(PM.) National Public Radio (NPR) announced the creation of their “Disinformation Reporting Team” on Friday in a note to newsroom staff. The outlet has been guilty itself of spreading disinformation and misinformation, most notably penning an article about why they would not report on Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell,” rather than actually issuing a report on its contents.
On Twitter, NPR contributor Casey Morell tweeted about the new disinformation division and wrote, “some great company news: we’re launching a disinformation team.” Within moments, multiple users posted responses about the company’s many instances of spreading disinformation ranging from their neglect of the 2020 Hunter Biden story to recent reporting about dinosaurs belonging exclusively to the trans community.
some great company news: we’re launching a disinformation team https://t.co/LWzxt5yIjL
— casey morell (@csymrl) July 15, 2022
The intrepid team making up NPR’s disinformation board are the “unflappable and generous” Shannon Bond, the “data-savvy” Huo Jingnan, expert in “voting rights and election security” Brett Neely, and Lisa Hagen who “helps humanize the unfamiliar” by reporting on the “most radical wing of the gun rights movement.”
Fox News contributor Gregg Re tweeted, “Does your managing editor still think the hunter Biden laptop is not a real story ?” Re linked to a 2020 tweet from NPR’s public editor telling the world why the outlet wasn’t going to report on the Hunter Biden Story.
some great company news: we’re launching a disinformation team https://t.co/LWzxt5yIjL
— casey morell (@csymrl) July 15, 2022
That tweet read “Why haven’t you seen any stories from NPR about the NY Post’s Hunter Biden story?” and gave the answer “we don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories” and called the Hunter Biden story a distraction.
In the two years since that tweet, Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” has been authenticated from multiple outlets, including the New York Times, in a story with far ranging and severe implications for the national security of the United States.
All of the information revealed in the past two years was available to establishment news outlets in 2020, with the New York Post existing as an outlier.
“He [Jussie Smollett] was a victim who was vilified and made to appear as a perpetrator as a result of false and inappropriate remarks made to the public causing an inappropriate rush to judgement,” his attorneys said. All charges were dropped today. https://t.co/d1yKXutdig
— NPR (@NPR) March 26, 2019