When Is A Whistleblower Not A Whistleblower?

When is a whistleblower not a whistleblower? The easy and obvious answer is this. When the alleged “whislteblower” is a Deep State, uniparty, full-of-shit propagandist. Such has been the case with several mainstream media outlets ever since the ascendance of the Progressive movement into the halls of federal power.

The most recent example of this journalistic malfeasance is a The New Yorker article that falsely claimed President-elect Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, was forced from his positions at the non-profit organizations Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America. The article states:

“...A trail of documents, corroborated by the accounts of former colleagues, indicates that Hegseth was forced to step down by both of the two nonprofit advocacy groups that he ran—Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America—in the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.

“A previously undisclosed whistle-blower report on Hegseth’s tenure as the president of Concerned Veterans for America, from 2013 until 2016, describes him as being repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity—to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events. The detailed seven-page report—which was compiled by multiple former C.V.A. employees and sent to the organization’s senior management in February 2015—states that, at one point, Hegseth had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team. The report also says that Hegseth, who was married at the time, and other members of his management team sexually pursued the organization’s female staffers, whom they divided into two groups—the “party girls” and the “not party girls.” In addition, the report asserts that, under Hegseth’s leadership, the organization became a hostile workplace that ignored serious accusations of impropriety, including an allegation made by a female employee that another employee on Hegseth’s staff had attempted to sexually assault her at the Louisiana strip club…”

The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer advances these false claims on the credibility of unnamed “former colleagues” as she continues to advance the false narrative of a now-debunked sexual assault claim from 2017.

In an almost immediate response to the article’s false allegations, one colleague who went on the record, Sean Parnell, a retired US Army Airborne Ranger who retired as a captain with a Purple Heart and two Bronze Stars and who served as a senior adviser at CVA during Hegseth’s tenure, stated, “I was there for most of those alleged incidents, and this stuff is just complete fabrications.” Parnell stated that the “whistleblower” claims had come from “people who were let go as the organization was growing, who weren’t fulfilling their duties. They just weren’t.”

In another exoneration of Hegseth, printed in an article by Sohrab Ahmari in CompactMag.com, cited a second source (hey, if it’s good enough for the New Yorker in a smear attempt, it should be fair game for anyone else in refuting the smear) stated:

“All false. These were false allegations made by a group of disgruntled employees fired by Pete…That couldn’t be further from the truth. This was right before President Trump began his first term. Pete and I were on the media all the time, talking about national security and foreign policy. And he and I became big believers in Trump’s vision of foreign policy. The funders of that organization [CVA] didn’t necessarily believe that. And because of that policy difference, over what America’s foreign and national security policy should be, Pete parted ways. It was 100 percent professional, political differences.”

So, we now have three attempts by maleficent actors to derail Hegseth’s nomination, all of which have been exposed as false-narrative-based political actions meant to damage the cabinet choices for Trump 2.0, and all emanating from two usual suspect, far-Left propagandist rags: The Washington Post and The New Yorker. The only outlet missing to affect the propagandist trifecta was The New York Times.

Just recounting the time from World War I to the present, the mainstream media’s reliance on anonymous sources to advance false narratives to alter the perception of political reality are many. So, too, are their outright fabrications to purposely deceive:

• “Kadaver” Factory Myth (World War I): During World War I, both The New York Times and London's Daily Mail published accounts from anonymous sources about a supposed “Kadaver” factory in Germany, claiming it extracted glycerine from human corpses for soap and margarine. This was later debunked as wartime propaganda.

• Interview with Woodrow Wilson (1921): The New York Times published an interview with President Woodrow Wilson by Louis Seibold, which won a Pulitzer Prize. It was later revealed to be a complete fabrication, as Wilson was incapacitated by a stroke at the time.

• Hiroshima Report (1944): After World War II, The New Yorker published John Hersey's report on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, initially presented as factual journalism. However, later critiques exposed some of the details as embellished or not fully verified.

• McCarthyism (1950s): The Washington Post published articles based on anonymous sources about Senator Joe McCarthy's accusations of Communist infiltration in government. Some more high-profile claims were later proven to be unfounded or exaggerated.

• Vietnam War Coverage (1963): Anonymous sources were used in The New York Times and The Washington Post to report on the Vietnam War, particularly around the Tet Offensive, where claims about the success of the North Vietnamese military operations were later shown to be overly optimistic and entirely incorrect.

• “Jimmy's World” (1980s): Janet Cooke of The Washington Post won a Pulitzer for her story about an 8-year-old heroin addict named “Jimmy,” which was entirely fabricated. The story was based on anonymous sources.

• Jayson Blair Scandal (2002): The New York Times published numerous stories by Jayson Blair, which included false claims often attributed to anonymous sources, leading to a major credibility crisis for the paper.

• Iraq WMD Claims (2003): Both The New York Times and The Washington Post published stories based on anonymous sources claiming Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), which were later found to be inaccurate.

• Jack Kelley at USA Today (2004): Jack Kelley was caught fabricating stories for USA Today, many of which involved anonymous sources. Although not directly for The Washington Post, this situation reflects the era's reliance on such sources.

• Koran Flushing at Guantanamo (2007): Newsweek used an anonymous source to report that guards at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a Koran down the toilet, which led to riots. This was later retracted as the source could not verify the claim.

• Judith Miller and Scooter Libby (2013): The New York Times' Judith Miller reported on pre-Iraq War intelligence using anonymous sources, including misidentifying Scooter Libby's role, which contributed to a narrative that was later proven false.

• Anonymous Sources in Gaza War (2014): The Washington Post was found to use anonymous sources much more frequently than other major outlets in its coverage of the Gaza War, with some of these sources later discredited or not backed by on-the-ground facts.

• Election Misinformation (2016): Both The New York Times and The Washington Post reported on election-related claims based on anonymous sources that were part of the broader fake news narrative, much of which—like the Steele Dosier and the Russian Interference Hoax—were later debunked.

• FBI Investigation into Trump (2017): Anonymous sources were used by The Washington Post to report on FBI investigations into Trump, some details of which were later clarified or contradicted.

• Mar-a-Lago Raid Claims (2018): The New York Times used anonymous sources to report on the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago. Many specifics about the documents and their nature were initially misreported or exaggerated.

In addition to those specific instances, it is critical to note here that during World War II, The New York Times was criticized for its coverage of the Holocaust, with accusations that it minimized or buried the news. Of the 23,000 front-page stories between 1939 and 1945, only 26 were about the Holocaust, and these were not prominently featured.

Further, the “journalistic” feeder institutions, The Associated Press (AP) and Reuters have been found to have their own issues with anonymous and non-credible sources and complete news story fabrications.

In 2017, the AP was caught red-handed advancing a false narrative that stated then-President Donald Trump had issued a “Muslim ban” travel restriction when that travel restriction also applied to other nations comprised of non-Muslims. And in 2004, the AP falsely reported that an Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed World Central kitchen workers, claims that were later contradicted by the verifiable facts.

Reuters has also been caught fabricating and embellishing news reports and associated photographs. In 2010, Reuters cropped photos from an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla. The original photos by the IHH showed activists with knives attacking Israeli soldiers, but Reuters' cropped versions omitted these details. During the 2006 Lebanon War, Reuters fired photographer Adnan Hajj after it was discovered he had manipulated photos to exaggerate the effects of Israeli bombing. And in 2023, Reuters staged photos from Gaza, including video that was misidentified as showing an aid convoy being denied entry into Gaza.

So, the point here is this. The mainstream media complex has, throughout history, held its own agenda and, in doing so, has routinely found ways and means to manipulate the truth—and in some cases omit the truth—to manufacture the stories they want to exist, not necessarily the stories that do exist; stories seated in fact, truth, and reality.

In the end, the truth of the matter—the sad, pathetic truth of the matter—is this. The mainstream media cannot be trusted to tell the truth, not about the Holocaust, not about the Vietnam War, not about Donald Trump, and not about Pete Hegseth or any of Trump’s other nominees. They simply cannot be trusted.

The mainstream media complex must be identified as a propaganda tool of the Deep State uniparty, a mechanism used by nefarious, opportunistic elitists to manipulate the public into believing stories that facilitate the uniparty’s continued existence in power.

Bottom line: If it isn’t first-source information, “it ain’t beanbag.”