As we do every four years, PJ Media is gearing up for the 2024 election. It’s a busy time for our writers and editors as we work to keep up with news that seems to be flowing from a firehose. We often forgo vacations and days off and work late nights to keep readers informed.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that this could be the most important election most of us have lived through. If Joe Biden manages to limp through the next several months and somehow wins (by hook or crook), it would be devastating to the America we know and love. Illegal immigrants will continue to flow through our open borders, we’ll likely get embroiled in more wars, the nation (and the world) will be less safe, and the Left’s hegemony will continue, untethered to either reality or the rule of law.
That’s why we’re willing to put in the long hours, dig deep in our reporting, and work extra hard to fact-check the Left’s lies. It’s all worth it because we love our country.
But the Left is working overtime, too, and unlike in past years, we’re facing enormous headwinds designed to cripple us financially and smear our reputation.
A case in point is an organization called NewsGuard that purports to be the arbiter of truth. While they claim to be unbiased in their fact-checking (which is included automatically in the Microsoft Edge browser and via extensions for others), they go the extra mile to slap conservative sites with “Nutrition Ratings” that warn advertisers to avoid certain content.
I’ve gone back and forth several times with this organization. When they first contacted me, it seemed like a good-faith effort to ensure we disclosed our ownership, had a corrections policy, etc. It soon became clear that they wanted me to change articles that went against the Preferred Narrative on topics like global warming, abortion, voter fraud, and their number one target, the COVID-19 pandemic. Refusing to toe the government’s party line and that of the so-called “scientific community” resulted in a bad rating for us. Readers are warned to “proceed with caution” before navigating to our site, which they say “severely violates basic journalistic standards,” yada, yada, yada.
For the record, our publisher, Jonathan Garthwaite, told me to “Ignore them; they’ve proven to be oblivious to their own bias and Left-wing agenda.”
“They can’t be allowed to be judge, jury, and executioner to what is acceptable political and cultural analysis in a free country,” he added.
They don’t get to tell us what we write or determine what the truth is on every issue the Left cares about.
Today, they are hosting “a pre-election briefing from NewsGuard’s research team,” offering “a chance to discuss these topics with like-minded advertising and agency professionals”:
The US Presidential Election is just nine months away. Amidst increasing political polarization, AI-generated misinformation about political candidates, and malign actors threatening the integrity of the democratic process, brand and agency teams are on high alert for brand reputation violations and misaligned ad placements that jeopardize brand safety. [Emphasis added]
The panel will discuss “‘Fraudulent’ and ‘Rigged’: How to keep your brand away from forthcoming election hoaxes when the stakes are high.”
I wonder what that’s about?
Understand this: the playing field is not remotely level when it comes to ad revenue. This supposedly non-partisan organization is warning advertisers away from sites like PJ Media ahead of the 2024 election and putting their thumbs on the scale when it comes to election integrity. One of the main reasons we launched our VIP program was to protect ourselves from these financial hits, which just keep coming. Reader-supported content is the only way we can survive in this environment.
If you’d like to join us in the fight, you can sign up to be a VIP member here for around $2/month for a standard membership and $4/month for Gold, which gets you access to exclusive content at all of the Townhall Media Sites: PJ Media, Townhall, RedState, Twitchy, and Bearing Arms. Use the promo code BIGTECH to activate the discount.
Make no mistake: We will continue to report on instances of voter fraud whether they like it or not, even if that means our ad revenue dries up. This issue is too important to cede to the Left.
Thanks in advance for helping keep us afloat in these troubled times and partnering with us for the cause of liberty.