{"id":2285147,"date":"2024-06-28T07:14:01","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T11:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/propublicas-pulitzer-should-be-revoked\/"},"modified":"2024-06-28T07:21:15","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T11:21:15","slug":"propublicas-pulitzer-should-be-revoked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/propublicas-pulitzer-should-be-revoked\/","title":{"rendered":"ProPublica\u2019s Pulitzer Should Be Revoked"},"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\">10<\/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%2Fpropublicas-pulitzer-should-be-revoked%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=2285147&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--><p>The article criticizes ProPublica&#8217;s series of \u2063reports alleging unethical \u2062behavior \u2063by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, focusing particularly on accusations related to undisclosed vacations with billionaire\u200b Harlan Crow and others. The criticisms include claims that the reports are misleading, incorrect, and based on previously\u2063 settled claims that did not\u2064 find Thomas at fault. \u200bKey accusations from ProPublica involved Thomas failing to disclose luxury travel\u2063 gifts, which were dismissed by a 2012 \u200dU.S. Judicial Conference ruling, and a supposedly unreported yacht trip around the Bahamas. This latter claim, as well as \u2062others involving yacht sightings and travel, \u200cwere strongly \u2062refuted, with\u200c statements pointing out factual inaccuracies and denials from involved parties. The\u200c article suggests\u200d that ProPublica&#8217;s continued allegations against Thomas are part of\u200d a \u2064broader left-wing attempt to undermine him and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/texas-jury-finds-woman-guilty-of-murdering-professional-cyclist\/\" title=\"Texas Jury Finds Woman Guilty Of Murdering Professional Cyclist\">lack factual accuracy<\/a>. ProPublica is also criticized for not adequately correcting \u200dits stories \u200cwhen errors are highlighted.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/kamala-harris-condemns-d-c-demonstrators-despite-past-encouragement-of-violent-blm-mobs\/\" title=\"Kamala Harris condemns D.C. demonstrators despite past encouragement of violent BLM mobs\">left-wing activists<\/a> at ProPublica are standing by their mendacious smears of Justice Clarence Thomas.<\/p>\n<p>The most recent attack on the justice began with an infamous April 2023 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">hit piece<\/a>, which contends the Supreme Court justice broke <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/waffle-arizona-house-speaker-claims-they-cant-enforce-constitution-wont-commit-to-calling-legislative-hearing\/\" title=\"WAFFLE: Arizona House Speaker Claims They Can\u2019t Enforce Constitution, Won\u2019t Commit To Calling Legislative Hearing\">federal law<\/a> by failing to disclose vacations he took with longtime friend Harlan Crow.<\/p>\n<p>The misleading story turned out to be fundamentally <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/12\/11\/propublica-plots-another-clarence-thomas-hit-piece-based-on-recycled-settled-claims\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">incorrect<\/a>. Yet that didn\u2019t stop ProPublica from continuing its journalistic malpractice, publishing a string of <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MarkPaoletta\/status\/1689052658777067520\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">concocted<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/clarence-thomas-other-billionaires-sokol-huizenga-novelly-supreme-court\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">stories<\/a> about Thomas\u2019 alleged unethical behavior. This sloppy, inaccurate, and malicious work eagerly spread by corporate media earned ProPublica a Pulitzer Prize.<\/p>\n<p>It should be revoked.<\/p>\n<p>First, ProPublica completely ignored a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/propublica-recycles-old-clarence-thomas-news-trips-crow-judicial-conference-investigation-b9d23640\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2012 ruling<\/a> by the U.S. Judicial Conference, a body composed of federal judges responsible under federal law for administering the ethics laws for the judiciary, that determined Justice Thomas had violated no laws with respect to his disclosure practices regarding vacations.<\/p>\n<p>The ruling <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/12\/11\/propublica-plots-another-clarence-thomas-hit-piece-based-on-recycled-settled-claims\/\">destroys<\/a> ProPublica\u2019s entire storyline. Instead of fessing up, the publication <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/06\/30\/propublicas-smearing-of-conservative-justices-is-part-of-the-lefts-ploy-to-destroy-the-court\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">cited<\/a> left-wing-funded \u201clegal ethics experts\u201d to support its narrative that Thomas broke the law. He didn\u2019t. Later, ProPublica published a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/judicial-conference-scotus-federal-judges-ethics-rules\">story<\/a> seeking to discredit this 2012 ruling rather than concede its validity and admit its attack on Thomas was factually incorrect.<\/p>\n<p>ProPublica published a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/clarence-thomas-other-billionaires-sokol-huizenga-novelly-supreme-court\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">story<\/a> in August 2023 accusing Justice Thomas of having taken \u201ca previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas\u201d with his friend Tony Novelly. He didn\u2019t do that, either. The trip never happened \u2014 and based on ProPublica\u2019s wording, it appears the publication knew it never took place. The ProPublica story, for instance, never even references the year the yacht trip supposedly happened.<\/p>\n<p>One of ProPublica\u2019s alleged \u201csources,\u201d a captain of the yacht who supposedly saw Thomas, could not provide a year this imaginary trip took place. Moreover, every statement in this ProPublica <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/clarence-thomas-other-billionaires-sokol-huizenga-novelly-supreme-court\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">paragraph<\/a> from its story about Justice Thomas visiting Novelly\u2019s yacht in the Bahamas is false:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Three of Novelly\u2019s former yacht workers, including a captain, told ProPublica they recall Thomas coming on board the vessels multiple times in recent years. Novelly\u2019s local chauffeur in the Bahamas said his company once picked Thomas up from the billionaire\u2019s private jet and drove him to the marina where one of the yachts, Le Montrachet, frequently docks. A fifth witness, a dock attendant at the marina, recalled seeing Thomas on board one of the Novelly yachts.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In reality, Thomas <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/what-propublicas-latest-hit-piece-gets-wrong-justice-clarence-thomas-supreme-court-accusation-misinformation-truth-yacht-70292e84\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">was last<\/a> in the Bahamas in the 1980s, long before he met Tony Novelly in the early 2000s. Justice Thomas <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/what-propublicas-latest-hit-piece-gets-wrong-justice-clarence-thomas-supreme-court-accusation-misinformation-truth-yacht-70292e84\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">never sailed<\/a> on any Novelly yacht, including the yacht specifically named in the article, La Montrachet. In fact, he has never even laid eyes on this boat.  <\/p>\n<p>Every single one of ProPublica\u2019s five witnesses is either lying or shockingly mistaken, or ProPublica has changed or altered their stories. No Novelly chauffeur ever picked up Thomas in the Bahamas. Not a single Novelly yacht worker, or a captain, ever saw Justice Thomas go aboard a Novelly boat in the Bahamas. And no dock attendant saw Thomas board the yacht in a marina in the Bahamas. Did ProPublica put words in their mouths or lead them to believe something happened that never did?<\/p>\n<p>Thomas <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/what-propublicas-latest-hit-piece-gets-wrong-justice-clarence-thomas-supreme-court-accusation-misinformation-truth-yacht-70292e84\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">did step<\/a> on a boat co-owned by Novelly and David Sokol, called the Daybreak. But that boat was anchored at Sokol\u2019s dock at his home in Fort Lauderdale in 2018 when Thomas walked onto the boat, visited the engine room, and left within 30 minutes.\u00a0That is the only time he set foot on a Novelly boat \u2014 in Fort Lauderdale for less than 30 minutes. <\/p>\n<p>I <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MarkPaoletta\/status\/1709978683241288120\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">called out<\/a> ProPublica after it published this false story, but it did nothing for months. After Novelly\u2019s lawyer sent a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/118\/crec\/2023\/12\/19\/169\/209\/CREC-2023-12-19-pt1-PgS6043.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">letter<\/a> to the Senate Judiciary Committee confirming this yacht trip around the Bahamas never happened, ProPublica <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/clarence-thomas-other-billionaires-sokol-huizenga-novelly-supreme-court\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">quietly updated<\/a> its story this January but chose not to disclose the letter\u2019s damning refutation. ProPublica dishonestly said that Novelly\u2019s lawyer \u201cappeared to deny that he had hosted the justice in the Bahamas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Novelly\u2019s attorney <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/118\/crec\/2023\/12\/19\/169\/209\/CREC-2023-12-19-pt1-PgS6043.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wrote<\/a> that \u201c[a]ny claims made by what your letter characterized as \u2018investigative reporting\u2019 sources regarding the presence of Justice Thomas on a yacht owned by Mr. Novelly traveling in the Bahamas are false.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To this day, ProPublica still leads its updated story with the claim that Thomas sailed on a yacht around the Bahamas and kept in the story the numerous photos of La Montrachet, a yacht Justice Thomas has never seen. ProPublica falsely added that it had identified \u201cvacations\u201d that Thomas had taken in the Bahamas with Novelly. There are no such vacations.<\/p>\n<p>This week, in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/justice-thomas-ally-pens-scathing-wsj-opinion-piece-detailing-errors-deceptions-recent-report\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">another story<\/a> questioning the accuracy of the Bahamas trip, ProPublica issued a statement standing by its reporting. Instead of fessing up to its lies, it doubled down.<\/p>\n<p>ProPublica knows its story is false yet won\u2019t take accountability. The Pulitzer board should know better and ought to immediately open a review into the false and dishonest ProPublica reporting that was central to its investigative series being given this award. ProPublica should identify the five witnesses who claim Thomas was in the Bahamas with Novelly. This massive breach of journalistic ethics calls into question all of ProPublica\u2019s reporting on Justice Thomas and the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s outrageous that the Pulitzer board would award its prize to a left-wing-funded activist group that is more interested in partisan, dishonest hit jobs than real journalism. But like the Pulitzer Prizes awarded to New York Times reporter Walter Duranty, a Stalinist apologist in the 1930s who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2003\/10\/23\/us\/times-should-lose-pulitzer-from-30-s-consultant-says.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">covered up<\/a> the dictator\u2019s massive crimes, or the Pulitzer awarded to The Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke, who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cjr.org\/the_feature\/the_fabulist_who_changed_journalism.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">fabricated<\/a> an eight-year-old heroin addict named \u201cJimmy\u201d out of thin air, history will prove ProPublica to have written a fraudulent and dishonest attack on our greatest living American.<\/p>\n<p><em>Disclosure: The author has been on some of the trips referenced in this piece.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Mark Paoletta served as a lawyer in the George H.W. Bush White House Counsel\u2019s office and worked on the confirmation of Justice Thomas.  He served as General Counsel of the Office of Management &#038; Budget during the Trump Adminstration. He is a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ProPublica&#8217;s left-wing activists continue to support their deceptive attacks on Justice Clarence Thomas. Their latest assault started with an April 2023 article accusing him of breaking federal law by not disclosing vacations with friend Harlan Crow. This misleading narrative persists<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":739,"featured_media":2285148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Screen-Shot-2024-06-27-at-10.30.18-PM-1024x550.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4381,5157,10759,33164],"class_list":["post-2285147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-ethics","tag-journalism","tag-propublica","tag-pulitzer-prize"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Screen-Shot-2024-06-27-at-10.30.18-PM-1024x550.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2285147","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\/739"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2285147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2285147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2285148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2285147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2285147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2285147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}