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In July 2020, ''[[The Daily Beast]]'' exposed an online network pushing [[United Arab Emirates]] propaganda against [[Qatar]], [[Turkey]], and [[Iran]] using op-eds placed in news outlets using fictitious authors. ''The Post Millennial'' published one of these articles under the fake persona "Joseph Labba". In response, Post Millennial states: “It appears we were caught up in an operation involving false identities that involved 46 other outlets including The Washington Examiner and The Hill Times….The submission was evaluated by a member of our editorial team and deemed to be a meritorious submission… [and] a well-written, well-reasoned opinion piece about an important issue…. We stand by the decision to run it and we will be putting the piece back up shortly under The Post Millennial’s byline.” <ref>{{Cite news|last=Rawnsley|first=Adam|date=2020-07-06|title=Right-Wing Media Outlets Duped by a Middle East Propaganda Campaign|language=en|work=The Daily Beast|url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/right-wing-media-outlets-duped-by-a-middle-east-propaganda-campaign|access-date=2020-07-07}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Covucci |first1=David |title=Right-Wing Troll Andy Ngo Busted for Publishing Stories by Fake People |url=https://www.dailydot.com/debug/andy-ngo-fake-articles/ |accessdate=3 August 2020 |work=The Daily Dot |date=7 July 2020 |location=Austin, Texas}}</ref> <ref>{{Cite news|title=Right-Wing Media Outlets Duped by a Middle East Propaganda Campaign|language=en|work=Press Progress|url= https://pressprogress.ca/post-millennial-journalist-was-created-by-a-computer-and-linked-to-foreign-propaganda-operation-report}}</ref>
In July 2020, ''[[The Daily Beast]]'' exposed an online network pushing [[United Arab Emirates]] propaganda against [[Qatar]], [[Turkey]], and [[Iran]] using op-eds placed in news outlets using fictitious authors. ''The Post Millennial'' published one of these articles under the fake persona "Joseph Labba". In response, Post Millennial states: “It appears we were caught up in an operation involving false identities that involved 46 other outlets including The Washington Examiner and The Hill Times….The submission was evaluated by a member of our editorial team and deemed to be a meritorious submission… [and] a well-written, well-reasoned opinion piece about an important issue…. We stand by the decision to run it and we will be putting the piece back up shortly under The Post Millennial’s byline.” <ref>{{Cite news|last=Rawnsley|first=Adam|date=2020-07-06|title=Right-Wing Media Outlets Duped by a Middle East Propaganda Campaign|language=en|work=The Daily Beast|url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/right-wing-media-outlets-duped-by-a-middle-east-propaganda-campaign|access-date=2020-07-07}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Covucci |first1=David |title=Right-Wing Troll Andy Ngo Busted for Publishing Stories by Fake People |url=https://www.dailydot.com/debug/andy-ngo-fake-articles/ |accessdate=3 August 2020 |work=The Daily Dot |date=7 July 2020 |location=Austin, Texas}}</ref> <ref>{{Cite news|title=Right-Wing Media Outlets Duped by a Middle East Propaganda Campaign|language=en|work=Press Progress|url= https://pressprogress.ca/post-millennial-journalist-was-created-by-a-computer-and-linked-to-foreign-propaganda-operation-report}}</ref>


In 2021, ''The Post Millennial'' played a key role in creating a viral story in right-wing media where it was falsely claimed that some members of the [[United States women's national soccer team|US women's soccer]] team had disrespected a 98-year-old World War II veteran when he played the Star-Spangled Banner prior to a game.<ref name="CNNsoccer" /><ref name="StarTelegram">{{Cite news |last=Stevenson |first=Stefan |date=July 5, 2021 |title= No, U.S. women’s soccer team did not disrespect a WWII veteran playing national anthem |work=Star Telegram |url=https://www.star-telegram.com/news/politics-government/article252588388.html |access-date=July 7, 2021}}</ref> Other media outlets showed that the players turned towards a U.S. flag while he played.<ref name="StarTelegram" /><ref>{{cite web|accessdate=2021-07-07|title=Conservatives are triggered over false claim that U.S. women's soccer team protested national anthem|url=https://www.dailydot.com/debug/womens-soccer-falsely-accused-anthem-protest/|date=6 July 2021|website=The Daily Dot}}</ref> After the story had been corrected by other media outlets, the ''Post Millennial'' did correct its headline and story to acknowledge the criticism and saying that some players had not turned towards the flag.<ref>{{cite web|title=DISGRACEFUL: US women's soccer team members turned away from flag as 98-year-old WWII vet played the national anthem|url=http://web.archive.org/web/20210925034531/https://thepostmillennial.com/disgraceful-us-womens-soccer-team-national-anthem|date=5 July 2021|website=The Post Millennial|first=Mia|last=Cathell|quote=Update: This story has been updated to include a response from the US Women's Soccer Team and a clarification from player Carli Lloyd.}}</ref>
In 2021, ''The Post Millennial'' played a key role in creating a viral story in right-wing media where it was falsely claimed that some members of the [[United States women's national soccer team|US women's soccer]] team had disrespected a 98-year-old World War II veteran when he played the Star-Spangled Banner prior to a game.<ref name="CNNsoccer" /><ref name="StarTelegram">{{Cite news |last=Stevenson |first=Stefan |date=July 5, 2021 |title= No, U.S. women’s soccer team did not disrespect a WWII veteran playing national anthem |work=Star Telegram |url=https://www.star-telegram.com/news/politics-government/article252588388.html |access-date=July 7, 2021}}</ref> Other media outlets showed that the players turned towards a U.S. flag while he played.<ref name="StarTelegram" /><ref>{{cite web|accessdate=2021-07-07|title=Conservatives are triggered over false claim that U.S. women's soccer team protested national anthem|url=https://www.dailydot.com/debug/womens-soccer-falsely-accused-anthem-protest/|date=6 July 2021|website=The Daily Dot}}</ref> After the ''Post Millennial'' story had been corrected by other media outlets, the ''Post Millennial'' did not correct its story, but rather changed its headline from criticizing players who had turned away from the veteran to criticizing the players who had not turned away from the veteran (claiming that they were disrespecting the U.S. flag).<ref name="CNNsoccer">{{Cite web|last=Dale|first=Daniel|date=2021|title=Fact check: How right-wing outlets spread a false narrative about the US women's soccer team disrespecting an elderly veteran|url=https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/06/politics/fact-check-us-womens-soccer-team-pete-dupre-veteran/index.html|url-status=live|access-date=2021-07-07|website=CNN}}</ref>


In August 2021, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, ''The Post Millennial'' ran a false story claiming that unvaccinated students at a [[Washington (state)|Washington]] state public school were forced to wear ankle monitors; in fact, unvaccinated students were not specifically targeted, the devices were proximity monitors that do not track location, staff also wore them, and they were required only while participating in sports.<ref name="DailyDotCovid">{{Cite web|date=2021-08-25|title=High school falsely accused by conservative outlet of forcing unvaccinated teens to wear ankle monitors|url=https://www.dailydot.com/debug/eatonville-high-school-ankle-monitor-covid/|access-date=2021-08-25|website=The Daily Dot|language=en-US}}</ref><ref name="USATodayCovid">{{cite web|first1=Ella|last1=Lee|accessdate=2021-09-07|title=Fact check: Claim that school put 'ankle monitors' on unvaccinated athletes is missing context|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/08/27/fact-check-post-takes-schools-contact-tracing-program-out-context/5605356001/|website=USA TODAY}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|first1=District of Columbia 1100 Connecticut Ave NW Suite 1300B|last1=Washington|last2=Dc 20036|accessdate=2021-09-07|title=PolitiFact - Proximity monitors at Wash. school are for vaccinated students and staff, too|url=https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/aug/25/facebook-posts/proximity-monitors-wash-school-are-vaccinated-stud/|website=@politifact}}</ref>
In August 2021, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, ''The Post Millennial'' ran a false story claiming that unvaccinated students at a [[Washington (state)|Washington]] state public school were forced to wear ankle monitors; in fact, unvaccinated students were not specifically targeted, the devices were proximity monitors that do not track location, staff also wore them, and they were required only while participating in sports.<ref name="DailyDotCovid">{{Cite web|date=2021-08-25|title=High school falsely accused by conservative outlet of forcing unvaccinated teens to wear ankle monitors|url=https://www.dailydot.com/debug/eatonville-high-school-ankle-monitor-covid/|access-date=2021-08-25|website=The Daily Dot|language=en-US}}</ref><ref name="USATodayCovid">{{cite web|first1=Ella|last1=Lee|accessdate=2021-09-07|title=Fact check: Claim that school put 'ankle monitors' on unvaccinated athletes is missing context|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/08/27/fact-check-post-takes-schools-contact-tracing-program-out-context/5605356001/|website=USA TODAY}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|first1=District of Columbia 1100 Connecticut Ave NW Suite 1300B|last1=Washington|last2=Dc 20036|accessdate=2021-09-07|title=PolitiFact - Proximity monitors at Wash. school are for vaccinated students and staff, too|url=https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/aug/25/facebook-posts/proximity-monitors-wash-school-are-vaccinated-stud/|website=@politifact}}</ref>

Revision as of 16:59, 10 March 2022

The Post Millennial
TypeOnline news magazine
Founder(s)
  • Matthew Azrieli
  • Ali Taghva
EditorAndy Ngo (editor-at-large)
Founded2017; 7 years ago (2017)
Political alignmentConservative
LanguageEnglish
HeadquartersMontreal, Quebec, Canada
Websitethepostmillennial.com Edit this at Wikidata

The Post Millennial is a conservative Canadian online news magazine started in 2017. It publishes national and local news and has a large amount of opinion content. It has been criticized for publishing false stories and COVID-19 disinformation,[1][2][3] as well as for its opaque funding and political connections.[4][5]

History

The Post Millennial was founded in 2017 by Matthew Azrieli and Ali Taghva. The site's Facebook presence expanded rapidly between June 2018 and May 2019, with page interactions growing from 36,000 to 194,000 per month. Meanwhile, a new office was sited in Montreal, and the organization planned for another expansion into Toronto in 2020. In May 2019, Jeff Ballingall, a former political campaigner for Ontario Premier Doug Ford, was hired as the company's Chief Marketing Officer.[5] A media study by National Observer found that eight per cent of Conservative respondents read The Post Millennial.[6]

The Post Millennial is backed by private investors, but their identities have not been made public. Other funding sources remain unclear, with proceeds from advertising or subscriptions undefined.[5]

Content

The Post Millennial provides both national and regional news. It runs stories on politics and culture. Its opinion section is a significant portion of its content, and conservative figures such as Barbara Kay have written opinions for the outlet.[5] According to a CBC report published in 2019, much of the news content provided by The Post Millennial is reused from other media outlets with no additional reporting.[5]

The website Bellingcat described an article The Post Millennial published during the 2019 Australia fires as disinformation. Conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson released a false story alleging that the wildfires resulted in large part from arson.[1] The Post Millennial used Watson's story as a basis for their own reporting, alleging that "legal action" had been taken against 183 people during the bushfires. Bellingcat argued that their presentation "did not botch the basic facts" but was misleading.[1]

In July 2020, The Post Millennial reported on the fatal shooting of a Black Lives Matter protester in Texas. The site's story alleged that the victim had shot first, based in large part on tweets by Ian Miles Cheong and prominent QAnon conspiracist "In the Matrixx". Both Twitter users later took down their tweets, and The Post Millennial subsequently issued a correction. However, The Daily Dot said that the site still attempts to blame the deceased man as the instigator, and The Daily Dot describes this propagation of content as an example of how "disinformation circulated by fringe groups to support their preferred narrative—that Black Lives Matter protesters are violent and lawless—works its way into the conservative media ecosystem and up to the White House".[7] Data analysis performed by Politico and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue on media in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election in the United States found that the most prominent figures claiming violence by Black Lives Matter and claiming fraudulent ballots, James O'Keefe and Turning Point USA, were platformed and propagated prominently by The Post Millennial.[8]

In July 2020, The Daily Beast exposed an online network pushing United Arab Emirates propaganda against Qatar, Turkey, and Iran using op-eds placed in news outlets using fictitious authors. The Post Millennial published one of these articles under the fake persona "Joseph Labba". In response, Post Millennial states: “It appears we were caught up in an operation involving false identities that involved 46 other outlets including The Washington Examiner and The Hill Times….The submission was evaluated by a member of our editorial team and deemed to be a meritorious submission… [and] a well-written, well-reasoned opinion piece about an important issue…. We stand by the decision to run it and we will be putting the piece back up shortly under The Post Millennial’s byline.” [9][10] [11]

In 2021, The Post Millennial played a key role in creating a viral story in right-wing media where it was falsely claimed that some members of the US women's soccer team had disrespected a 98-year-old World War II veteran when he played the Star-Spangled Banner prior to a game.[12][13] Other media outlets showed that the players turned towards a U.S. flag while he played.[13][14] After the Post Millennial story had been corrected by other media outlets, the Post Millennial did not correct its story, but rather changed its headline from criticizing players who had turned away from the veteran to criticizing the players who had not turned away from the veteran (claiming that they were disrespecting the U.S. flag).[12]

In August 2021, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, The Post Millennial ran a false story claiming that unvaccinated students at a Washington state public school were forced to wear ankle monitors; in fact, unvaccinated students were not specifically targeted, the devices were proximity monitors that do not track location, staff also wore them, and they were required only while participating in sports.[2][3][15]

Staff

Andy Ngo has been editor-at-large since 2019. Ngo was previously with Quillette.[16] Several advertisers such as Logitech pulled ads from the site due to its association with Ngo.[17]

Yaakov Pollak, a former provincial Conservative Party candidate, joined the media group in July 2019. Pollak ran a variety of Conservative Party-affiliated Facebook groups, including the Liberty Now and the Elect Conservatives groups. Pollak did not declare his connection to these pages, and until he was contacted by interested media groups, the majority of content on those pages was sourced from The Post Millennial.[4]

The Post Millennial employed Cosmin Dzsurdzsa as among its first hires from late 2018 to September 2019, by which point he had written over 500 articles for the site. After the National Observer asked The Post Millennial about Dzsurdzsa's previous articles published in Russia Insider and his work for Free Bird Media, sites known for pro-Kremlin propaganda and platforming of white supremacists, respectively, the publication parted ways with Dzsurdzsa.[18][19]

References

  1. ^ a b c Evans, Robert (3 April 2020). "How Coronavirus Disinformation Gets Past Social Media Moderators". Bellingcat. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
  2. ^ a b "High school falsely accused by conservative outlet of forcing unvaccinated teens to wear ankle monitors". The Daily Dot. 25 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  3. ^ a b Lee, Ella. "Fact check: Claim that school put 'ankle monitors' on unvaccinated athletes is missing context". USA TODAY. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  4. ^ a b Silverman, Craig; Lytvynenko, Jane; Boutilier, Alex; Oved, Marco (26 July 2019). "A Set of Facebook Pages Promoting Conservatives and Attacking Trudeau Are Run by a Post Millennial Staffer". BuzzFeed News. Buzzfeed News. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  5. ^ a b c d e Yates, Jeff; Rogers, Kaleigh (13 August 2019). "Canadian News Site The Post Millennial Blurs Line Between Journalism and Conservative 'Pamphleteering'". CBC News. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
  6. ^ McIntosh, Emma (7 August 2019). "Canadians' Media-Consumption Habits Lead to Misinformation, Study Finds". National Observer. Vancouver.
  7. ^ Goforth, Claire (27 July 2020). "Slain Austin Protester Falsely Accused of Firing First by Far-Right Trolls, Trump". The Daily Dot. Austin, Texas.
  8. ^ Scott, Mark (27 October 2020). "Despite Cries of Censorship, Conservatives Dominate Social Media". Politico.
  9. ^ Rawnsley, Adam (6 July 2020). "Right-Wing Media Outlets Duped by a Middle East Propaganda Campaign". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
  10. ^ Covucci, David (7 July 2020). "Right-Wing Troll Andy Ngo Busted for Publishing Stories by Fake People". The Daily Dot. Austin, Texas. Retrieved 3 August 2020.
  11. ^ "Right-Wing Media Outlets Duped by a Middle East Propaganda Campaign". Press Progress.
  12. ^ a b Dale, Daniel (2021). "Fact check: How right-wing outlets spread a false narrative about the US women's soccer team disrespecting an elderly veteran". CNN. Retrieved 7 July 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  13. ^ a b Stevenson, Stefan (5 July 2021). "No, U.S. women's soccer team did not disrespect a WWII veteran playing national anthem". Star Telegram. Retrieved 7 July 2021.
  14. ^ "Conservatives are triggered over false claim that U.S. women's soccer team protested national anthem". The Daily Dot. 6 July 2021. Retrieved 7 July 2021.
  15. ^ Washington, District of Columbia 1100 Connecticut Ave NW Suite 1300B; Dc 20036. "PolitiFact - Proximity monitors at Wash. school are for vaccinated students and staff, too". @politifact. Retrieved 7 September 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  16. ^ Thompson, Don (5 June 2020). "Portland Conservative Writer Suing 'Antifa' for Injuries". KATU. Portland, Oregon: Sinclair Broadcast Group. Associated Press. Retrieved 3 August 2020.
  17. ^ "Advertisers keep dropping the Post Millennial for employing Andy Ngo". The Daily Dot. 1 October 2021. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
  18. ^ McIntosh, Emma (22 August 2019). "He Used to Work for a Site That Promoted Racists – Now He Edits a Canadian News Outlet". National Observer. Vancouver. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
  19. ^ Holt, Jared (10 September 2020). "The Post Millennial: The Latest Canadian Outlet Serving Rage Bait to Far-Right America". Right Wing Watch.

Further reading

External links

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