Report: YouTube to Fund Far-Left Young Turks Journalism ‘Academy’

Google-owned video platform YouTube will provide funding to the Young Turks, one of the largest far-left channels on YouTube, to create an online “journalism” course called “TYT Academy,” reports Axios.

Axios reports that the investment is in the “mid-six figures” range.

“The investment is part of YouTube’s $25 million commitment to news efforts, which is part of the $300 million Google News Initiative that was announced in 2018.”

Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur, an American of Turkish descent, has repeatedly faced controversy over his past comments denying the Armenian genocide, the massacre and forced expulsion of approximately 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish government between 1914 and 1923.

In a letter to the far-left online publication Salon in 1999, Uygur wrote:

The United States helped to sponsor war propaganda against Turkey during World War I as part of an official campaign to smear its enemies, as it did with Germany. Part of this propaganda was the evil butchery of the Turks against the defenseless Christian Armenians. This is what has been rooted in the popular memory of America, with very few Turkish-Americans to combat the insinuations of savagery, yet this is not propaganda?

As far as I could see from the article, every non-Armenian scholar in the field believes it is an open question whether this event was a genocide. Is it the claim of the article that all of these people are tainted by the tentacles of the Turkish government? If not, then why is it not pointed out that no one outside of the “Armenian position” believes it is a genocide? Why is it assumed that the “Turkish studies side” has the burden of proof in overturning the verdict of Turkish guilt? It is because of the underlying assumption that despite what these people in “Turkish studies” say, there must have been a genocide.

While in college, Uygur wrote a column for his student newspaper saying, “The claims of an Armenian Genocide are not based on historical facts…once you really examine the history of the time it becomes apparent that the allegations of an Armenian Genocide are unfounded.”

More recently, Young Turks host Hasan Piker, a nephew of Uygur, attracted widespread condemnation for arguing that the United States “deserved” the September 11th attacks.

“America deserved 9/11, dude. F-ck it I’m saying it,” said Piker in a live broadcast.

“americas foreign policy decisions has lead to 911. this would’ve been a controversial thing to say in 2001. stop being a fucking idiot,” Piker later tweeted.

Pike later appeared to walk back his comments, saying they were “inappropriate.”