Jihad Watch reader John recently called my attention to “Media Bias/Fact Check,” which claims to be “The Most Comprehensive Media Bias Resource,” but is actually yet another hard-Left site that tries to discredit all who dissent from their agenda by falsely claiming that they’re presenting inaccurate information.
Predictably, Media Bias/Fact Check finds Jihad Watch to be a “Questionable Source.” It claims that “in general, all stories on Jihad Watch serve as propaganda to frame Muslims negatively, while portraying Christians/Americans as persecuted and in danger.” Anyone who actually reads Jihad Watch will know that we cover jihad activity around the world, not just in the U.S. and against Christians, but there is a reason behind Media Bias/Fact Check’s inaccurate claim here. It goes on to say: “The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled Robert Spencer a White Nationalist, while the Anti-Defamation League has done the same.”
Note that this site devoted to media accuracy has the same link in that sentence for both the SPLC and the ADL. It’s an SPLC link; the ADL doesn’t like me at all, but to my knowledge has never defamed me as a white nationalist. The SPLC’s “evidence” that I’m a white nationalist is based solely on an article I wrote in 2011, defending Western civilization. The article simply criticized multiculturalism. It did not discuss race at all. The SPLC states: “Spencer’s piece is punctuated with a recommended reading list that might have been taken from the bookshelf of John Tanton, the racist architect of the modern nativist movement.” I had nothing to do with the compilation of that reading list, and did not see it before the piece was published. None of the books on it are genuinely racist; they’re simply against mass migration of non-Europeans into Europe, the devastating effects of which we are seeing now.
The SPLC article also refers to “Anthony M. Esolen’s The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization, which was published by the white nationalist Regnery Press…” Regnery Publishing is not “white nationalist.” It is a leading mainstream conservative publishing house that has published books by numerous mainstream conservative figures, including David Horowitz, Dinesh D’Souza, Ann Coulter, etc.
I saw on Media Bias an address to contact them and ask for corrections, and sent them this:
To the editor:
I challenge you to produce evidence of any inaccurate story that we have ever posted at Jihad Watch and not corrected or taken down once we learned it was not accurate.
I further challenge you to produce evidence of your claim that I am a white nationalist.
These claims are pure libel.
Robert Spencer
Director
Jihad Watch
Of course I got no answer. Sites such as Media Bias/Fact Check aren’t genuinely interested in accuracy at all. They’re just defamation factories for the hard Left.
The Media Bias/Fact Check site does contain some examples of stories at Jihad Watch it claims are false:
A factual search reveals numerous failed fact checks by IFCN fact checkers.
- Sweden has begun referring to “Christmas” as “Winter Celebration” in to appease their Muslim population. – FALSE
- Maine’s House Democrats voted to allow female genital mutilation. – FALSE
- Somali Muslim refugees “took over” the small town of Shelbyville, Tennessee and targeted local Christians with “violent Islamic crimes”. – FALSE
- “House Democrats strike to implement Sharia law!!” – PANTS ON FIRE
Let’s take these in order.
1. The Jihad Watch post makes it quite clear that it was not “Sweden,” as Snopes has it, but “one of Sweden’s leading regional dailies” that referred to Christmas as the Winter Celebration. And it did. Snopes sets up a straw man by claiming that we represented this as Swedish government policy, which we never did.
2. Snopes’ false claims about the supposed inaccuracy of the Jihad Watch post are refuted here.
3. Most of the Snopes article is claiming that Freedom Daily, not Jihad Watch, got a story wrong. Freedom Daily quotes from this Jihad Watch post. All the alleged inaccuracies that Snopes points out are in the Freedom Daily article, not the one from Jihad Watch.
4. There is no mention of or link to Jihad Watch in the story linked from Politifact. The story does link an article I wrote at FrontPage, saying: “Some websites said the resolution would equate hate speech with violence.” This is presented at PolitiFact as self-evidently false. It is not false. It has become much clearer in the last few years that equating “hate speech” with violence is a central part of the Left’s agenda.
mortimer says
No one will find one sentence in the voluminous of Robert Spencer that solicits intolerance or cruelty or discrimination on the basis of a person’s religion.
Robert Spencer is one of the least bigoted people you will ever meet. Robert Spencer believes that everybody’s human rights should be respected.
mortimer says
Leftist McCarthyism.
Angemon says
McCarthy was right.
mortimer says
McCarthy’s methods were wrong. I am referring to LEFTIST MCCARTHYISM.
https://thenationalsentinel.com/2019/04/09/the-left-used-to-hate-mccarthyism-and-blacklists-until-they-began-using-them-to-deny-trump-officials-employment/
CRUSADER says
Hail the “57” !
Angemon has an opinion, as does thebigW
— and so does mortimer.
All are valued posters at Jihad Watch….
I would err to side on the former not the latter, in this case!
Liz says
You spend everyday calling out an ideology that partnered with the Nazis to exterminate the Jewish people. You call out the torture, rape, abuse and murder of peoples of all colors, thank you.
You are a champion of human rights!
Paul says
Your sources are all identified and can be checked. Theres nothing fake about whats reported. Also how can you give a negative spin to a bomb outrage, to someone being beheaded or children being married off to old men. They are evil in any developed society above the caveman level.
I also know Mr Spencer uses a fraction of the stories sent to him. So he could report worse stories especially the obscene.
Why can’t people take their ideological red coloured glasses off and see the reality in bombings, executions and human rights abuses worldwide.
Paul
Mark Swan says
Defamation Sells—The SPLC and Media Bias/Fact Check Know this as fact,
even if they did not practice it themselves, they observe the mainstream media
competing for that defamation dollar. None of them show any shame in doing so.
Lydia Church says
Wow. A white nationalist!
You see? Next they can label us as terrorists.
That was the latest link over the weekend that I commented on here in several places.
Instead of going after the real terrorists and threats, they will be knocking on our doors instead!
They deny the truth about persecution of Christians, and instead slap the victim label on muslims and others who are not persecuted.
We are being singled out and targeted and it is accelerating as we can see.
I mentioned that movie “The Hunt” yesterday and Pamela has a post on it now too.
She is getting canceled at events again also.
Truth? Facts? Evidence?
None of that matters to them. Whatever means to accomplish their agenda is all they care about.
It will only get worse. Again, I’m not trying to be a pessimist. But there is that saying that when the Holocaust started…
“The pessimists fled and ended up with a pool in Hollywood, and the optimists took residence in Auschwitz or the Warsaw ghetto.”
It’s not that we win if we defeat them.
We win… if we stand up to them.
Those are the heroes of history, whether they lived or died.
That article on The New American about the French Revolution also mentioned how they wanted to de-Christianize the land, and many did die as a result. The guillotine was a big martyr making machine over there and I never heard about this in history class! They hide all of these things. And according to the article, it was a secret society behind it all, one that is very much alive and well and into globalism today. Many interesting articles over there too.
On another chilling note, I read many years ago that they have been importing that ‘machine’ over here to the US. Some truck drivers noticed this and started asking questions. Apparently they stumbled onto something with that. Then there was all that talk years ago about them creating ‘camps’ here too, sort of hidden but they are fenced in and have a lookout tower and all the typical elements. I’m just saying that’s what I read.
Robert, we are glad you are feeling better!
Keep up the good fight no matter what!
And keep up your health.
I posted a health list a while back for you (about eating lots of fruit and stuff), and forgot to add a little daily exercise to the list. Just a little walk or swim, nothing too over the top because you don’t want to set off another similar physical issue.
Love and peace to you and your family!
CRUSADER says
THE NEW AMERICAN
— slogan : “That freedom shall not perish.”
https://www.thenewamerican.com/about
gravenimage says
Media Bias/Fact Check defames Robert Spencer and Jihad Watch, ignores request for evidence of their claims
…………………………….
In other words, Media Bias is biased, and Fact Check is not checking their facts.
The idea that opposing Jihad terror–including in Africa, the Middle East, Asia–is “white nationalist” is grotesque. And never mind that Jihad Watch has many contributors of color, including Christine Douglass-Williams and Anjuli Pandavar.
mortimer says
“MediaBias” is not checking their conclusions versus the facts. They are SLANDERING Robert Spencer, realizing that most people haven’t read any of Robert Spencer’s voluminous comments.
Canada’s spy agency (CSIS) and the RCMP were called in to find evidence of Robert Spencer’s hate speech. When they could find NOTHING in anything he wrote that could be condemned, they asked Robert Spencer to incriminate himself and were unable to do so.
Scotland Yard in England (working for the Home Office) was similarly unable to find anything at all in Robert Spencer’s comments with which to prove he was a ‘hater’ or bigoted. Nevertheless, Theresa May working on a political agenda of pleasing Arab countries banned Robert Spencer to prevent Britons from learning about Islam’s doctrinal basis for its normative jihad terrorism.
Only a bad or vicious idea needs to be shielded from examination.
Islam is a motherlode of bad, vicious ideas.
gravenimage says
True, Mortimer.
DiploNerd says
We need to report Media Bias/Fact Check to Media Bias/Fact Check.
CRUSADER says
Why don’t we ask this group do it for us? :
https://www.ask-a-muslim.com/
(Ask A Muslim !)
Emilie Green says
The clarion call has gone out, far and wide.
“Use ‘white nationalist’ alot. If unsure, use it anyway. You can never defame anyone we consider on the right. Have at it. Do not accept the truth as any sort of defense as such an assertion is itself a manifestation of white privilege.”
CRUSADER says
Clarion Project :
https://clarionproject.org/pve/
Henry Mansfield says
Snopes, Politifact, YouTube, Wikipedia… the list of tech companies and blogs posing as arbiters of truth and being exposed as biased grows.
In a Facebook discussion group I mentioned Tommy Robinson as being the first person I heard talk about the network of Muslim pedophiles operating there for decades. A college professor asked when this was, and I replied it was a video where Robinson spoke of a female relative being victimized. It appears that was when Robinson began comparing notes with others and learned his relative wasn’t exactly an isolated incident.
This other person asked for me to find a video I must have seen a decade ago, and got snippy when I couldn’t.
I used to see those videos Robinson either starred in or narrated on a weekly basis, now after using YouTube’s search function I could only find the recent video of him being arrested.
Does that seem a little odd to anyone else?
CRUSADER says
Dots exist in isolation, usually.
Connecting dots is tremendously important;
where the valuable work begins from…toward Action!
marc says
More on snopes, the true source of the fictitious claims of inaccuracy at Jihadwatch:
https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2019/06/10/snopes-debunker-of-fake-news-is-locked-in-a-nasty-legal-dispute
https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2018/snopes-fired-its-managing-editor-%C2%97-and-she-doesnt-know-why/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/12/22/the-daily-mail-snopes-story-and-fact-checking-the-fact-checkers/#eb753c8227f8
so questionable all around.
marc says
“…at the least what does emerge from my exchanges with Snopes’ founder is the image of the ultimate black box presenting a gleaming veneer of ultimate arbitration of truth, yet with absolutely no insight into its inner workings. While technology pundits decry the black boxes of the algorithms that increasingly power companies like Facebook, they have forgotten that even the human-powered sites offer us little visibility into how they function.”
Joe says
Project Veritas has been covering some of the high-tech bigots, and it is not pretty.
CRUSADER says
Gratitude, marc, for your efforts.
Angemon says
Snopes fact-checks a satirical news website. That’s how “reliable” they are.
marc says
their war with Babylon Bee is hillarious https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/a-christian-satire-site-is-pushing-a-conspiracy-that-fact
gravenimage says
Yes–I heard about this. It’s like “fact checking” the Onion or SNL.
gravenimage says
Just despicable–people rely on Snopes to tell the truth.
Rod says
It claims that “in general, all stories on Jihad Watch serve as propaganda to frame Muslims negatively, while portraying Christians/Americans as persecuted and in danger.”
Anybody who spends five minutes on this site can see that this claim is true. Not as an opinion, but as an easily demonstrable fact. Yes, easily.
But apparently it isn’t. You’re being told that the obvious, in plain sight, is invisible. Isn’t that insulting to you?
Would this be a good time for some of you, perhaps, to take your courage in both hands and face reality?
gravenimage says
Can “Rod” point to anything that Jihad Watch has gotten wrong? Of course he can’t.
Perhaps he should give some thought as to why telling the truth about Islam makes it look bad to civilized people.
Mark Swan says
The reality is Rod, that for years this site has exposed Islam for what it is—a real
threat to any free society—Westerners should worry about the growing influence
of Islam and of Sharia law.
Many individual Muslims seem to be good neighbors and good citizens, hoping only to “convert” unbelievers by their personal example. However, according to Islamic teaching, Muslims must make all effort to convert or subjugate unbelievers. What about those who will not convert to Islam? Regulations derived from the hadith—the purported sayings
of Muhammad—
More than 90 verses in the Qur’an counsel war against the “unbelievers”—(e.g. Surahs 4:101; 5:51; 9:29), and prescribe execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands
and feet from opposite sides.
From its inception, Islam has been a conquering religion, and Sharia law has become established as the code under which all aspects of conquered societies must submit.
This militant, political, proselytizing, ideology has not changed.
But you can.
gravenimage says
So true, Mark.
CRUSADER says
Rod, take your moniker in both your hands and sit and spin on it!
Demsci says
Answer: This claim by Media Bias/ Fact-check is without context. Perhaps they give some context. But this sentence cannot be the whole truth, after objective evaluation. It lies by enormous omission.
JW is not about propaganda, but yes, it is coming from Islam-critical Islam experts.
Many like to think that we abhor Islam because, among other reasons, Islam is contradicted in a positive way by our current democratic civilization, it’s laws, values and interests. As Islam is from the 7th century and much of our civilization started with 18th century Enlightenment, which of course built on Judea-Christian principles.
We engage in anti-Islam rhetoric and it’s influence on Muslims. It is clear that the ONLY anti-Muslim rhetoric here is about the choice of Muslims for this obsolete Islam, and their actions in the name of Islam, so hostile and obstructing for what many of us cherish. This has nothing to do with racism. Ex-Muslims are often favorites here.
But all religions and ideologies, and parties, including our own, do have their detractors. And their propagandists, apologists. It is thus not as if Islam is singled out for criticism.
And if for Islam there can only be the praise and the support of admirers and not the blame of critics, while all Islam’s competitors have both, that is not fair, that is singling out Islam for unique special beneficial treatment. Especially when this praise and support, which often IS propaganda, PRO-ISLAM, is well sponsored by government and rich Arab Muslims, seems so much bigger than small websites like JW. Denouncing JW is removing what balance there now is for fair judgement of Islam.
Angemon says
“It claims that “in general, all stories on Jihad Watch serve as propaganda to frame Muslims negatively, while portraying Christians/Americans as persecuted and in danger.””
Ah, so the problem is not with, for example, muslims murdering Christians in Nigeria, it’s just that pointing it “portrays muslims negatively and Christians as persecuted”. Got it…
“Anybody who spends five minutes on this site can see that this claim is true. Not as an opinion, but as an easily demonstrable fact. Yes, easily.”
Is any of the stories here false?
CRUSADER says
Thank you, Mr Spencer.
It likely takes less effort and energy to refute the lies than it takes the looney leftists to fabricate their lies!
We also get the sense that a very humongously big lie (the koran) took many decades to piece together, and still there are so many holes in it, with enormous falsehoods and nonsensical verses, that it resembles nibbled and moldy Swiss cheese. Only the gullible and the ignorant and the truly vile would believe in its words.
sidney penny says
“I saw on Media Bias an address to contact them and ask for corrections, and sent them this:
To the editor:
I challenge you to produce evidence of any inaccurate story that we have ever posted at Jihad Watch and not corrected or taken down once we learned it was not accurate.”
Everyone should watch this video of Robert Spencer’s Challenge.It relates to his books but could apply to this Jihad Watch site
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/05/cal-poly-free-speech-under-attack-in-academia
fast forward to ..
from 159.19 to 200.36
Watch the whole questions and answers.( about 15 minutes)
Charles says
I used to question the critics of Islam and their motives, until I downloaded translations of the Quran and Hadith, as well as works like the Histories by Al Tabari. Facts are demonstrable by self evident truths. One only needs to take the time to read. It was the same power that Robert Bellarmine used against Galileo and Giordano Bruno. The Church was that ariter of power, wealth and knowledge, and tried to silence dissent in all forms. But the truths were self evident to any who took the time to read the sources. Pay no heed to the “pay for smear” tactics of the SPLC and its satellite organizations. They try to destroy people with smears, but the demonstrable truths discredit them, not their targets.
gravenimage says
+1
infidel says
Had Robert Spencer been even 1% racist, myself a proud brown skinned Hindu from India would never even have visited this site.. leave alone be here for very long now and actively participating…
gravenimage says
+1
ntesdorf says
‘Media Bias/Fact Check’ is entirely biased and totally free of any facts.
Lotus says
The problem with a site like Media Bias is that it can be used as a source for those who wish to silence people like Robert. That takes the form of deplatforming, in either cyber or virtual form. Hence the refusal for Robert to enter the UK, or refusal to allow him to take part in a debate at a university or similar event.
When I began reading Robert’s articles and books, I liked the fact that he sticks to the facts and that he does not advocate violence against individual muslims or their mosques. There are a lot of nutcases on the internet, and most people will be turned off by their rants. See for example the controversy this week about 8chan.
People like Robert and Raymond Ibrahim are saying with clarity and integrity what needs to be said, but too few people are listening. That is so sad.
It reminds me of a traditional sufi story, ‘When the Water was Changed’ (version of Idries Shah).
Robert and those like him have ‘stored the water’ of western civilisation and its pluralist democratic values, but most people have already begun drinking the new water, which leads them to believe islamic supremacist ideology is no threat. One day they will regret this.
When the Water was Changed
Once upon a time Khidr, the teacher of Moses, called upon mankind with a warning. At a certain date, he said, all the water in the world which had not been specially hoarded, would disappear. It would then be renewed, with different water, which would drive men mad.
Only one man listened to the meaning of this advice. He collected water and went to a secure place where he stored it, and waited for the water to change its character.
On the appointed date the streams stopped running, the wells went dry, and the man who had listened, seeing this happening, went to his retreat and drank his preserved water.
When he saw, from his security, the waterfalls again beginning to flow, this man descended among the other sons of men. He found that they were thinking and talking in an entirely different way from before; yet they had no memory of what had happened, nor of having been warned. When he tried to talk to them, he realized that they thought that he was mad, and they showed hostility or compassion, not understanding.
At first, he drank none of the new water, but went back to his concealment, to draw on his supplies, every day. Finally, however, he took the decision to drink the new water because he could not bear the loneliness of living, behaving and thinking in a different way from everyone else.
He drank the new water, and became like the rest. Then he forgot all about his own store of special water, and his fellows began to look upon him as a madman who had miraculously been restored to sanity. ***
KWJ says
Yet another defamation website that can’t back up its claims and is lying. I guess we can put Media Bias/Fact Check on a list of unreliable, propaganda websites with vague language along the lines of “somebody said.” Really, “extreme right, propaganda, conspiracy, hate group”?
What is extreme right? The Qur’an, Islam, the latest Yemeni Jew Hater MEMRI TV has on their channel spewing hate at Friday prayers? Over 100 years worth of Islam scholars? Bat Ye’or’s book quoting UN conferences clearly stating the OIC’s goals? The Muslim Brotherhood’s goals since 1928? Conspiracies can be false or true…it means people conspiring and there’s no doubt about that. I guess ex-Muslims too are conspiracy theory nuts? If numerous sources, especially those right out of thousands of Muslim demagogues, imams, sheiks, teachers, etc. mouths, they, in fact, make it very clear that there is no wild conspiracy. This website are liars.
They say: “Overall, we rate Jihad Watch a Questionable source based on Extreme Right bias, promotion of propaganda and conspiracies, use of poor sources, numerous failed fact checks and links to individuals associated with hate groups.”
What are “numerous” failed fact checks? 3, 5, 10, 50 over how many years JW has existed? Can they name a substantial number when even mainstream media is constantly having to correct their articles? What exactly constitutes propaganda? Truth backed up by evidence? That Islam is clearly a threat, again, out of Muslims’ own mouths such as Muslim political parties in Brussels to Canada that state they want sharia law. A list would be handy.
Links to hate groups. Uhh, such as Muslims themselves hating on Jews, non-Muslims, Western culture also backed up by all of Islam’s holy books.
They say: “ It has been repeatedly criticized by numerous academics who believe that it promotes an Islamophobic worldview and conspiracy theories.“
Who are these “numerous academics”? Got any names? Ones paid by Islamic groups and foreign governments? Muslim Brotherhood affiliates? The likes of ridiculous propagandists such as Edward Said? Besides “Islamophobia” being a nonsense word, it is Muslims themselves throughout history who have created the view of themselves which is almost too obvious to even state. I suppose Islamic countries’ laws and discrimination against non-Muslims would be an excellent source of Islamic thought and culture and how Islam behaves and operates. Is Media Bias/Fact Check denying this? Is the OIC’s demand for universal blasphemy laws which Hillary and Obama were part of and Hillary rejected it but said “We’ll use good ol shaming and peer pressure” since we have free speech-is that some nutty conspiracy that the OIC clearly has an Islamic jihad to spread Islamic laws throughout the world? (which is what jihad is per Muhammad.)
Robert is a “white nationalist”? Lol. Does he repeatedly talk about non-white people coming here or being here? No. Has he complained about Hindu Indians who are “brown”? No. He has talked about India’s historical horrible invasion by Muslims.
They say: “In general, all stories on Jihad Watch serve as propaganda to frame Muslims negatively, while portraying Christians/Americans/other around the world as persecuted and in danger.”
Christians ARE endangered in the world which even Hillary Clinton said while Secretary of State but it’s very obvious from Nigeria to Pakistan, Egypt to Iraq where their numbers have dramatically dwindled and with this, as they are a minority in Islamic countries, they need defending. If it’s Muslims and their governments causing this, besides being major hypocrites by expecting the West to be so charitable while they are not, it should be stressed just as China putting Muslims in re-education camps. But Muslim groups are more interested in conquering the West.
They can check Breitbart’s sources but JW has plenty others including international newspapers in those countries own press.
More projection from the left and outright lying and obfuscation and it’s shameful and disgusting. I am hardly far right and their use of “extremist” is also disgusting propaganda. If I thought Robert and other writers here were “white nationalists” I wouldn’t read JW because there are plenty of other sources, and for the third time, right out of Muslims’ own mouths and the Qur’an which the SPLC and Media Bias are effectively calling a hate book and hate speech which is undeniable.
I’m also an atheist and have voted both Democrat and Republican depending on policies and the need for checks and balances. So, the truth and necessary exposure to Islamic propaganda and outright lies just as websites counter wrong or one-sided history narratives is necessary, prudent, and being vigilant of threats in all areas. These purveyors of anti-free speech and the poor lemmings listening to them will one day wish they had not been on the bad side of history. A friend in Iran had said thank you for telling people the truth but has now decided that Europeans, et al., deserve what they get and they are beyond repair. The media in the US has become very disturbing more than any time in my lifetime. Congress is a mess…both sides.
Keep up the good work exposing the lies, propaganda and agendas that fuel them. I know JW is more honest than the SPLC and its fellow ilk.