National Public Radio Falsely Links Breitbart to White Separatists

National Public Radio (NPR) is continuing a campaign to defame Breitbart News as a white nationalist website. Even after being set straight on Wednesday, the taxpayer-funded outlet continues to defy the facts in its effort to smear the incoming Trump administration and crush a conservative media upstart.

This time, the lie comes via Kelly McEvers, who filed a slanderous story on Thursday’s edition of All Things Considered: “‘We’re Not Going Away’: Alt-Right Leader On Voice In Trump Administration.”

In it, McEvers suggests that because Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon once told Mother Jones that Breitbart had become “the platform for the alt-right,” Bannon and Breitbart therefore share to the racial separatist ideas of Richard Spencer, one of the people involved in the alt-right movement.

McEvers does not provide any actual evidence that Bannon or Breitbart share Spencer’s ideas. Moreover, she does not even show that Breitbart has ever published anything supportive of Spencer’s ideas. And — crucially — she does not inform listeners that there is no such evidence.

Instead, she suggests that Bannon, and Breitbart, share Spencer’s ideas, with passages such as the following:

What the alt-right wants, Spencer says, is an awakening of identity politics, meaning white identity politics.

The alt-right used to exist mostly on the Internet, but with the rise of Donald Trump and his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, the movement is starting to hold conferences where hundreds of people attend.

Listeners are left to conclude — deliberately, it seems — that Bannon supports “white identity politics” — as well as swastikas and the KKK, to which she refers in her interview with Spencer.

McEvers apparently feels no responsibility to verify whether Bannon or Breitbart actually shares or promotes any of Spencer’s views. She does not even quote or consult NPR content that suggests the opposite.

Evidently NPR editorial policy demands the lie.

The result, ironically, is the “mainstreaming” of extremist ideas through false linkage to a legitimate website and an incoming presidential administration.

And, of course, all at taxpayer expense.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, is available from Regnery through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.