Nolte: Poynter Temporarily Pulls Blacklist with a Big Lie and Promise to Return

Poynter’s announcement about pulling its blacklist of 515 news outlets is not only framed around a lie, but a promise the blacklist will return.

The lie is so audacious and flies so hard in the face of what we all know to be true, if Poynter were anything close to a credible institution it would list itself as fake news.

Twice in this three-paragraph statement, Poynter’s managing editor Barbara Allen tells this lie.

Here’s big, fat lie number one: “Our aim was to provide a useful tool for readers to gauge the legitimacy of the information they were consuming.”

And here’s big, fat lie number two: “The list was intended to be a starting place for readers and journalists to learn more about the veracity of websites that purported to offer news[.]”

Lie, lie, lie, lie lie… That is all a lie…

According to Poynter’s own words, its own introduction to its blacklist, the “aim” was to give advertisers a list of news sites that a) they should not advertise with or b) pull their advertising from.

Poynter’s own words promise that their advertiser “blacklist” (yes, Poynter actually uses that word) is better than your advertiser blacklist [emphasis added]:

Advertisers don’t want to support publishers that might tar their brand with hate speech, falsehoods or some kinds of political messaging — but too often, they have little choice in the matter.

Most ad-tech dashboards make it hard for businesses to prevent their ads from appearing on (and funding) disreputable sites. Marketers can create blacklists, but many of those lists have been out-of-date or incomplete.

Aside from journalists, researchers and news consumers, we hope that the UnNews index will be useful for advertisers that want to stop funding misinformation.

“Marketers can create blacklists,” Poynter helpfully points out, but since your blacklist might not be as comprehensive as our blacklist here’s a handy blacklist that will allow you to blacklist those we believe should be blacklisted.

Poynter’s list includes… Breitbart News, the Media Research Center, Pajamas Media, Washington Examiner, The Daily Wire, The Blaze, Red State, Project Veritas, Newsmax, Zero Hedge, LifeSite, Judicial Watch, Frontpage, The Washington Free Beacon, The Daily Caller, and the Drudge Report…

But nowhere on this list will you find the establishment media outlets — CNN, NBC, the Washington Post, Politico, the New York Times, MSNBC, etc. —  responsible for blowing the biggest stories of the last five years:

• The Trayvon Martin Hoax
• The Hands Up, Don’t Shoot Hoax
• Donald Trump Can’t Win
• The Russia Collusion Hoax
• The Brett Kavanaugh Serial Rapist Hoax
• The Covington High School Boys Hoax

Poynter’s blacklist was only about one thing, had only one goal — one — and that was to tell advertisers to starve alternative media, alternative thought and ideas to death.

But here’s the real news, Poynter is not retracting its McCarthyite blacklist in shame — oh no… Poynter is promising to return with a better and bolder blacklist:

Therefore, we are removing this unreliable sites list until we are able to provide our audience a more consistent and rigorous set of criteria.

Joe McCarthy, Father Coughlin, and Big Brother live on thanks to the Poynter Institute, which advertises itself as “champions [of] freedom of expression.”

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.