals and groups with opposing politics,
and subjectively labeling them hate groups or extremists, often
without justification. SPLC senior fellow Mark Potok, who is in
charge of maintaining the lists, has declared that our aim in life
is to destroy these groups, to completely destroy them. Even
Politico has called SPLCs agenda into question, asking Has a Civil
Rights Stalwart Lost Its Way? The writer of that story, Ben
Schreckinger, noted the frequent charge that the SPLC is
overplaying its hand, becoming more of a partisan progressive hit
operation than a civil rights watchdog. Politicos skeptical look
at SPLC joined a torrent of criticism appearing in other
publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harpers, The
Weekly Standard, Reason, The Federalist, and even The Progressive.
What exactly is a hate group? The FBI doesnt keep track of such
groups, but the SPLC purports to do so, using subjective criteria
that do not include the use or threatened use of violence. Instead,
SPLC labels groups based on their political views, designating as
hate groups such diverse entities as magazines, websites, record
labels, and even religious sects. In the popular perception, hate
group is a label that appropriately describes the KKK, neo-Nazis,
racist skinheads, and similar groupsand the SPLC does in fact label
them as suchbut the SPLC misleadingly lumps these odious groups
together with mainstream organizations with which it disagrees,
solely because of their views regarding, among other issues, LGBT
rights, immigration policy, and opposition to Sharia Law.
Thus, SPLC has designated as hate groups the immigration-reform
organizations Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR),
Center for Immigration Studies, Californians for Population
Stabilization, the Social Contract Press, and Refugee Resettlement
Watch; religious-liberty advocates Alliance Defending Freedom,
Pacific Justice Institute, and Liberty Counsel; and the Center for
Security Policy, founded by foreign policy expert Frank Gaffney. The
SPLC lists the Freedom Center, the think tank associated with
bestselling conservative author David Horowitz, as a hate groupas
it does the pro-family organizations such as the Family Research
Council (whose employees were attacked by a gunman in 2012, after
the SPLC listed the group on its Hate Map) and the World Congress
of Families, the latter two because of their opposition to same-sex
marriage. Even the Washington Posts Dana Milbank has condemned as
reckless the designation of FRC as a hate group. Yet CNN
uncritically repeats these defamatory labels.
The SPLC has an undeniable ideological agenda. In addition to its
tendentious (and often redundant) list of 917 hate groups, SPLC also
maintains a list of more than 1,600 purported extremists or
extremist groups, including eminent social scientist Charles Murray.
At one time, the SPLC labeled HUD secretary and former presidential
candidate Ben Carson an extremist, due to his opposition to same-
sex marriage, but was forced to rescind the designation and
apologize.
By its own criteria, the SPLC has solid qualifications as a hate
groupit engages in McCarthyite tactics, it spews venom, and it
generally behaves, as I described in the earlier article, like a
demagogic bully. As for CNN, its blatantly unprofessional act of
reporting, in which it has acted as a virtual publicist for a
discredited partisan group, marks another step in the media
organizations journey from news outlet to provocateur.
#WhatLiberalMedia
#FakeNews
forecasts from the National Weather Service, or warns of potential
seismic activity anticipated by the U.S. Geological Survey, or
alerts the public concerning an infectious-disease outbreak being
tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, no one
questions the news organizations motives, because the underlying
information is factual and derived from a reliable, nonpartisan, and
authoritative source.
CNN presents itself as a news organization, yet today it posted a
dubious story titled Here are all the active hate groups where you
live, based entirely on data from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The SPLC is not the equivalent of the National Weather Service, the
USGS, or CDC, to put it mildly. It is risible for CNN to recite SPLC
data uncritically, with no additional validation, as a credible list
of domestic hate groups, let alone to describe SPLCs data as
widely accepted. As I recently chronicled in City Journal, the
SPLC is far from a reliable, nonpartisan, and authoritative source.
The SPLC has been criticized from all points of the political
spectrum for its incessant fundraising (resulting in the
accumulation of a surplus exceeding $300 million, some of which is
invested offshore in Cayman Island accounts), lavish executive
salaries (some topping $400,000 annually), and a litigation program
calculated to generate sensational headlines rather than tangible
results alleviating Southern poverty. Morris Dees, one of SPLCs
co-founders, has used the SPLC to promote his political agendaand
enrich himself.
As for chronicling hate groups, the SPLC is principally focused on
maintaining lists of individuals and groups with opposing politics,
and subjectively labeling them hate groups or extremists, often
without justification. SPLC senior fellow Mark Potok, who is in
charge of maintaining the lists, has declared that our aim in life
is to destroy these groups, to completely destroy them. Even
Politico has called SPLCs agenda into question, asking Has a Civil
Rights Stalwart Lost Its Way? The writer of that story, Ben
Schreckinger, noted the frequent charge that the SPLC is
overplaying its hand, becoming more of a partisan progressive hit
operation than a civil rights watchdog. Politicos skeptical look
at SPLC joined a torrent of criticism appearing in other
publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harpers, The
Weekly Standard, Reason, The Federalist, and even The Progressive.
What exactly is a hate group? The FBI doesnt keep track of such
groups, but the SPLC purports to do so, using subjective criteria
that do not include the use or threatened use of violence. Instead,
SPLC labels groups based on their political views, designating as
hate groups such diverse entities as magazines, websites, record
labels, and even religious sects. In the popular perception, hate
group is a label that appropriately describes the KKK, neo-Nazis,
racist skinheads, and similar groupsand the SPLC does in fact label
them as suchbut the SPLC misleadingly lumps these odious groups
together with mainstream organizations with which it disagrees,
solely because of their views regarding, among other issues, LGBT
rights, immigration policy, and opposition to Sharia Law.
Thus, SPLC has designated as hate groups the immigration-reform
organizations Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR),
Center for Immigration Studies, Californians for Population
Stabilization, the Social Contract Press, and Refugee Resettlement
Watch; religious-liberty advocates Alliance Defending Freedom,
Pacific Justice Institute, and Liberty Counsel; and the Center for
Security Policy, founded by foreign policy expert Frank Gaffney. The
SPLC lists the Freedom Center, the think tank associated with
bestselling conservative author David Horowitz, as a hate groupas
it does the pro-family organizations such as the Family Research
Council (whose employees were attacked by a gunman in 2012, after
the SPLC listed the group on its Hate Map) and the World Congress
of Families, the latter two because of their opposition to same-sex
marriage. Even the Washington Posts Dana Milbank has condemned as
reckless the designation of FRC as a hate group. Yet CNN
uncritically repeats these defamatory labels.
The SPLC has an undeniable ideological agenda. In addition to its
tendentious (and often redundant) list of 917 hate groups, SPLC also
maintains a list of more than 1,600 purported extremists or
extremist groups, including eminent social scientist Charles Murray.
At one time, the SPLC labeled HUD secretary and former presidential
candidate Ben Carson an extremist, due to his opposition to same-
sex marriage, but was forced to rescind the designation and
apologize.
By its own criteria, the SPLC has solid qualifications as a hate
groupit engages in McCarthyite tactics, it spews venom, and it
generally behaves, as I described in the earlier article, like a
demagogic bully. As for CNN, its blatantly unprofessional act of
reporting, in which it has acted as a virtual publicist for a
discredited partisan group, marks another step in the media
organizations journey from news outlet to provocateur.
#WhatLiberalMedia
#FakeNews
--
Dems & the media want Trump to be more like Obama, but then he'd
have to audit liberals & wire tap reporters' phones.
Dems & the media want Trump to be more like Obama, but then he'd
have to audit liberals & wire tap reporters' phones.