MintPress News

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MintPress News
News website
Available inEnglish
Founder(s)Mnar Adley
URLmintpressnews.com
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional
Launched2011

MintPress News (MPN) is an American

news website,which publishes conspiracy theories and disinformation. It was founded and edited by Mnar Adley and was launched in January 2012,[2]
and also publishes the MintCast podcast. The site covers political, economic, foreign affairs and environmental issues.

MintPress News supports Syrian president

Syrian government.[4]

Described as a

Russian propaganda.[10]

The source of MintPress News's funding remains unknown.[4] MintPress News is headquartered in Minnesota, where it operated one office location until 2014.[12]

History and funding

MintPress News founder Mnar Adley in an interview with British rapper and activist Lowkey in 2022

MintPress News was founded by Mnar Muhawesh (now Adley), a broadcast journalism graduate of St. Cloud State University. She began her career as an intern at Minnesota television station KARE and as a freelance journalist.[13] After posting her own work on a blog, in 2011 she decided to launch her own news site.[14] Muhawesh said she believed that "our media has failed us very miserably" and that "We are in a crucial time in American history where most Americans don't know what's going on in the world around them." She spoke of her aspirations for MintPress, citing uninformed public debates around issues like Iran's nuclear capabilities, or intervention in Syria.[2]

MintPress News said it was a for-profit "regular news organization," with an initial business plan where advertising revenues would exceed costs after three years.[13] MintPress's anonymous investors were originally intended to fund MintPress operations until 2015.[2] The editor had investors, who Muhawesh claimed were "retired businesspeople", but she would not name them, a situation MinnPost said was "unfortunate for a journalism operation fighting alongside people seeking transparency. The site's 'About Us' page is similarly skinny."[13] In a 2013 email to BuzzFeed News, Muhawesh said she restructured the business plan: "MintPress was originally funded by angel investors when I was first putting the company together over a year ago, but that route fell through last year as I restructured the business plan." She added: "I am the sole investor of MintPress."[15] MintPress News' offices closed in 2014. Since then, the website encourages donations from the public via Patreon and through crowdfunding.[12]

Muhawesh in 2015 said her funding comes "from donations, sponsorships, grants and ad revenue," and that MintPress was opposed to U.S. intervention in foreign wars.[16]

Soon afterward, Brian Lambert of MinnPost wrote an article following up on Burke's challenge to find out where MintPress's money came from. He reported that emails to them went unanswered, their phone was disconnected, and the original office address in Plymouth, Minnesota, "haven't been valid in well over a year". While MintPress listed 20 of its writers, Lambert wrote it did not indicate where the money was "coming from to pay any of these people".[17]

MintPress News received $10,000 in grants from the

Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees.[12]

In 2022, Robert Scheer reported that Google AdSense informed publishers, including MintPress News, that, "Due to the war in Ukraine, we will pause monetization of content that exploits, dismisses, or condones the war." According to Scheer, these restrictions included "any pieces that question the NATO narrative on Ukraine into the content it describes".[18]

Content

The initial release of MintPress News was described by MinnPost as a "typical left-of-center" web outlet that reported on matters such as climate change and "bizarre" comments by Republican candidates. Additionally, the site's content had a clear focus on Israel and how "'American imperialism' was abetting the humiliation and slaughter of innocent Arabs".[17] The site publishes disinformation[19] and coded antisemitic conspiracy theories,[20] including ones on George Soros.[21]

MintPress News has reposted content from Russian

Russian web of disinformation,"[26][27] and the site has published fake authors attributed to the GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency.[28] MintPress News defended Russia's invasion of Crimea, claiming Ukraine's post-revolution government was "illegitimate".[29]

The site ran numerous stories sympathetic to Syrian president

Russian government.[3]

Coverage of the Ghouta chemical attacks

On August 29, 2013, an unverified MintPress article attributed to Dale Gavlak and Yahya Ababneh said that

conspiracy theories about chemical weapons attacks in Syria.[30] Human Rights Watch found no evidence for the claims.[31]

On September 20, the

Brown Moses Blog published a statement from Gavlak saying that "despite my repeated requests, made directly and through legal counsel, they have not been willing to issue a retraction stating that I was not the author. Yahya Ababneh is the sole reporter and author of the Mint Press News piece."[32][33] Gavlak also said the report had not been verified.[17][34] Gavlak also told the New York Times that "There was no fact finding or reporting by me for the piece. I did not travel to Syria, so I cannot corroborate [Ababneh's] account" and that Muhawesh refused to remove her name from the byline because "this is an existential issue for MintPress and an issue of credibility as this will appear as though we are lying."[32]

MintPress added an editor's note at the top of the article stating Ababneh was the sole reporter on the ground in Syria, while Gavlak assisted in researching and writing the article. It said that Gavlak was a MintPress News correspondent who had freelanced for the

Prince Bandar. The statement also claimed that Abadneh was being threatened by Saudi officials.[38]

Following the publication of the article, Gavlak stated she has been suspended from the AP.[32] The story continues to be cited by conspiracy websites and supporters of the Assad regime.[39]

When asked about the MintPress News story,

1001 Arabian Nights stories!"[40]

Pro-Assad coverage

In October 2015, the Minnesota Star Tribune published a citizen op-ed by Terry Burke, an activist for the Committee in Solidarity with the People of Syria, in which she accused MintPress News and other "alternative 'news' organizations" of "never publish[ing] the international human rights organizations' reports about the regime's crimes. Instead, they post interviews with Assad, polls that claim most Syrians support him, articles on rebel or ISIL abuses, and stories that blame the U.S. for Syria's uprising."[41]

BuzzFeed News in 2013 described the site as having "an agenda that lines up, from its sympathy with the Syrian regime to its hostility to Sunni Saudi Arabia, with that of the Islamic Republic of Iran."[15] According to Bellingcat, MintPress News has received the Serena Shim Award (organized by the Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees), a financial award of an unknown amount, along with other websites which "routinely promote pro-Assad conspiracy theories".[42]

Arbaeen pilgrimage claim

In November 2016, a MintPress News article entitled "Media Blackout As Millions Of Muslims March Against ISIS In Iraq" became a top trending story on

Arbaeen, one of the world's largest pilgrimages, in Iraq. But they are not specifically marching against ISIL, nor has there been a 'media blackout.'" BuzzFeed News said the article had been sourced from American Herald Tribune, a website edited by Anthony Hall, a 9/11 and Sandy Hook shooting conspiracy theorist suspended from his job as a professor at the University of Lethbridge on charges of antisemitism.[22][43] Snopes described the claims in the MintPress article as inaccurate: "The pilgrimage was not a massive protest against ISIS, nor did a "media blackout" prevent news agencies from covering the event."[44] MintPress stood by its story.[45]

Guarani Aquifer

In 2018, MintPress News falsely claimed that Coca-Cola and Nestlé were privatising the Guarani Aquifer, a major South American water reserve. The site additionally made the false claim that the alleged deal was being negotiated by Brazilian president Michel Temer and has reached an "advanced" stage.[46] The site offered no evidence to support their claims and only provided vague statements. Experts, like law professor Gabriel Eckstein, noted that it would be physically impossible for a private company to control the aquifer due to its large size. Coca-Cola and Nestlé also refuted the allegations.[47]

White Helmets

A study led by

Syrian Civil War. The White Helmets has been the target of disinformation campaigns perpetrated by pro-Assad and pro-Russian groups. Such disinformation increased dramatically following the Douma chemical attack.[48][5][49] Many of Vanessa Beeley's conspiracy theories about the White Helmets appeared on MintPress News.[50]

Nicaragua

In 2018, during the

Sandinista.[54] The false story nevertheless went viral, Luciak went into hiding, was eventually captured by state forces, threatened with torture and deported from the country.[51][53][52]

Frequent contributors and partners

Eva Bartlett, Vanessa Beeley, Max Blumenthal, Miko Peled, Kevin Zeese, and the cartoonist Carlos Latuff are listed as regular contributors to the website.[55]

In 2023, Randi Lucile Nord, a MintPress News staff writer,

Azov Regiment) on a synagogue in Royal Oak, Michigan, in order to undermine United States support to Ukraine during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[57]

MintPress News frequently partners with the outlets

CommonDreams, and Antiwar.com.[55] In September 2013, Antiwar.com apologized for linking to and reprinting a MintPress News story that Syrian rebels were responsible for the Ghouta sarin attacks of 2013.[58]

See also

References

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    and MintPress News. These personalities and associated outlets act as both producers of counterfactual theories, as well as hubs around which individuals with similar beliefs rally. The damage that these ecosystems and the theories that they spawn can inflict on digital evidence is not based on the quality of the dis/misinformation that they produce but rather on the quantity.
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  58. ^ Garris, Eric (September 20, 2013). "Retraction and Apology to Our Readers for Mint Press Article on Syria Gas Attack". AntiWar.com. Archived from the original on February 12, 2020. Retrieved December 27, 2019.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MintPress_News&oldid=1220251553"