In an effort to prove “fake news” abounds, a conservative activist group called Project Veritas attempted earlier this week to dupe the Washington Post into publishing a story about a woman who claimed Roy Moore, the Alabama Republican candidate for Senate, had sexually assaulted her as a teen.
The woman, a paid stooge for Project Veritas, met several times with the Post reporter, weaving a story of sexual intrigue including that Moore had impregnated her and then drove her to get an abortion.
When the reporter said she needed to verify what she viewed as inconsistencies in her claims, the woman balked, saying plenty of other news sources would jump at the chance to publish her story.
Moore is a very hot topic these days, having been publicly accused by eight women for sexually molesting them as teens when he was in his 30s.
Exclusive or not, no story is worth a dime if it’s based on a lie.
Too often — especially around election time — those who wish ill on their opponents test the media with such juicy tidbits.
Exclusivity rarely comes a newspaper’s way without a hidden agenda, which is the case with Project Veritas.
As an ultra-conservative nonprofit — someone should look into that — among PV’s objectives is to discredit the Democratic Party and the news media.
In this instance it hired a woman to assume a fake identity in an effort to find complicity on the part of the Washington Post.
As part of the smear campaign, the woman, who was recording their conversations, tried to get the Post reporter to affirm that if published, the story would spell doom for Moore’s campaign.
It was only when the woman was seen entering the Project Veritas office and then later discovered to be on their dollar that the story quickly unraveled.
THE 2016 election opened the floodgates to this kind of subversiveness. Most predominantly, lies by Russia, the alt-right and nationalist groups coursed through the Internet stoking fears and prejudices.
More than ever, newspapers like the Washington Post have been put on defense to prove they can be trusted.
Fine by us. The more such groups try to discredit a free press, the more relevant we become to society. We have nothing to hide.
— Susan Lynn
