Topic: Media Research Center
In an Aug. 11 NewsBusters post, designated New York Times-basher Clay Waters complained about a Times story about the rise in nationalism being driven by right-wing anti-Muslim group. He referenced a 2017 statement by President Trump citing an alleged attack caused by refugees in a Swedish town -- false because there was no such attack -- then claimed "reality showed Trump had a point" because "masked men" led an attack in that town two days after Trump's false statement.
Never underestimate the extent to which the Media Research Center will defend President Trump's record of false and misleading statements.
Waters was even more put out by a description of the right-wing Gatestone Institute as an "Islamophobic think tank" that pushes "disinformation." He huffed in response: "Judge their “Islamophobia” (a word the paper irresponsibly tosses around to rope in its political enemies) for yourselves if the stories are hateful and misleading or not."
Other people have read the Gatestone Institute's website and found that it does, in fact, peddle anti-Muslim misinformation -- us, for one. We've caught WorldNetDaily repeating a bogus Gatestone story claiming the number of new mosques in France outnumbering the number of new churches.
We're not the only ones. NBC News reported that Gatestone "has promoted misleading and false anti-Muslim news, some of which was amplified by a Russian troll factory." The Intercept added:
The fact-checking website Snopes has found multiple false viral stories originating with Gatestone. For instance, the site claimed falsely that in London — called “Londonistan” in the piece — 423 mosques were built “on the sad ruins of English Christianity,” as 500 churches closed. But the story cherry-picked the data to ignore hundreds of newly opened churches.
Many of the fake stories have percolated into mainstream U.S. politics. Gatestone was largely responsible that there are “no-go zones” through Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Sweden, and other European states where Muslim immigrants have set up a parallel society in which local police no longer enforce the law.
The Intercept reported one other interesting tidbit: Right-wing donor Rebekah Mercer, was reportedly a Gatestone board member in 2017, when her name was scrubbed from the website after her presence was reported, and her family foundation has donated at least $150,000 to Gatestone.
You know what other right-wing organization's board Mercer sits on? The Media Research Center. What a coincidence. Needless to say, Waters did not disclose this connection to its readers.
