TruthRevolt

TruthRevolt is a politically conservative media watchdog and activist group founded by conservative commentators Ben Shapiro and David Horowitz of the David Horowitz Freedom Center as a counterpoint to the politically progressive Media Matters for America.^[2] The site's mission page states its goals are to "unmask leftists in the media for who they are, destroy their credibility with the American public, and devastate their funding bases."^[3]

Launch

The site launched October 7, 2013, and received fairly positive press from conservative news and opinion website Breitbart.com^[4] and news site The Daily Beast.^[5]

USA Today^[6] and conservative news outlet The Daily Caller^[7] criticized both TruthRevolt and Media Matters for sponsoring boycotts, arguing that such tactics silence free speech. In an article titled "Mutually Assured Destruction",^[8] TruthRevolt responded to critics stating their tactics are "distasteful", but also "effective", and "the surest way to stop these distasteful tactics is to make sure that both sides pay equally for their use. The little-told truth of Mutually Assured Destruction is that it works, and that it has kept the peace between major powers for sixty years."

Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly also mentioned the site during an interview with Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro on October 15, 2013, just one week after its launch.^[9]

Features

Articles

The homepage primarily features articles set on exposing liberal bias in the media from sources such as CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and print publications like The New York Times.^[10]

In November 2013, when reports suggested mainstream media outlets were ignoring stories of the alleged violent "knockout game" in Crown Heights, New York, in which African-American youths were supposedly racially targeting Jews and Caucasians as part of a hate crime,^[11] TruthRevolt wrote a piece highlighting that CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC all had made virtually no mention of the 'knockout game' with exception to CNN's New Day who ran a brief two-minute segment about the attacks, but did not mention the suspects' race, referring to them as "kids", "juveniles", and "teens." They also did not mention the allegedly anti-semitic motives behind the attacks and NYPD's labeling them a potential hate-crime.^[12] BigJournalism.com duplicated the article, which was shortly referenced by Andrea Tantaros on Fox News' The Five.^[13][14]

Activism

Aside from monitoring media bias, the site also allows readers to volunteer in a group known as Special Ops where people are encouraged to contact advertisers and media executives to protest biased and vitriolic rhetoric in the media.^[15]

On October 22, 2013, when CNBC's Squawk Box showed a picture of Senator Ted Cruz, senior economics reporter Steve Liesman said, “There he is! There he is! Can we get some music to go along with that, some Mexican music maybe?”^[16]

Because Cruz is of Cuban descent, the remarks were construed as racist and stereotypical. TruthRevolt then immediately launched a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #StopRacismAgainstCruz urging Liesman to apologize for his comments,^[17] which he did one day later on the CNBC website.^[18][19]

On November 15, 2013, MSNBC anchor Martin Bashir chastised Sarah Palin on his program for comparing the federal debt to slavery by referencing the slave overseer Thomas Thistlewood who administered a punishment called "Derby's Dose" where slaves were forced to urinate and defecate into each other's mouth. Bashir then concluded by saying "When Mrs. Palin invokes slavery, she doesn’t just prove her rank ignorance. She confirms if anyone truly qualified for a dose of discipline from Thomas Thistlewood, she would be the outstanding candidate."^[20]

Despite Bashir's apology on November 18, TruthRevolt issued a petition on its site requesting companies stop advertising on Martin Bashir's program and urged readers to contact advertisers with complaints.^[21]

On December 4, after being suspended by the network, Bashir resigned from MSNBC.

An article in The Daily Beast on December 5 referenced the TruthRevolt campaign to remove Martin Bashir. Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro was quoted saying, "Leftist hosts have made statements like this before, but they were rarely held accountable. That's what TruthRevolt does.”^[22]

Since the site launched, TruthRevolt has also issued a petition urging advertisers to drop business with Al Sharpton on MSNBC, primarily Ritz Crackers. They passed 10,000 signatures on November 4, 2013.^[23][24]

References

External links

Official website