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Aaron Maté

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Aaron Maté
Maté in 2021
Maté in 2021
BornVancouver, British Columbia, Canada
OccupationJournalist
EducationConcordia University (BA)
GenrePolitical commentary
Subjects
Years active2005–present[1]
Notable awardsIzzy Award (2019)
Parents

Aaron Maté is a Canadian writer and journalist.[2][3] He hosts the show Pushback with Aaron Maté on The Grayzone[2] and, as of January 2022, he fills in as a host on the Useful Idiots podcast.[4] Maté has worked as a reporter and producer for Democracy Now!, Vice, The Real News Network, and Al Jazeera, and has contributed to The Nation.[5][6][7]

Maté currently works as a reporter for The Grayzone, a fringe far-left news website and blog.[8][9]

He challenged allegations of collusion between the Russian government and the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, and the extent to which Russian interference influenced the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election,[8] winning an Izzy Award for this work.

Maté has testified at United Nations Arria meetings hosted by Russia and China, including one concerning what Maté called a cover-up by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons regarding the April 2018 Douma chemical attack.[10]

Early life

Maté was born into a Jewish family in Vancouver[8][11] to Rae Maté, a visual artist and an illustrator of children's books,[12] and Gabor Maté, a Hungarian physician, author, and columnist.[13]

While a student, Maté was vice president of the pro-Palestinian student union at Concordia University in Montreal and he was the main subject of the National Film Board of Canada documentary Discordia.[14][15] The film depicts Maté's campus activism in support of the Palestinian cause and the effect it has on his relationship with the student union and his Palestinian friends. He received death threats from fellow Jews due to his condemnation of Israel's treatment of Palestinians.[16][14] Maté was arrested during the Concordia University Netanyahu riot on 9 September 2002, after stepping between protesters and police,[17] for which he faced expulsion.[18]

From 2003 to 2005 Maté worked as a primary researcher for Naomi Klein, who praised him as "a great intellect and terrific journalist".[19]

Journalism

Career and Portfolio Summary
Timespan Show name Channel name Medium/format Role Coverage/
Remarks
Oct 2005–Feb 2016[20] Multiple Democracy Now! TV/radio/digital news show Reporter, producer
2014–2015[21] Multiple Vice Media Digital news network Reporter, producer
Aug 2016–Jan 2017[20] Multiple Al Jazeera English TV/digital news network Reporter, producer
Mar 2017–Dec 2018[20] Multiple The Real News Network Digital news network Host, producer
Oct 2017–[20] n/a The Nation Monthly magazine Contributing journalist
Jan 2019– Pushback with
Aaron Maté 		The Grayzone Podcast Host
Jan 2019– Various The Grayzone News blog Reporter
Jan 2022–
present 		Useful Idiots Rolling Stone (2019–2021),
Substack (2021– ) 		Podcast Co-host

Scepticism of Special Counsel investigation and Russian election interference

Using the term "Russiagate", Maté covered the story around Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and criticized the mainstream media coverage of the Special Counsel investigation.[22][23][24][25]

In October 2017, Maté discussed the media coverage of the investigation in The Nation, stating that "unverified claims are reported with little to no scepticism ... developments are cherry-picked and overhyped, while countervailing ones are minimised or ignored. Front-page headlines advertise explosive and incriminating developments, only to often be undermined by the article's content, or retracted entirely." Maté said use of social media by Russia had no effect on the election: "To suggest 200 [Twitter] accounts out of 328 million could have had an impact is as much an insult to common sense as it is to basic math". "A$100,000 Facebook ad purchase seems unlikely to have had much impact in a $6.8 billion election".[26][27][28] In a July 2018 article in The Nation, following the 2018 Russia–United States summit in Helsinki between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, he defended Trump against the statements made against him, such as the claim the summit had triggered an American "national security crisis".[29][30] In December 2017, Maté interviewed Luke Harding on The Real News Network about Harding's book about the Russian interference to help Trump, Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win. Vanity Fair described Maté as "a polite but dogged skeptic who administered a memorable vivisection" to Harding during the interview.[31]

Maté earned an Izzy Award in April 2019 for his work "taking a factual, meticulous approach to the overhyped, over-exaggerated Russia election-collusion story" and for challenging press coverage of Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation.[23][24][32][33][34]

In November 2019, Maté suggested that former CIA director John Brennan had impure reasons for the investigation into Russian links in a November 2019 article for Real Clear Investigations.[35][36]

In December 2019, Maté appeared on the Tucker Carlson Tonight talk show on Fox News and said that people "are accepting the claim that Russia hacked the DNC, even though there's been no evidence yet". Maté said that the "claims" came from "discredited intelligence officials". After numerous investigations into the 2016 election interference, U.S. intelligence agencies reported with "high confidence" that Russia was the culprit in the DNC cyberattacks.[37][38]

In May 2020, Maté stated: "All of the available evidence showed just how baseless [Russiagate] was". He said those who resisted Trump's administration were distracted by the "conspiracy theory that he conspired with or was blackmailed by Russia".[39]

Douma and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

Maté's claims regarding Douma are based on private correspondence, released by WikiLeaks, between two former Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inspectors, in which one said there was no evidence of chlorine being used as a weapon in Douma. According to the director general of the OPCW, Fernando Arias, the inspector's assumptions were wrong because the investigator had left his position with OPCW before it carried out most of its investigative work on Douma, and he was unaware of the new technology the OPCW used to corroborate the allegation of a chemical weapons attack.[40]

In September 2020, Maté testified at the United Nations at an Arria meeting hosted by the Russian Federation and China, about the alleged cover-up by the OPCW.[40] In April 2021, he spoke at another Russia-hosted UN event on the topic.[41] In March 2023, he spoke at an Arria meeting organized by the Russian Federation as a briefer on behalf of the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations led by Vasily Nebenzia.[10][42]

In May 2021, he accompanied Paul Larudee and other members of the Syria Solidarity Movement to observe the 2021 Syrian presidential election.[43]

Maté and The Grayzone, for which he reports, have been recipients of the Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees's Serena Shim Award.[44] According to Brian Whitaker writing in New Lines magazine, some of the previous winners of the award advocated conspiracy theories and many supported the Syrian government.[45][43]

In June 2022, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) published an analysis of social media accounts, individuals, outlets and organisations who disseminated disinformation about the Syrian conflict. Maté is said in the report to be the most prolific spreader of disinformation about the Syrian conflict since 2020 among the 28 actors the group investigated.[41][46] In a footnote added the following month to the London Observer article about the ISD report, Maté was quoted as saying "neither the study nor the Observer offer any evidence" for the assertion he is a spreader of disinformation and that the Institute for Strategic Dialogue "does not even attempt to refute a single claim of mine". Maté also alleged a conflict of interest because the ISD's funders included some western governments involved in the Syrian conflict.[46]

Other journalism and commentary

In November 2020, Maté said that the appointment of Antony Blinken as Secretary of State and the possible nomination of Michèle Flournoy as Defense Secretary, showed that President-elect Joe Biden was "continuing with the hawkish playbook" he had followed throughout his career.[47]

In February 2021, Maté was the first to report that Amnesty International had removed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny's status as a prisoner of conscience "given the fact that he advocated violence and discrimination and has not yet retracted such statements".[48][49][50][51][52] Oliver Carroll wrote in The Independent that The Grayzone had "amplified" criticism of Navalny and "appears to have been privy to lobbying around the Amnesty decision".[50]

Maté was critical of President Biden's response to Israel's attack on Gaza in May 2021. Maté said Biden's telephone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which Biden expressed his "unwavering support" for Israel's "right to defend itself", was "a green light for Netanyahu to continue massacring Palestinian civilians".[53]

In an interview with Russell Brand, Maté said that the allegation of anti-Semitism was made against Jeremy Corbyn to delegitimise him and "to undermine criticism of Israel", since "the establishment actually can’t counter Jeremy Corbyn’s actual arguments and his real views". Maté said Corbyn made a mistake by tolerating the allegation and giving it "weight that it didn’t deserve".[8]

Maté said that the Ukrainian Government, which came to power after the Maidan revolution, was a "fascist-infused coup". Regarding the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, he said that the US was funding "proxy warfare" against Russia and preventing any prospect of peace for its own ends.[54]

In February 2023, The Bulwark website published an article by Cathy Young in which she accused Maté of sharing a deceptively cut video of an interview by Israel's ex-PM, Naftali Bennett, in which he talked about the breakdown in peace negotiations during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to Maté, Bennett said that Russia and Ukraine reached a preliminary peace agreement early in the war but the US rejected it. According to Young, Bennett said the peace talks stalled after the Bucha massacre.[55]

The Canadian University of Calgary's School of Public Policy published a list of "Russian-influenced" social media accounts, which included Maté.[56][57][58]

Publications

  • Cold War, Hot War: How Russiagate Created Chaos from Washington to Ukraine. OR Books, 2022. (monography) ISBN 978-1682193655

References

  1. ^ "Aaron Maté – LinkedIn". linkedin.com. LinkedIn. [user-generated source]
  2. ^ a b Homan, Timothy R. (19 June 2020). "Journalist Aaron Maté says Democrats are responsible for giving John Bolton publicity". The Hill. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  3. ^ Maley, Dave (3 April 2019). "Izzy Award to Be Shared By Earth Island Journal and Journalists Laura Flanders, Dave Lindorff and Aaron Maté". IC News. Ithaca College.
  4. ^ Aaron Maté Joins Useful Idiots on YouTube (6 January 2022)
  5. ^ Chait, Jonathan (23 December 2019). "Tulsi Gabbard and the Return of the Anti-Anti-Trump Left". Intelligencer. Retrieved 27 February 2023. Krystal Ball and Aaron Mate recently speculated that Democratic leaders just might be setting up an impeachment trial in order to keep Sanders and Elizabeth Warren locked up in Washington and off the campaign trail... Leftists like Mate and Glenn Greenwald sometimes appear on Tucker Carlson's show, giving an edgy, trans-ideological sheen to his increasingly overt white nationalism.
  6. ^ "Aaron Maté". The Intercept. 12 April 2017. Retrieved 22 May 2021.
  7. ^ Camut, Nicolas (20 July 2023). "Scoop! Why Ben from Ben & Jerry's blames America for war in Ukraine". Politico. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  8. ^ a b c d Bloch, Ben (15 August 2022). "Russell Brand slammed by antisemitism campaigners for platforming Corbyn apologist". Jewish Chronicle. Aaron Maté is a Canadian journalist for the far-left blog, The Grayzone, which is known for its pro-Kremlin editorial line and its support for the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and has published content denying that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against civilians.
  9. ^ "How a retired MI6 boss, his Brexiteer friends and a celebrity Marxist became targets in Russia's war on Ukraine". Politico. 28 August 2022. Retrieved 12 November 2022. After weeks of sitting on the internet, the cache of Brexiteer emails was picked up by fringe website the Grayzone, which promises "original investigative journalism" on "politics and empire" and has earned praise from Hollywood director Oliver Stone, famous for his interest in — and occasional embrace of — conspiracy theories.
  10. ^ a b "Arria-formula Meeting on "Risks Stemming from the Politicization of the Activities of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons" : What's In Blue : Security Council Report". March 2023 Monthly Forecast. 23 March 2023. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  11. ^ "Why Putin supports Marine Le Pen and tries to thwart Emmanuel Macron". The Georgia Straight. 23 April 2017. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
  12. ^ "Children's Books About Cats and Dogs". The New York Times. 13 May 2011. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
  13. ^ O'Malley, JP (21 December 2019). "Addictions guru channels survival of the Holocaust into self-help empire". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 23 August 2021.
  14. ^ a b Scheib, Ronnie (21 July 2004). "Discordia". Variety. Retrieved 1 May 2021.
  15. ^ Aaron Maté (2002). Discordia. National Film Board of Canada. Retrieved 3 May 2021. NFB title:Discordia
  16. ^ Schwartz, Stephanie (2012). Double-Diaspora in the Literature and Film of Arab Jews (PDF) (Thesis). University of Ottawa.
  17. ^ "e.Peak (16/9/2002) news: national: Violence erupts at Concordia". peak.sfu.ca. 16 September 2002. Archived from the original on 16 May 2003. Retrieved 3 May 2021.
  18. ^ "Transcript from CBC's The National". Segacs's World I Know. 15 January 2003. Retrieved 3 May 2021.
  19. ^ Klein, Naomi (2007). The Shock Doctrine (1st ed.). Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt. p. 528. ISBN 978-0-8050-7983-8. Aaron Maté was my primary researcher in 2003–05, when my journalism focused almost exclusively on Iraq's economic transformation. It was a blessing to work with Aaron, a great intellect and terrific journalist. Aaron's imprint is unmistakable in the chapters on Iraq, as well as on Israel/Palestine.
  20. ^ a b c d "Aaron Maté". LinkedIn. Retrieved 29 June 2024.
  21. ^ "Contributor: Aaron Mate". VIce. 10 December 2015. Retrieved 11 July 2024.
  22. ^ "YouTube recommended a Russian media site above all others for analysis of the Mueller report, a watchdog group says". Washington Post. 26 April 2019. Archived from the original on 26 April 2019. Retrieved 1 March 2023.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  23. ^ a b "2019 Izzy Awards Honor Earth Island Journal, Laura Flanders, Aaron Maté & Dave Lindorff". Democracy Now!. 3 April 2019. Retrieved 12 May 2021. Independent journalist Aaron Maté—formerly a Democracy Now! producer—consistently challenged the media's coverage of the Russia-Trump campaign collusion story,
  24. ^ a b Keller, Sydney (20 March 2021). "Park Center for Independent Media holds 11th annual Izzy Awards". The Ithacan. Retrieved 11 May 2021. Maté also spoke about the President Donald Trump and Russia conspiracy. He said he believes the mainstream media has been promulgating a false narrative that Trump colluded with the Russian government during the 2016 campaign.
  25. ^ Fernandez, Madison (30 March 2021). "Park Center for Independent Media announces Izzy Award winners". The Ithacan. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
  26. ^ Maté, Aaron (6 October 2017). "Russiagate Is More Fiction Than Fact". The Nation. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  27. ^ Camilleri, Joseph (11 February 2018). "US approach to security is deeply troubling – and it's not just about Trump". The Conversation. Retrieved 16 May 2021.
  28. ^ Tveten, Julianne (11 October 2017). "How the "Fake News" Scare Is Marginalizing the Left". In These Times. Retrieved 21 September 2021. As Aaron Maté recently noted in The Nation, the number of accounts under suspicion – 200 – pales in comparison to Twitter's 328 million users. "To suggest 200 accounts out of 328 million could have had an impact is as much an insult to common sense as it is to basic math", Maté wrote. The Facebook case offers an analogue: "A $100,000 Facebook ad buy", according to Maté, "seems unlikely to have had much impact in a $6.8 billion election".
  29. ^ Maté, Aaron (28 July 2018). "The Elite Fixation With Russiagate". The Nation. Retrieved 27 May 2021. For declining to endorse US intelligence claims that the Kremlin meddled in our election and faulting both countries for the poor state of US-Russia relations, Trump was roundly accused of 'shameful,' 'disgraceful,' and 'treasonous' behavior that has sparked a full-blown 'national security crisis'.
  30. ^ Hunter, Jack (16 August 2018). "What If Russiagate Is The New WMDs?". The American Conservative. Retrieved 27 May 2021. The Nation's Aaron Maté believes liberals are overreaching, and that's putting it mildly: 'From the outset, Russiagate proponents have exhibited a blind faith in the unverified claims of US government officials and other sources, most of them unnamed. ... The record of US intelligence, replete with lies and errors, underscores the need for caution. Mueller was a player in one of this century's most disastrous follies when, in congressional testimony, he endorsed claims about Iraqi WMDs and warned that Saddam Hussein 'may supply' chemical and biological material to 'terrorists'.'
  31. ^ Frank, T. A. (25 March 2019). "The Hard Truths and High Cost of the Russiagate Scandal". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 12 May 2021.
  32. ^ O'Connor, Kelsey (16 April 2019). "Independent journalism highlighted with annual Izzy Awards". The Ithaca Voice. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  33. ^ "Izzy Award 2019". Park Center for Independent Media. 2 September 2019. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
  34. ^ Gerth, Jeff (30 January 2023). "The Press Versus the President". Columbia Journalism Review. New York: Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
  35. ^ LeTourneau, Nancy (19 November 2019). "Republicans Will Launch a Campaign to Lie, Distract, and Blame". Washington Monthly. Retrieved 28 May 2021.
  36. ^ Maté, Aaron (15 November 2019). "The Brennan Dossier: All About a Prime Mover of Russiagate". Real Clear Investigations. Retrieved 28 May 2021. Brennan, by his own account, has already outed himself as a key suspect.
  37. ^ Ecarma, Caleb (4 December 2019). "Tucker Carlson Stunned When Guest Says 'No Evidence' Russia Hacked DNC in 2016". Mediaite. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
  38. ^ Musto, Julia (4 December 2019). "'Nation' reporter to Tucker: 'Strange to see' media pretending Ukraine meddling didn't happen". Fox News. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
  39. ^ Halperin, Daniel; Dunlea, Reed; Halperin, Daniel (15 May 2020). "Useful Idiots: Aaron Maté on New #Russiagate Bombshells". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 13 May 2021. All of the available evidence showed just how baseless [Russiagate] was, and it was pretty clear that once it collapsed, it would hand Trump two gifts. First of all, it would give him the gift of throughout however long it took this thing to end, Trump's resistance being distracted into this dumb conspiracy theory that he conspired with or was blackmailed by Russia. And two, when it collapsed, it would give him the gift of vindication. And then, as more and more evidence came out as to how this whole thing started, Trump would be able to exploit it and use it for his re-election campaign, and say, 'Look at how these people tried to stop me and how they tried to take me down.' And basically use it as an excuse for being so awful on everything else. And now we're seeing that third phase," says Maté.
  40. ^ a b "Unpublished OPCW Douma Correspondence Casts Further Doubt on Claims of 'Doctored' Report". Bellingcat. 26 October 2020. Retrieved 12 May 2021.
  41. ^ a b Institute for Strategic Dialogue (13 July 2022). "Deadly Disinformation:How online conspiracies about Syria cause real-world harm". ISD: Deadly Disinformation. Retrieved 1 March 2023. Since 2020, Aaron Maté at the Grayzone has overtaken Beeley as the most prolific creators and spreader of disinformation among the 28 actors we investigated. An article that he wrote for the Grayzone where he attacks Bellingcat for its contributions to the OPCW was the most shared link in our data set in both 2020 and 2021. He, like Beeley, also appeared at the UN at the invitation of Russia, where he attempted to defend the Syrian government against accusations of chemical weapons use.... 16 April: Aaron Maté, a journalist at the Grayzone, speaks at "OPCW cover-up" event held at UNSC hosted by Russia... 23 June: Spike in repeated and recycled claims that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons investigation into the Douma chemical attack was flawed. According to ISD's data, Aaron Maté spread these claims most frequently.
  42. ^ "Remarks by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at meeting of UNSC members". Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations. 24 March 2023. Archived from the original on 11 May 2023. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  43. ^ a b Whitaker, Brian (20 January 2018). "Prizes galore! Assad supporters win awards for 'integrity' – with help from a piano tuner in California". al-bab.com. Retrieved 15 December 2021.
  44. ^ "Laureates". Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism. 5 March 2019. Retrieved 15 December 2021.
  45. ^ Whitaker, Brian (4 November 2021). "The 'Echo Chamber' of Syrian Chemical Weapons Conspiracy Theorists". New Lines Magazine. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
  46. ^ a b Townsend, Mark (19 June 2022). "Network of Syria conspiracy theorists identified". The Observer. Retrieved 17 July 2022.
  47. ^ Homan, Timothy R. (27 November 2020). "Journalist Aaron Maté discusses foreign policy for the incoming Biden administration". The Hill. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  48. ^ ""Video: Alexei Navalny Compares Muslims to Cockroaches, Supports Gun Rights in Russia"". 2007.
  49. ^ Gessen, Masha (24 February 2021). "Why Won't Amnesty International Call Alexey Navalny a Prisoner of Conscience?". The New Yorker. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  50. ^ a b Carroll, Oliver (24 February 2021). "Anger after Amnesty strips Navalny of 'prisoner of conscience' status". The Independent. Archived from the original on 24 February 2021. Retrieved 27 May 2021. [Criticisms of Navalny] have been amplified in a broad network of Kremlin-sympathising media at home and abroad. These outlets include Grayzone, an opaquely funded leftist publication based in the United States, which appears to have been privy to lobbying around the Amnesty decision. It was an author of Grayzone, Aaron Mate, who first reported the rethink in a tweet showing a screenshot of an email sent from Amnesty to a redacted name. Mr Mate's editorial boss, Max Blumenthal, is a regular contributor to RT and Sputnik.
  51. ^ "Amnesty's removal of Navalny's 'prisoner of conscience' status sparks Twitter storm". English Jamnews. 25 February 2021. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  52. ^ "Amnesty International rescinds Alexey Navalny's 'prisoner of conscience' status because of past 'hate speech,' following rumored 'campaign' by individuals tied to Russia Today". Meduza. 24 February 2021. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  53. ^ Wilkins, Brett (12 May 2021). "As Biden Blasted for 'Green Light' to Israel's Gaza Slaughter, House Dems Praised for Urging US Peace Push". Common Dreams. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  54. ^ "Web Summit cancels invitations to two speakers following 'pro-Russian' backlash". The Irish Times. 28 October 2022. Retrieved 14 December 2022.
  55. ^ Young, Cathy (8 February 2023). "No, Elon, the U.S. Didn't Scuttle a Ukraine Peace Deal". The Bulwark. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  56. ^ Boucher, Jean-Christophe (2022). "Disinformation and Russia-Ukrainian War on Canadian Social Media". The School of Public Policy Publications. 15 (1). doi:10.11575/SPPP.V15I1.75449. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  57. ^ "Political Discourse In The West Is Broken". Passage. 31 August 2022. Retrieved 10 March 2023.
  58. ^ "Coverage Is Opening Space for Russia-Linked Media on the Left". newlinesmag. 26 September 2024.
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