Thread by @DailySignal

If you don’t like The Daily Signal because you think conservatives should be silent or you just don’t want certain stories told, fine.

It’s a free country.

But to smear us as engaging in dishonest journalism is well … dishonest journalism.

And that’s what just happened.

The @Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which describes itself as a group that “champions freedom of expression, civil dialogue and compelling journalism that helps citizens participate in healthy democracies,” has put us on its list of “unreliable news websites."

@Poynter What does that mean?

Well, frankly, it’s a little hard to know because the site @Poynter Institute is relying on for this citation—OpenSources—is a blank web page, according to the link Poynter provided on its list.

(So much for transparency!)

@Poynter According to @Poynter, OpenSources lists us as “Extreme Bias: Sources that come from a particular point of view and may rely on propaganda, decontextualized information, and opinions distorted as facts.”

@Poynter But given that the linked website for OpenSources is blank (without even contact information) and Poynter never reached out to give us a chance to respond to what they perceived as specific instances of bias, it’s hard to know where to begin to defend ourselves.

@Poynter It’s also impossible to discern what exactly they mean by “bias” since they explicitly said @ThinkProgress (the news website of far-left @CAPAction) and @TheIntercept (which recently helped @AOC spread #GreenNewDeal propaganda) are reliable sources of news.

@Poynter @thinkprogress @CAPAction @theintercept @AOC Also not on the list? MSNBC, Mother Jones, The Nation, and The Guardian—all well known for their liberal perspective.

Turns out the list was compiled by Barrett Golding who @FreeBeacon reports is an employee of @splcenter.

So let’s do something novel and talk about some facts.

@Poynter @thinkprogress @CAPAction @theintercept @AOC @FreeBeacon @splcenter First, we have a green rating from @NewsGuardRating—an organization run by journalists that analyzes news sites’ content and rates them accordingly.

That rating is the same that major mainstream media outlets such as @CNN, @NYTimes, and @WSJ have.

And we deserve that rating

@Poynter @thinkprogress @CAPAction @theintercept @AOC @FreeBeacon @splcenter @NewsGuardRating @CNN @nytimes @WSJ At the end of the day, we think journalism should be about the truth.

Yes, we are part of @heritage (a tie we have always been transparent about) and we come from a conservative perspective—ut we go to great trouble to be transparent and clear...

@Poynter @thinkprogress @CAPAction @theintercept @AOC @FreeBeacon @splcenter @NewsGuardRating @CNN @nytimes @WSJ @Heritage ... including labeling all our stories as news, analysis, commentary, or feature, to make sure no one mistakes an op-ed for a news story.

If Poynter had bothered to contact us, we could have shared all this with them.

@Poynter @thinkprogress @CAPAction @theintercept @AOC @FreeBeacon @splcenter @NewsGuardRating @CNN @nytimes @WSJ @Heritage Unfortunately the once revered journalism institute has shown itself willing to be just another member of the activist left.

Instead of making a good-faith effort to distinguish true fake news sites from fair, accurate news sites across the ideological spectrum...

@Poynter @thinkprogress @CAPAction @theintercept @AOC @FreeBeacon @splcenter @NewsGuardRating @CNN @nytimes @WSJ @Heritage ... Poynter decided simply to label a bunch of conservative news sites as fake news (and yet somehow, so very strangely, managed not to smear any big liberal news site in the same way).

@Poynter @thinkprogress @CAPAction @theintercept @AOC @FreeBeacon @splcenter @NewsGuardRating @CNN @nytimes @WSJ @Heritage What’s more, Poynter made it clear it wasn’t just here to provide information, but to encourage boycotts and blacklisting of conservative sites.

“We hope that the index will be useful for advertisers that want to stop funding misinformation,” wrote list author Barrett Golding.

@Poynter @thinkprogress @CAPAction @theintercept @AOC @FreeBeacon @splcenter @NewsGuardRating @CNN @nytimes @WSJ @Heritage This is a real shame.

American journalism is in crisis right now.

If an organization really wanted to make a good-faith effort to hold journalists accountable, there’s ample opportunity.

@Poynter @thinkprogress @CAPAction @theintercept @AOC @FreeBeacon @splcenter @NewsGuardRating @CNN @nytimes @WSJ @Heritage Unfortunately, with its new list, Poynter showed that censuring and ostracizing conservative news sites, not standing up for the truth, is its real goal.

@Poynter @thinkprogress @CAPAction @theintercept @AOC @FreeBeacon @splcenter @NewsGuardRating @CNN @nytimes @WSJ @Heritage Baybars Orsek, director of Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network, emailed our editor-in-chief @KatrinaTrinko and said “We are taking all evaluation requests seriously.”

@Poynter @thinkprogress @CAPAction @theintercept @AOC @FreeBeacon @splcenter @NewsGuardRating @CNN @nytimes @WSJ @Heritage @KatrinaTrinko We’re hoping that means that smearing conservative new sites is a temporary misstep for Poynter—not a permanent change from journalism organization to liberal activist group.