This Week in Misinformation: Election Officials-Threats, Bannon-Contempt, Watkins-Arizona, Women-Online Abuse, Brnovich-Nunchakus
21 October 2021
This Prism newsletter strives to be the paper of record for all that’s happening in misinformation. For any citizen whose life is impacted by misinformation, it helps you see how storylines evolve from multiple, sourced angles on important stories in one place. For amateur and professional misinformation watchers, it is your go-to resource for updates on peers, platforms, propagandists, and politicians. Learn more about Prism and our other products on our Substack page, follow us on Twitter, or like us on Facebook!
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Reliability scores for media outlets in the summary are in parentheses in the citation for each, courtesy of the terrific folks at Ad Fontes Media.
Now, on to our top four stories.
The false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump reverberated in the lives of the professionals who conducted it—and throughout all levels of the Republican Party.
In a new 10-minute video report (VICE, 41.42), election officials from Pennsylvania to Georgia to Iowa detailed the vile, alarmingly well-researched voicemails and written threats they and their families received from people who believed Trump’s lies that the vote was rigged. Similar stories from many other 2020 election workers were published in a separate oral history project by the Stanford Internet Observatory.
While top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell continues to say the party should move on from the 2020 election (The Hill, 44.83), Trump pushes for ever more of the GOP to embrace his ever-expanding false claims of widespread fraud (Washington Post, 43.81). The tension between these two poles was reported to be behind a schism of the Republican Party of Nevada, a presidential swing state (Politico, 43.41).
Maybe because harassing and intimidating election officials can only get you so far, some in the GOP have started to talk about how they want to overhaul elections at the federal and state levels if Trump wins the White House again (Politico, 43.41).
Rejecting an assertion of privilege, the House January 6th Committee moved quickly to refer Steve Bannon to be held in contempt of Congress for noncompliance with its subpoena.
In the space of a week, Congress sent the Bannon case over to the Justice Department by clearing it through the select committee (Reuters, 48.81), the Rules Committee (@kylegriffin1 via Twitter), and the House floor (Reuters, 48.81).
Reporters have been asking members of the select committee if Trump himself, and maybe then-Vice President Pence as well, may also be served subpoenas. The option appears to still be on the table (@kylegriffin1 via Twitter), judging from their responses (CNN, 43.52).
Through his attorneys, Trump filed suit against the January 6th Committee and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), asking a judge to block Committee demands for executive branch records—and to stop NARA from honoring any such requests (CNN, 43.52).
A U.S. Capitol Police officer was charged with obstruction for telling a January 6th rioter to hide evidence of their involvement in the attack (Associated Press, 49.36). A tranche of new high-resolution video footage (@ryanjreilly via Twitter) used in court was made public, HBO released a documentary film called “Four Hours at the Capitol,” and a virtual panel at The George Washington University showcased reporters’ reflections on covering the events of the day.
Q-world personality Ron Watkins announced his candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives, challenging an incumbent Democrat in Arizona’s 1st District.
Ron’s campaign launch was covered by a wide selection of national and local media outlets, to whom he said his main goal is to fix the way elections are run (Detroit News, 46.81). (Two weeks ago he was ambushing Arizona Attorney General Mark “Nunchakus” Brnovich to demand the indictment of Maricopa election officials, but now says he wants to fight from the inside.)
Whether Ron posted as Q or not (Politico, 43.41)—he denies it (AZ Central, 43.97)—his ties to the QAnon movement run deep (VICE, 41.42). He has been a prominent standard-bearer for election trutherism since November, helped organize to get Trump supporters to Washington on January 6th (Just Security, -), and has gained a large online following in his own right, which at one time included Donald Trump (Insider, 43.32). Ron’s “CodeMonkeyZ” profile was suspended permanently from Twitter on January 8th (@patriottakes via Twitter).
Some have pointed out that Ron cannot win the primary, to say nothing of the seat, without lots of help from journalists putting his face and name out there (@coolfacejane via Twitter). Like Trump, Watkins is something of a novelty for establishment media organizations, and he may be good for ratings. Unlike Trump, though, Watkins has little experience speaking publicly or dealing with reporters. But the point is well taken, and we don’t plan to give the story a lot of oxygen.
And speaking of reporting on the conspiracy world and hate speech, for women this line of work can be fraught with terror and unequal treatment compared to men.
The BBC’s first dedicated disinformation reporter, Marianna Spring, took a vulnerable look at the abuse she and other women endure for doing their jobs—and how those who threaten women online, even in graphically violent and sexually explicit language, are almost never punished (BBC, 46.40).
Media consultant Hannah Storm, addressing the seriousness of this problem across the industry, published a commentary through Poynter (41.01) saying media organizations need to do more to make women feel supported, believed, and safe.
Women in this field are also often just treated differently than men—even when they are being praised. In an article on conspirituality for The Guardian (43.62), a female journalist described well-known and accomplished misinformation researcher Abbie Richards in dismissive and misogynistic terms. Abbie and many of her colleagues, including a male expert also interviewed for the article (Twitter account of Matthew Remski), called this out and said the article should be corrected (Twitter account of Abbie Richards).
Finally, the fairly overflowing grab bag: The outgoing NIH director said “we underestimated vaccine hesitancy” (ya think?); Colin Powell’s breakthrough, but immunocompromised, COVID death helped Tucker Carlson rail against vaccines on Fox (which then prompted CNN’s John King to disclose the multiple sclerosis that compromises his own immune system); vaccine mandate skirmishes broke out in Arizona, Florida, New Hampshire, and Washington (x2), but a Maine court decision suggests mandates for health workers there will stand; an online network astroturfed a false narrative blaming U.S. seafood imported to Wuhan for COVID; Facebook put out a statement preempting new reporting that chides journalists for drawing conclusions from too small a sample size; internecine battles continue in Q world; QAnon John put open antisemitism front and center as he got ready to welcome GOP officials and others to his Las Vegas conference (he also complained about “faketriots” who asked for but did not deserve a refund for their ticket); and someone called Hacker X revealed his pro-Trump disinformation operations while working for NaturalNews.com.
That, and a lot more, below. This is This Week in Misinformation.
-- Kevin