A new report released by the conservative Heritage Foundation puts a spotlight on a Washington Examiner investigative series on right-leaning media outlets appearing to be “censored” by government actors.
The report focuses on the National Endowment for Democracy, a State Department-funded nonprofit group that the author, former U.S. Agency for International Development official Tim Meisburger, argued “needs oversight and reform” due to it being “staffed almost entirely by Democrats.” The Washington Examiner first reported in February 2023 that the NED and the State Department’s Global Engagement Center funded the Global Disinformation Index, a British group blacklisting right-of-center websites from advertising dollars.
“According to Gabe Kaminsky, an investigative reporter at the Washington Examiner, the NED made grants totaling $545,750 between 2020 and 2021 to the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British organization that compiles a list of ‘risky’ online platforms that advertisers should avoid,” Meisburger wrote in the report. “The list ranked left-leaning sites as low risk and right-leaning outlets high risk, essentially trying to bankrupt the outlets.”
That the State Department would fund GDI prompted a recent lawsuit by the Federalist and the Daily Wire …