Mint Press News

MintPress News (MPN) is an American news website which launched in 2011^[1], based in Minnesota.^[2]

History

Mint Press News was founded in January 2012 by Mnar A. Muhawesh, a Minnesota-born daughter of Palestinian immigrants, and journalism graduate of St. Cloud State University. MPN said it was a for-profit “regular news organization,” with an initial three-year break-even business plan based on advertising.^[3] In January 2012 MPN's investors were said to be unnamed "retired businesspeople" — described by MinnPost as "unfortunate for a journalism operation fighting alongside people seeking transparency."^[3]A business consultant of MPN is the editor's father-in-law Odeh Muhawesh, a businessman and adjunct theology professor at the University of St. Thomas, a Catholic liberal arts university in the Twin Cities.^[4] Odeh Muhawesh is a businessman who serves as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Stratika, as well as served as Chief Executive Officer and President of RPM Intelligence, 'an accomplished executive with a strong record of growing revenue and developing competitive products for software and services companies' according to businessweek.com^[5] On the about us page for MintPress, it states that a media advisory board will be posted soon and does not list Odeh Muhawesh as part of the their masthead since July 2013.

In 2013 in an email to BuzzFeed, Mnar Muhawesh said she was financing Mint Press alone. "Interviews with former employees and people familiar with the inner workings of Mint Press, and an examination of public records, paint a portrait of a dysfunctional outlet where employees are left in the dark about the site’s sources of funding and are alienated from the Muhawesh family that runs it: Mnar, the editor-in-chief, her brother-in-law and managing editor Muhammad Muhawesh, and her father-in-law Odeh Muhawesh, 54, a Minneapolis businessman born in Jordan. They also reveal an agenda that lines up, from its sympathy with the Syrian regime to its hostility to Sunni Saudi Arabia, with that of the Islamic Republic of Iran, where Odeh Muhawesh studied under an ayatollah for five years after the Islamic Revolution."^[6]

Syria Reporting Controversy

On 29 August 2013, an MPN article bylined to MPN contributors Dale Gavlak and Yahya Ababneh reported that Syrian rebels and local residents in Ghouta, Syria alleged in interviews that the Al-Nusra Front was responsible for the chemical weapons incidents in Ghouta; those interviewed claimed that weapons had been delivered to untrained fighters and "some of the fighters handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions."^[7] Gavlak later told Brown Moses Blog that "Despite my repeated requests, made directly and through legal counsel, they have not been willing to issue a retraction stating that I was not the author. Yahya Ababneh is the sole reporter and author of the Mint Press News piece."^[8] Gavlak later clarified that she had "served as an editor of Ababneh's material in English as he normally writes in Arabic. ... There was no communication by Mint Press News to Ms. Gavlak that it intended to use her byline. Ms. Muhawesh took this action unilaterally and without Ms. Gavlak's permission."^[9] Gavlak had been a regular writer and contributor to Mint Press News, writing for the online new magazine since March 2012^[10]

Gavlak ended her relationship with MPN.^[11] Additionally, citing issues of credibility and accuracy following the Ghouta article controversy, journalists Steve Horn and Patrick O. Strickland left MPN.^[12] The MPN report had been "widely circulated"^[13] and cited among others by Military.com, the Voice of Russia, Press TV, Spanish newspaper ABC, ConsortiumNews.com and InfoWars.^{[14][15][16][17][18]} Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting initially characterized the article as "honest about the limits of its knowledge", but after Gavlak's comments dissociating herself from the story wrote that "with the allegations of unprofessional behavior on the part of Mint Press News, there's little reason to take the Mint Press story seriously."^[19] Bridget Johnson on PJ Media had previously described MPN as having "anti-U.S. and anti-Saudi links, as well as ties to the Occupy movement."^[20] Later in September, journalist Brian Whitaker raised questions about the Ababneh byline, writing that "If Yahya Ababneh and Yan Barakat are indeed the same person, the question arises as to why Mint Press called him Ababneh rather than Barakat (which is the name he appears to have used for his other writing)", and noting that a comment on the Daily Mail website in the name of Yan Barakat had been left on 28 August, which had given the essence of the MPN story with the additional detail that he had first been alerted to the story by a Russian.^[21][22] In November 2013 Mint Press said it was standing by the story, and that Ababneh had told it he was under pressure from Jordanian police and others to retract his story.^[23] Asked about the Mint Press News story Åke Sellström, Chief UN weapons inspector in Syria remarked ; "They are famous for 1001 Arabian Nights Stories." ^[24]

References

External links

• Official website