{"id":1272253,"date":"2022-02-04T19:37:45","date_gmt":"2022-02-05T00:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1272253"},"modified":"2022-02-04T19:37:50","modified_gmt":"2022-02-05T00:37:50","slug":"fact-check-6-claims-from-politicos-smear-job-on-breitbart-news-for-defying-media-cartel-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fact-check-6-claims-from-politicos-smear-job-on-breitbart-news-for-defying-media-cartel-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Fact Check: 6 Claims from Politico&#039;s Smear Job on Breitbart News for Defying Media Cartel Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffact-check-6-claims-from-politicos-smear-job-on-breitbart-news-for-defying-media-cartel-bill%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1272253&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/A-laptop-displaying-a-404-error-640x335-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">Politico, the liberal magazine that aims to influence D.C. politics but is owned by a foreign media conglomerate, has published a hit piece on Breitbart News over its opposition to the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), a bill that aims to protect the discredited corporate media \u2014 including outlets like Politico \u2014 from online competition.<\/p>\n<p>The JCPA, which Breitbart News has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2021\/03\/15\/bokhari-hearing-on-establishment-media-cartel-act-only-deepens-concerns\/\">covered extensively<\/a>, would create an antitrust exemption for media companies, protecting&nbsp;<a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/355526\/americans-trust-media-dips-second-lowest-record.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\">widely distrusted<\/a>&nbsp;media companies from competition by allowing them to form a legal cartel to collectively bargain with Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>If the bill passes, big media companies would be able to strike deals with Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other tech giants that would prioritize their content to the detriment of podcasters, YouTubers, Substack authors, and other forms of independent media.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Dietrich Von Klaeden, VP of public affairs at Politico\u2019s parent company, German media conglomerate Axel Springer SE, is on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsmediaalliance.org\/about-us\/board-of-directors\/\">board of directors of the News Media Alliance<\/a>. The lobbying organization has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2021\/03\/12\/big-media-wants-handout-from-congress\/\">led the charge for the JCPA<\/a>, pouring millions of dollars into the bid to create a national news media cartel in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Seemingly desperate to rescue the legislation, Politico has lashed out at Breitbart News, the only news organization effectively standing in the way of the cartel\u2019s formation. This article will serve as a fact-check of Politico\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p><strong>CLAIM:&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Breitbart News is an \u201cunlikely antagonist\u201d of the JCPA, \u201con the same side\u201d as Google and Facebook.<\/p>\n<p><strong>VERDICT: FALSE<\/strong><br \/>For years, Breitbart News has exposed Google and Facebook\u2019s efforts to artificially prop up the discredited corporate media, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2019\/01\/16\/google-youtube-search-blacklist-smoking-gun\/\">rigging search results<\/a> to favor establishment media, censoring independent media, and directly paying sums of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2018\/07\/10\/youtube-to-fund-handpicked-authoritative-news-sources-and-push-them-on-users\/\">hundreds of millions<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2021\/07\/20\/report-facebook-is-paying-massive-licensing-fees-to-media-titans\/\">billions of dollars<\/a> to the likes of the&nbsp;<em>New York Times&nbsp;<\/em>and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2018\/06\/06\/facebook-to-fund-news-programming-including-cnns-anderson-cooper\/\">CNN<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It is entirely consistent with its prior coverage that Breitbart News would critically report on the JCPA, which would give the establishment media <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2021\/03\/15\/bokhari-hearing-on-establishment-media-cartel-act-only-deepens-concerns\/\">even more power to demand special treatment from Silicon Valley<\/a>. Whether Big Tech is voluntarily favoring Big Media, or whether it is being pressured into doing so by a JCPA-created cartel, it will be subject to critical reporting from Breitbart News.<\/p>\n<p>There is nothing \u201cunlikely\u201d about Breitbart News opposing the creation of a cartel that protects the likes of the&nbsp;<em>New York Times<\/em> and the Jeff Bezos-owned&nbsp;<em>Washington Post,&nbsp;<\/em>the former of which had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/02\/02\/business\/media\/nyt-earnings-q4-2021.html#:~:text=For%20the%20year%2C%20revenue%20grew,%242%20billion%20year%20since%202012.\">$2.1 billion in revenue<\/a> last year and is in no need of a government handout. Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow\u2019s bestselling book,&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Breaking-News-Exposing-Establishment-Corruption\/dp\/B08PVZXZDX\/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=breaking+the+news&amp;qid=1644013650&amp;sr=8-1\">Breaking the News<\/a>,<\/em>&nbsp;was all about the pernicious influence of overly-powerful media companies, and identified the incestuous corporate media establishment as one of the premier threats to our democracy. Why would Breitbart support a bill that artificially protects such a <a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/355526\/americans-trust-media-dips-second-lowest-record.aspx\">widely distrusted industry<\/a>, that promotes falsehoods like Russiagate and smears conservatives as insurrectionists and terrorists?<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p><strong>CLAIM:&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The JCPA \u201cwould enable publishers to collectively bargain with the social media companies to win payment for news content. The bill would do that by granting the news companies an exception to antitrust law.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p><strong>VERDICT: PARTLY FALSE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The JCPA would enable&nbsp;<em>some&nbsp;<\/em>publishers to collectively bargain with social media companies. The bill specifically excludes any content creator that does not have&nbsp;\u201ca dedicated professional editorial staff\u201d and does not publish news content on \u201cat least a weekly basis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This means that a wide swathe of the independent media, including podcasters, YouTubers, and bloggers, would be excluded from benefits of the media cartel\u2019s negotiations with Big Tech. The stipulation that publishers must have a \u201cdedicated professional editorial staff\u201d goes directly against a recent trend, which has seen prominent journalists like Glenn Greenwald (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/the-media\/2021\/03\/12\/watch-clay-travis-glenn-greenwald-attack-big-tech-mainstream-media-collusion\/\">who opposes this legislation<\/a>) abandon traditional news publishers and set up one-man subscription newsletters on platforms like Substack. The JCPA attempts to re-centralize the news industry, which, absent the interference of Big Tech, is on a pathway to decentralization.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B4\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p><strong>CLAIM:&nbsp;<\/strong><br \/>The JCPA \u201ccould conceivably benefit Breitbart financially.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>VERDICT: DUBIOUS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A line in&nbsp;<a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.govtrack.us\/congress\/bills\/117\/s673\/text\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\">the bill<\/a>&nbsp;allows members of the state-sanctioned cartel to exclude any company that is not \u201csimilarly situated\u201d to them from the benefits of their negotiations with the tech giants. This wide loophole would allow members of the cartel wide leeway to exclude news organizations based on arbitrary criteria \u2014 like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2022\/01\/20\/newsguard-defends-npr-after-fake-news-supreme-court-masking-story\/\">Newsguard ratings<\/a>, for example.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s possible, though unlikely, that the JCPA-created cartel would be unable to exclude Breitbart News. But the prospect of special treatment, or payouts from the tech companies is not a good reason for Bretbart News to go soft on a bill that would prop up the&nbsp;<em>New York Times <\/em>and&nbsp;the&nbsp;<em>Washington Post. <\/em>They, and other giant media companies and conglomerates, deserve fair competition, not the protection of a cartel.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CLAIM:<\/strong><br \/>Breitbart News is \u201clobbying\u201d lawmakers on the bill.<\/p>\n<p><strong>VERDICT: FALSE<\/strong><br \/>Breitbart News is reaching out to lawmakers for comment on the legislation while providing critical coverage. That\u2019s what a responsible news organization should do when giant conglomerates like Politico\u2019s parent company Axel Springer SE are trying to change the law to acquire event more wealth and power.<\/p>\n<p>As Politico acknowledges, because so many news organizations hope to profit from the JCPA, Breitbart News is the only major news organization to report critically on it \u2014 which is not the same as \u201clobbying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLobbying\u201d is what the News Media Alliance, where Axel Springer VP&nbsp;Dr. Dietrich Von Klaeden sits on the board of directors, is doing: attempting to influence the public debate by funding <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20220131050630\/https:\/\/www.copyright.gov\/policy\/publishersprotections\/initial-comments\/Hal%20Singer%20-%20Initial%20Comment.pdf\">seemingly-academic \u201cstudies\u201d<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2021\/05\/10\/the-swamp-big-media-backing-special-interests-lobbyists-flood-ken-bucks-campaign-coffers-as-he-pushes-bill-to-benefit-them\/\">donating to the campaign coffers<\/a> of influential lawmakers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CLAIM:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cBreitbart has a different relationship with Facebook than many of its media peers do. Breitbart in 2019 became one of the first news outlets to join Facebook\u2019s news tab, a program that allows news outlets to monetize their content through Facebook. Facebook does not pay Breitbart directly, but that partnership drives traffic and advertisers to Breitbart\u2019s site. (POLITICO is part of the same program.)\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>VERDICT: MISLEADING<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Politico\u2019s aim with this paragraph is to suggest that Breitbart News is beholden to Facebook for making it one of the few conservative outlets in its News Tab. Yet Politico acknowledges that it is on the News Tab too. The vast majority of news outlets on the News Tab support the JCPA, because they hope for even more special treatment from Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n<p>Politico notes that Breitbart News, unlike the&nbsp;<em>New York Times&nbsp;<\/em>and other news companies pushing this bill, does not receive any payments from Facebook. It neglects to mention that Facebook <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2021\/10\/25\/matt-gaetz-leftists-are-pushing-fake-facebook-scandal-to-justify-censorship-of-conservatives\/\">relegates Breitbart News to a second tier of the News Tab<\/a>, which only shows Breitbart News links to users if the algorithm considers it to be aligned with that user\u2019s interests. In other words, only conservatives see Breitbart stories on Facebook\u2019s News Tab, whereas everyone sees&nbsp;<em>New York Times&nbsp;<\/em>stories.<\/p>\n<p>Politico also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2021\/10\/25\/matt-gaetz-leftists-are-pushing-fake-facebook-scandal-to-justify-censorship-of-conservatives\/\">fails to note that changes to Facebook\u2019s algorithm after the 2016 election resulted in traffic to Breitbart News plunging by 20 percent<\/a>. Breitbart News has been actively discriminated against by Facebook, which is under constant pressure from its employees and activist journalists to discriminate even further. Breitbart News owes no favors to Facebook, and would welcome measures that prohibit the company from picking winners and losers in the news industry. By creating a privileged cartel of establishment news outlets, the JCPA does the opposite of that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CLAIM:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany conservative media organizations \u2014 including Newsmax, Town Hall, the Washington Examiner and the Washington Times \u2014 have come out in support of the legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>VERDICT: TRUE&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Some conservative publishers have come out in support of the legislation, in the hopes that they will be allowed into the cartel and reap the rewards of negotiations with Silicon Valley. Breitbart News does not believe that the dubious hope of a payout from Big Tech companies is a good reason to suspend critical coverage of this legislation.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.&nbsp;He is the author of&nbsp;<a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/DELETED-Techs-Battle-Movement-Election\/dp\/154605930X\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\">#DELETED: Big Tech\u2019s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Politico, the liberal magazine that aims to influence D.C. politics but is owned by a foreign media conglomerate, has published a hit piece on Breitbart News over its opposition to &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1272253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1272253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1272253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1272253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1272253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}