One downside of the new media environment is that people with no journalistic — or apparently any other! — scruples can retail complete falsehoods as they please. Take this laughably conspiratorial and fictional post. It suggests that NR is killing anti-Google articles at the behest of Google. This is false. It says “sources close to the National Board” say we have been hemorrhaging donors and subscribers. This is false (NR just had a banner fundraising year, and paid subscriptions have been steadily up in recent years). It suggests I fired Jonah Goldberg and David French. This is false. And there are various malicious fantasies woven throughout the piece along with the outright falsehoods.
If anyone is wondering why NR is skeptical of further regulating or breaking up Big Tech, you don’t have to look far, let alone fabricate lurid conspiracy theories — it’s because we’ve been opposed to government regulation and overweening anti-trust law for 65 years. That said, one of our most prominent staff writers is fiercely critical of Big Tech and says so all the time on our website and podcasts. We’ve editorialized in favor of policies opposed by Google and editorialized against Google in its contretemps with the Federalist. Even one of our staunchest opponents of more tech regulation is happy to smack Google as warranted.
There’s “too good to check,” and then there’s “too unhinged to bother even trying to make sense.”