It’s a savvy businessperson who can get the New York Times to publish a free advertisement on their behalf. So kudos to L. Gordon Crovitz, former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, who convinced the Times (1/21/20) to run a column under his byline that included this pitch for his company’s services:
Advertisers such as JPMorgan Chase have had their staff try to decide which news sites are safe for their brands. However, the lists they compile can quickly become outdated because there are so many new purveyors of misinformation. The company I work for, NewsGuard, provides this service for a fee.
What is the danger, you may be wondering, that NewsGuard keeps advertisers safe from? Why, it’s “Vladimir Putin’s success in getting some of the largest Western companies to subsidize his disinformation efforts by advertising on his government-run ‘news’ websites.” For example, ads for Amazon, PayPal, Walmart and Kroger can end up (through digital ad brokers) on the Moscow-backed RT.com.—which Crovitz said “describes its role as encouraging people in other countries to ‘question more’—that is, promoting divisiveness in the United States and Europe.” Would NewsGuard direct its clients to outlets that encourage audiences to ask fewer questions, in the name of unanimity?
Crovitz offers a couple of examples of the kind of “disinformation” that RT supposedly engages in:
It publishes falsehoods such as denying that the Russia-backed regime in Syria used nerve gas on its own people.
A new theme on RT is that the emerging wireless 5G technology causes cancer. RT also reports that 5G cell towers cause learning disabilities and nose bleeds in children. No research establishes these risks. (Russia is far behind in 5G, which may explain this line of disinformation.)
The Times op-ed linked to a piece in RT (4/9/18) challenging claims that the Syrian government uses chemical weapons—chlorine, not nerve gas—in the rebel-held city of Douma. Similar questioning has appeared in outlets without Russian connections, such as Democracy Now! (5/23/19), LobeLog (6/11/19) and the right-wing London Daily Mail, which published “Fresh Evidence That UN Watchdog Suppressed Report Casting Doubt on Assad Gas Attack” (12/14/19) by Peter Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens’ more conservative younger brother.
On the issue of 5G’s potential health risks, Scientific American ran “We Have No Reason to Believe 5G Is Safe” (10/17/19); Medical News Today (8/23/19) wrote, referring to the radio frequencies used by cell phones, that
there is certainly evidence that ties RF-EMF exposure to a small increase in the risk of developing certain cancers and other adverse health outcomes…. The jury is still out on how serious a threat RF-EMFs in general—and 5G bandwidths in particular—pose to our health.
Is it possible that Crovitz is not the best judge of what stories are to be dismissed as “disinformation” and which are raising legitimate questions—whether “divisive” or not? As a journalist (Wall Street Journal, 11/29/09, 12/6/09), he championed “Climategate”—the idea that climate change was a hoax perpetrated by an academic conspiracy—and decried the fact that “the one-sidedness of the views of the most influential scientists had led many to believe in the gospel of global warming.”
He celebrated (Wall Street Journal, 8/22/90) the convictions in the Central Park jogger assault, based on confessions that we now know to be false, saying it was “pure luck” that the teenagers’ confessions were entered into evidence, given the “near total absence of any physical evidence individually linking them to the jogger.”
And he defended Iran/Contra criminal Elliott Abrams (Wall Street Journal, 11/21/91), asserting that “his ‘crime’ was not being entirely frank during a congressional hearing, which is hardly unprecedented.” (Actually, Abrams had deceived Congress, telling lawmakers that funding for the overthrow of the Nicaraguan government was happening “without any encouragement and coordination from us,” when in fact he was actively involved with fundraising efforts for the murderous Contras.)
But Crovitz’s real pitch is that he defends corporations against information that’s not so much untrustworthy as unprofitable. He writes that “telecommunications companies that depend on the success of 5G have advertised on RT, including T-Mobile, CenturyLink, Comcast and Vonage.” The message is clear: Advertisers should boycott media that threatens their bottom line by encouraging, or permitting, any questioning.
That’s a business model that’s a bigger threat to an informed public than any Russian troll.
Research assistance: Lisa Marie Andrews Smith.
