MRC Continues Bogus Attack On Media Literacy Programs

The Media Research Center’s Tim Kilcullen wasn’t done doing shoddy and wildly biased “media research” about a government grant program, in which he also viciously smeared Germans as censorious Nazis. He had a second, related report that appeared in a Jan. 17 post filled with much of the same. He started this way:

In Part 1 of this report, the MRC Censorship Investigation Project uncovered how the Biden administration used the federal government to silence Americans who don’t support its leftist agenda through a year-long series of State Department seminars that trained teachers to use censorship tools in their classrooms. Now in Part 2, we detail how the federal government is using taxpayer money from the Department of Homeland Security’s terrorist prevention program to censor conservatives nationwide. 

Like the State Department before it, the DHS is using the University of Rhode Island’s Media Education Lab (the “Rhode Island Lab”) to accomplish its anti-American goals of training teachers to use censorship tools in the classroom and silence political dissent. Biden’s DHS approved a three-phase censorship strategy, set to culminate close to the 2024 presidential election. 

The DHS funded this endeavor through the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Grant Program. MRC Free Speech America previously reported on this controversial program and how it has been weaponized to target Christians, conservatives and the Republican Party.

We’ve documented how Kilcullen and Luis Cornelio’s TVTP grant report, released last May, was such a mess and so filled with bogus claims that even Fox News felt compelled to fact-check it and correct the record. Kilcullen went on to rant about how supposedly mean things were said about certain conservatives:

Phase 1 of this strategy was the launch of a public awareness campaign, featuring DHS-commissioned blog posts attacking former President Donald Trump, “MAGA supporters,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, free speech and the Second Amendment. The campaign also included controversial podcasts, panel discussions and community events to generate support for censorship. The blog-post portion of the campaign used incendiary language disparaging Biden’s political opponents, all funded with taxpayer dollars. Examples include: 

• “We are all living in a darker, scarier, angrier, less hopeful country thanks to Mr. Trump’s influence. Are we on the verge of civil war?”
• “Donald Trump was also adopting the shock-jock style that Rush Limbaugh built into a cultural phenomenon, including his misogynistic and racist comments, conspiracy theories, and grievances.”
• “It won’t be easy, but we really have to reduce Trump’s influence” 
• “[I]t’s tempting and entertaining to tune into the circuses of the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, Louis Farrakans [sic], and MAGA supporters.”
• “It turns out even Fox Media has limits on how much misogyny and racism it will tolerate from its stars–witness the canceling of Tucker Carlson’s show last week.”

Kilcullen didn’t dispute the accuracy of any of those statements, nor did he explain how Louis Farrakhan became a Trump supporter. Then he was back to dishonestly portraying media literacy as “censorship”:

Phase 3 of the recently launched strategy provides cash prizes of up to $1,000 for children who create social media posts to increase demand for “media literacy” mandates — a euphemism for censorship. The program mimics the German socialist model introduced as part of the Rhode Island Lab’s partnership with the State Department, which focuses on pushing teachers to turn children into “media producers.” 

• To enhance this astroturf campaign, Biden’s DHS selected the leftist lobbying group “Media Literacy Now,” which lobbies state legislatures for laws requiring “media literacy.” Media Literacy Now has a revenue-sharing agreement with Ad Fontes, the company that provides the “Media Bias Chart” used to disparage conservative media. Because the two organizations also have overlapping board members and staff, they essentially function as a single enterprise.

Kilcullen served up his old tactic of personal attacks on people who didn’t follow right-wing narratives:

The launch event, which was a “packed” in-person ceremony, was followed by a series of virtual follow-up events dubbed “Courageous Conversations.” These community events were structured to promote “media literacy” strategies for tackingling [sic] “propaganda, disinformation, and conspiracy theories in social media.” In their events, [Renee] Hobbs and [Pam] Steager repeatedly reiterated that the entire “Courageous Conversations” were intended to be replicated across America so as to “keep the conversation going,” and that the Rhode Island Lab would be offering material support for participants willing to conduct an event of their own. 

Unsurprisingly, Steager and Hobbs used 2023’s “Courageous Conversations” to push far-left propaganda, with staff often jumping in to make provocative, politically-charged claims on pop culture and politics. Among the more outlandish inputs to their “conversations” were that “content moderation” could never be censorship, that Russia had “influence[d]” the 2016 election and that actress-turned-conservative activist Gina Carano had “a long history of making really creepy, antisemitic comments.”

Again, Kilcullen did not dispute the accuracy of any of those statements. Then, as he did in the TVTP grant report, he failed to understand how pyramid graphics work:

One May 2023 event, titled “Feelings and Facts,” ordered participants to explore an interactive “Conspiracy Chart.” The chart provided a list of alleged conspiracy theories that it described as past “THE ANTISEMITIC POINT OF NO RETURN” and equivalent to “Holocaust denial.” Among the supposedly hateful “theories” were the idea that American institutions are permeated with “cultural Marxism” and use of the phrase “Trans Agenda.” The Conspiracy Chart also claimed the “only one sordid reason” why “conservative and far-right media” investigate George Soros (a prominent activist billionaire) is “because he is Jewish.” 

As Part 1 of this report detailed, the Rhode Island Lab pushed a curriculum created with money from Soros himself. This curriculum ordered teachers to use the censorship tool NewsGuard in their classrooms.

In fact, Kilcullen’s employer has used anti-Semitic tropes to attack Soros — something he failed to mention.

Kilcullen went on to whined that “Another ‘conspiracy theory’ the chart labeled as equivalent to “Holocaust denial” was belief in a  ‘deep state’ — a bureaucracy within the administrative state which sought to sabotage the Trump presidency.” Yet again, he refused to explain why the right-wing “deep state” obsession is real and not a conspiracy theory. He further complained that right-wing bias in Spanish-language media was called out:

A June 2023 event encouraged attendees to watch a propaganda video titled “Misinformation in the Latino Community.” In this video, NBC/Comcast pundit Carmen Sesin claimed that Florida’s shift towards Trump from the 2016 to 2020 was “absolutely” because of “disinformation” in “Spanish-language media.” 

This same video disparaged attendees at a rally for then-candidate (and now Republican Congresswoman) Monica de la Cruz and identified Telegram channels for nationally-syndicated radio host Dan Bongino and publication The Western Journal as problematic. The video claimed (without evidence) that Spanish-language radio channels like Actualidad 1040AM and Radio Mambi had spread disinformation against “Joe Biden” and that the stories may have come from Russia. 

The video also warned of “a wave of misinformation aimed at Latinos heading into 2022” that could hurt Democratic Party candidates and recommended that platforms like Meta and Telegram be more aggressive with their censorship efforts to prevent the spread of so-called misinformation.

As we documented when the MRC freaked out over interests partially funded by Soros purchasing certain radio stations, Miami’s Radio Mambi was, in fact, filled with disinformation and right-wing conspiracy theories. Shows on Actualidad 1040AM, also in Miami, have also spread right-wing misinformation.

Kilcullen also complained that one presenter “required students to read an essay by now-presidential candidate Cornel West, wherein he declared that ‘antisemitism has proven itself to be a powerful force in nearly every post of Western civilization where Christianity has a presence.'” That statement also went unchallenged, which raises the question of why he bothered to include it in the first place. He ranted further:

Another guest was then-Congressman David Cicilline, who joined the podcast to hawk his controversial book House on Fire. According to the book description on Amazon, “House on Fire identifies the key threat to our democracy—that the GOP has become a Trumpist authoritarian cult—and outlines how we fight back.” Cicilline resorted to similar incendiary language on the podcast, deriding a proposed Utah women’s rights law as “targeting trans kids” and demanding censorship legislation “to be sure that these [social media] platforms are responsible for the amplification of dangerous, toxic, untrue content” such as (in his words) “misinformation” from “Trump.” Steager enthusiastically endorsed Cicilline’s comments.

Cicilline concluded the podcast by saying that “media literacy ought to be taught in every single school in this country, and every grade, because it’s never too young to begin to develop those skills.” Steager responded “Thank you. We believe that too.”

Yet again, Kilcullen did not factually dispute anything Cicilline said or justify his implication that media literacy is a part of that. Instead, he quoted his boss:

“The left’s ‘whole of society approach’ is really about empowering leftwing organizations to fight against American values and democratic norms,” commented MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider. “It is clear that Cicilline realized that he would have more power as the head of the Rhode Island Foundation to push a leftwing agenda than he had as a duly-elected Member of Congress who chaired an influential committee. The usurpers of our Constitution are well organized and are colluding with the Biden administration to bring our democracy to an end.”

Schneider didn’t explain how only right-wing narratives, and not liberal ones, equate to “American values and democratic norms,” especially given that the current head of the Republican Party and presumed Republican candidate for president spread demonstrable lies about an election he lost and incited a riot to overturn election results he didn’t like.

As before, there’s much more here than can fit into a single blog. More soon.