salena zito
<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style=""><header class="editorial-fullheader" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><h1 class="editorial-fulltitle page-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 0.45455em; padding: 0px;"><span property="schema:name" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NY Post columnist and CNN contributor posts climate-denial tweet from QAnon conspiracy theorist</font></span></h1><p class="byline" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0.3rem; letter-spacing: 2px; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span class="bylinelabel" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-right: 0.5rem;">WRITTEN BY</span> <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/author/eric-kleefeld" hreflang="en" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">ERIC KLEEFELD</a></font></p><p class="byline" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0.3rem; letter-spacing: 2px; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="bylinelabel" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-right: 0.5rem;">RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM</span> <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/author/alex-kaplan" hreflang="en" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">ALEX KAPLAN</a></font></p><div class="dateline--group" style="box-sizing: border-box; align-items: center; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap;"><p class="dateline" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; letter-spacing: 2px; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span class="datelinelabel" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-right: 0.5rem;">PUBLISHED</span> <time datetime="2019-09-19T14:25:48-0400" style="box-sizing: border-box;">09/19/19 2:25 PM EDT</time></font></p></div></header><div class="editorial-fullarticle" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 2.25rem;"><div class="field field--name-field-stories-content field--type-entity-reference-revisions field--label-hidden" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Salena Zito, a columnist at the New York Post as well as a CNN contributor, reposted a climate-denial Twitter thread from a writer who is involved in a notorious far-right conspiracy theory.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Zito began as a local Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist and since the 2016 election has further built her career upon the rise of Donald Trump. (At the same time, she has <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/5/17791350/salena-zito-trump-voter-new-york-post-reporter-plagiarism-quotes" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">faced allegations of plagiarism</a>.)</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On September 19, Zito retweeted Martin Geddes, whose Twitter profile identifies his affiliation with the QAnon conspiracy theory.</font></p></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--twitter-tweet paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field field--name-field-twitter-tweet field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden field__item" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The “interesting thread” </span><a href="https://twitter.com/martingeddes/status/1174651890476474369" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">goes on to declare</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">: </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“There are many crimes & crises that are going to bury the progressive left over the next few years, but the one that will be their epitaph is Global Warming (aka ‘Climate Change’).”</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Geddes <a href="https://twitter.com/martingeddes" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">describes</a> himself as a “digital soldier,” and his profile includes a link to a piece he wrote that he describes as a “QAnon article that Medium censored.”</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">QAnon conspiracy theory</a> is based around an anonymous user on the far-right internet forum 8chan who signs cryptic posts as “Q.” The user claims to be a high-level member of the federal government, and dedicated believers look in these posts for clues about an alleged master plan by President Donald Trump to take down his “deep state” opponents and pedophilia rings supposedly linked to celebrities and politicians.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As for Geddes’ accusation that <b>global warming is “a political construct,” backed up by “people with PhDs (whose entire livelihood depends on agreeing with this)” --</b> wouldn’t it make more sense to think that the fossil fuel companies would pay more money for a science-on-demand racket, rather than university administrations?</font></p></div></div></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">salon</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There's an ideological war raging in the U.S. That's what Commentary magazine's John Podhoretz said in a <a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/podcast/commentary-podcast-which-side-are-you-on-boys/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">recent podcast</a>, anyways. And he's not wrong. It might not be a conflict as epic as the Second World War. It's not being fought on a battlefield or in research labs. But it is consuming much of the discourse in 2018, especially on Twitter.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Much of the battles involving the left appear to be partisan infighting: liberals pushing back against the dramatic shift to the left; Democratic Socialists assailing the liberal establishment. Conservatives, meanwhile, have seemingly abandoned any constructive introspection. "Owning the libs" has become their only battlecry.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The rise of President Donald Trump should have precipitated an ideological insurrection. But the most popular movement to come out of the right post-2016 was the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW), a quasi-informal group of political commentators and professors who've gained traction for its hostility towards American liberalism</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Bari Weiss, a conservative op-ed writer at The New York Times, introduced the IDW in a column earlier this year. In <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/intellectual-dark-web.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">the piece</a>, she elevated personalities such as Jordan Peterson, Dave Rubin, Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk, to name a few.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> They were grouped together not because of an ideology they shared, but because of an ideology they all rejected. The IDW criticizes most, if not all, policies and social movements that have arisen from America's liberal trajectory. Feminism, affirmative action, subsidized health care, Black Lives Matter, wealth distribution, immigration, all have come under fire by the IDW. Their main antagonist may be the "mainstream liberal media," which they vilify for propping up progressive causes. Because of this, conservative media has </span><a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/intellectual-dark-web-members-united-views-inequality/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">welcomed</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> these new voices into the tent, even though some </span><a href="https://twitter.com/zei_nabq/status/1035251766407974912" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">whitewash</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM64o5QoXsA" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">racism</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> and </span><a target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">anti-LGBTQ bigotry</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><div style="margin-bottom: 20px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some would argue that parts of right-wing media landscape have long been tainted. Before Trump announced his campaign for the presidency, certain writers and watchdog groups have monitored the debasement of conservative media. But since Trump took control of the White House, there has been a more aggressive push to discredit certain conservative personalities and websites. CNN's Brian Stelter has taken on some of the responsibility, as his show "Reliable Sources" seeks to call out journalistic malpractice from all sides.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nevertheless, the most formidable group that has consistently held conservative media's feet to the fire this past year or two has been a handful of anonymous Twitter accounts. These anonymous Twitter accounts — or anons — have fact-checked and criticized conservative journalism to the point that the right can no longer ignore them. Their media criticism has now become mainstream, frustrating conservatives who see this as a blatant attempt to delegitimize and silence right-wing voices.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some, if not most, of these Twitter anons were or are self-described conservatives. They include, but are not limited to: <a href="https://twitter.com/KT_So_It_Goes" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">@KT_So_It_Goes</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/UrbanAchievr" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">@UrbanAchievr</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/AtticusGF" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">@AtticusGF</a><strong>, </strong><a href="https://twitter.com/cnn94cnn" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">@cnn94cnn</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/PeterWaldoToo" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">@PeterWaldoToo</a>, </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><a data-aria-label-part="" href="https://twitter.com/ClenchedFisk" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">@ClenchedFisk</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/kbaxter" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">@kbaxter</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span><a dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/LesserFrederick" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">@LesserFrederick</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/ALTscoe" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">@ALTscoe</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> and </span><a href="https://twitter.com/classiclib3ral" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">@classiclib3ral</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. These anons have entered the limelight this past week, as some raised questions as to whether columnist</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Salena Zito has been fabricating quotes and misrepresenting sources. (Not a household name by any means, Zito has grown in prominence the past year or two for <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/salena-zito-why-trump-has-the-love-of-millions-of-christian-conservatives" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">documenting</a> the satisfaction of Trump voters post-2016.)</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It all began when Twitter user <a dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/rod_inanimate" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">@rod_inanimate</a> pointed out that some people described in Zito's latest book as "lifelong Democrats" and "former Obama voters" were actually elected Republicans and party officials. After the <a href="https://twitter.com/rod_inanimate/status/1033040065960833024" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">thread</a>went viral, other anons began resurfacing critiques of Zito that they have made in the past. Perhaps the most damning allegation was that Zito invents quotes made by complacent Trump voters — the circumstantial evidence being that Zito often relies on unnamed sources to tie her stories together.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Using unnamed sources in "man on the street" reporting is often frowned upon, if not improper. Washington Post journalist Dave Weigel <a href="https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1034682793341665280" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">revealed</a> this week that he would not use a quote unless he gets the speaker's full name, age and occupation. This is standard policy for many media outlets. One could forgive Zito if this was an one-off affair. But a review of Zito's work, conducted by anons, demonstrated that Zito goes to the unnamed-source well <a href="https://twitter.com/UrbanAchievr/status/1032691794205712385" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">over</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/ClenchedFisk/status/1034238998384992256" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">over</a> again. Some hints that Zito may be making up quotes, according to the anons, was that dialogue she shares contains <a href="https://twitter.com/UrbanAchievr/status/1032692723785056256" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">language</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/UrbanAchievr/status/1035191130718183424" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">and</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/UrbanAchievr/status/1032629636642103296" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">syntax</a> that appear in her prose. Another mainstay in Zito's writing is that she often converses with people at rural gas stations. The anons swear that these quotes cannot possibly be real. It's difficult to verify them considering she does not provide enough information to identify the speakers.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Zito addressed the allegations in a <a href="https://twitter.com/SalenaZito/status/1034595761420488704" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Twitter thread</a> on Tuesday. She emphatically denied the charges in parts and in whole. She also tried to impeach her accusers by emphasizing they were anonymous, although she did say "it's their right to criticize me anonymously."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Zito was not the first mainstream conservative pundit to deflect criticism because they were coming from anonymous sources. Over the past year or two, many editors and writers at right-wing outlets such as The Federalist and National Review have complained that their most vocal detractors are people "hiding behind anonymity." It has become a frequent trope in right-wing media criticism. As these anons gain more and more notoriety for their criticism, right-wing commentators have become more and more desperate to invalidate them. These are just a sample of prominent conservatives rushing to the defense of Zito this past week:</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There were some <a href="https://twitter.com/AlexParkerDC/status/1034949352790413318" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">good-faith defenses</a> of Zito's work. However, a lot of her allies tried to kill the messengers as opposed to the message</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The public confrontation between mainstream conservative pundits and the anons was the manifestation of an ongoing debate over the merits of anonymous criticism. The concern over bot accounts and foreign intelligence campaigns has somewhat stigmatized the anonymous use of Twitter. Some tech leaders, such as Mark Cuban, have </span><a href="https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/957686987229618176" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">advocated</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> that Twitter should confirm users' actual names. For right-wing punditry, however, the main objection is that a group of anons are attacking their journalism. As one anon recently put it:</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some conservative commentators have proposed that the anons are a cabal of left-leaning mercenaries tasked with taking down prominent conservatives.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other conservatives have accused the anons of seeking fame and fortune for their work.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The suggestion that these anonymous Twitter accounts profit from their social media use is patently absurd. None ask for donations. If they do aspire for fame and fortune, then their currency is likes and retweets, not contributions via Patreon pages or Go-Fund Me accounts. If anything, the service they provide only brings them threats of doxxing, which one Federalist contributor has already intimated.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ironically, the person who made this threat against @UrbanAchievr also runs an anonymous Twitter account. Not one conservative seems to have a problem with his or her anonymity.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Weiss' IDW column first published, the name "Intellectual Dark Web" drew some eye rolls. The dark web is a part of the Internet that can only be accessed through unconventional networks, such as Tor. Members of the IDW are anything but inaccessible. Content from the IDW will <a href="https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1034832692720922625" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">appear</a> as recommended videos on YouTube. Peterson and Rubin have gone on tour together, speaking before sold-out auditoriums. Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk have become two of the most prominent conservative voices on Twitter.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Beyond their disgust with American liberalism, the other trait that draws IDW members together is their ability to capitalize on a void in American conservatism. Taking a page from Trump, the IDW learned that to succeed in the punditry business meant becoming an avatar for disenchanted Americans, a mostly-white demographic that feel as if 21st-century orthodoxy repels them. It's not intellectualism that the IDW offers, nor is it an ideology. It's a sense of injustice that the IDW has enflamed and exploited for money. Zito's own reporting confirms how receptive Trump voters are to grievance politics — how they prefer playing the victim. In this sense, the IDW and mainstream conservative media have dovetailed their efforts to curtail progressivism.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not all conservative outlets have lost respect for its past. Publications such as The Weekly Standard and Commentary continue to appreciate its roots. So does National Review from time to time. However, a plurality of conservatives seem to have become untethered from the ideological strain it once embraced.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The jury is still out as to whether Zito crossed any lines in her reporting.</b> Regardless, it's evident that the right needs to look inward to self-regulate some of the content it has been peddling. Sadly, most of the people willing to do so at the moment are anonymous Twitter users. If people are looking for a discreet group of influencers striving to hold gatekeepers accountable, then the Twitter anons staging a crusade on conservative media are far more deserving of an audience. </font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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