UPDATED: NewsBusters promoted a white nationalist piece that claimed Black people are “a threat to all” they encounter

Melissa Joskow / Media Matters

Update (7/11): NewsBusters removed its links to the two pieces of white nationalist propaganda following the publication of this piece. NewsBusters also updated those pieces with the following editor's notes: “A link and a seeming endorsement of the white-nationalist site American Renaissance has been removed. NewsBusters does not associate with known white nationalists”; and “A link to the website VDARE.com, which affiliates with white nationalists, has been removed.”

Update (7/13): Contributing Editor Tom Blumer is no longer with NewsBusters, according to his biography on the site. 

The conservative outlet NewsBusters promoted a piece on a white nationalist website that claims Black people “are a threat to all who cross their paths.” The white nationalist piece is so racist that it recently prompted the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) to withdraw its endorsement of New Jersey congressional candidate Seth Grossman, who had shared it on social media.

NewsBusters, a project of The Media Research Center (MRC), claims that it was started “to provide immediate exposure of national media bias, unfairness, inaccuracy, and occasional idiocy.” Politico Chief Political Correspondent Tim Alberta recently profiled MRC and reported that leader Brent Bozell “has monetized fights big and small in a way that raises questions about the sincerity of MRC’s mission of holding the media accountable" and that “several well-known journalists who once dealt often with MRC told me they no longer do because the group operates in bad faith—preferring to leverage allegations of bias rather than discuss them honestly.”  

NewsBusters also apparently has no problem favorably promoting white nationalist propaganda.

In a January 4, 2015, post, NewsBusters Contributing Editor Tom Blumer alleged that The New York Times portrayed the “murderer of two NYPD cops as a victim.” After criticizing the Times, Blumer directed his readers to a post on the white nationalist site American Renaissance: “If there's a benefit to what eight people at the Times have produced, it's that it does give some insights into how thoroughly broken many underclass ‘families’ are, and the bitter, dysfunctional violent people they are producing. For more details than readers may be able to stand concerning that, go here for the perspective of a public defender in ‘a large southern metropolitan area.’”

American Renaissance is headed by white nationalist writer Jared Taylor. The piece that NewsBusters linked to was written by an author who uses a pen name and claims of Black people: “Experience has also taught me that blacks are different by almost any measure to all other people. They cannot reason as well. They cannot communicate as well. They cannot control their impulses as well. They are a threat to all who cross their paths, black and non-black alike.”

As Media Matters documented, Seth Grossman, a right-wing pundit who is the Republican nominee for New Jersey’s 2nd Congressional District, shared a link to that piece in December 2014 (he also shared a link to the white nationalist site VDare). The NRCC announced it was withdrawing its support for Grossman’s candidacy shortly after Media Matters' report. In December 2014, Republican National Committeeman Dave Agema also shared that post; the Republican National Committee censured Agema shortly after that, citing his “history of harmful and offensive rhetoric.”

Blumer also promoted the white nationalist website VDare in a February 21, 2017, NewsBusters post with the headline “Press Slow to Report Monday Night's Riots in Stockholm, Sweden.” He referred to VDare simply as a “center-right” outlet, writing: “The indefensible reluctance at the AP and the Times to recognize a story which had broken 16 hours earlier, was clearly reportable, based on the six-hour time difference between Sweden and the eastern U.S., and had already been noted at several center-right outlets by mid- to late-evening Monday, likely ensured that they did not get mentioned in any of the Big Three networks' morning news shows.”

Blumer linked to a piece by VDare writer James Fulford which started: “As [VDare writer] Patrick Cleburne noted, Trump has been extremely right in saying Sweden has horrifying problems with Muslim immigrants. But the MSM seem to think he's imagining things.”

Both of Blumer’s posts were cross-posted to his website, BizzyBlog.com. A request for comment to Blumer was not returned.