The site is known for making unsubstantiated or false claims,[6] producinghyperpartisan content,[7] and publishing conspiracy theories,[8] especially on matters relating toDonald Trump and Russia.[14]Fact-checkers have debunked numerousPalmer Report stories, and organizations including theColumbia Journalism Review and theGerman Marshall Fund have listed the site among false content producers or biased websites.[15][16]
History
Bill Palmer worked as anelementary school teacher before beginning a series of online publications. His earlier endeavors primarily discussed music and technology. In 2013, he launched a publication titledThe Stabley Times under a pseudonym. Like his previous websites, the site covered music and technology, but it also added coverage of political and sports-related topics.[17] Palmer subsequently founded a politics-focused site calledDaily News Bin. Ahyperpartisan left-wing website,[18][19]Daily News Bin was described bySnopes editor Brooke Binkowski as "a pro-Hillary Clinton 'news site' designed to 'counter misinformation'".[20][5]Daily News Bin promoted fake andsensationalized pro-Clinton narratives, according toThe New York Observer.[21]
ThePalmer Report is a hyperpartisan[7] liberal[2]fake news political blog.[1] It is known for making unsubstantiated or false claims[6] and publishingconspiracy theories,[3][8] especially on matters relating toDonald Trump and Russia.[9][11][12][13] ThePalmer Report typically usesanonymousSecret Service sources and its articles give the impression that Trump is about to go to prison or bedeposed.[31] It is regarded as apolitical propaganda outlet[32][33] or left-wingdisinformation.[34][35] Articles from thePalmer Report were shared almost exclusively by Hillary Clinton supporters during the 2016 presidential election.[36] ThePalmer Report received five millionunique visits per month over the course of 2017.[37]
After Trump was announced as the winner of the election, thePalmer Report published two articles claiming that the election was "rigged"[38] and falsely claimed 5,000 Trump votes in Wisconsin were disqualified.[39] During arecount inWaukesha County, a story from thePalmer Report spread online, alleging that election officials were double-counting votes for Trump. The source of the story was an unverifiedFacebook post.Election officials dismissed the story, and theWisconsin Elections Commission found no evidence for the allegations. The story was shared close to 40,000 times on social media.[40] StatisticianAndrew Gelman compared thePalmer Report's claims ofelection rigging to claims made in theNational Enquirer, and wrote that "the basis for these accusations is more perceived unfairness than actual statistics".[38][41]
In January 2017, thePalmer Report claimed that Trump posed for a fake speechwriting photograph at an auction house receptionist's desk and included anInstagram photo of the receptionist.Snopes found that the photo in question had been taken atMar-a-Lago and posted in December 2015 and that the receptionist was not an auction house employee.[42]
During the2017 Syria missile strikes ordered by Trump, thePalmer Report suggested, without evidence, that Trump spared the runways of the Shayrat airfield due to Russian collusion.[43]MSNBC hostLawrence O'Donnell echoed aPalmer Report conspiracy theory thatSyria's chemical weapon attack was orchestrated by the Russian government in order to allow Trump to appear distant from Putin.[12][44] The story contained no evidence.[5][45]
PreviousPalmer Report logo
In April 2017, thePalmer Report falsely claimed that theFBI had intelligence that Russia wasblackmailing Republican RepresentativeJason Chaffetz.[46] The evidence for the claim came from a tweet fromLouise Mensch, who, in turn, cited unnamed sources.Snopes found no evidence for this claim.[47][48]Ned Price, former special assistant to Obama, promoted the false claim on Twitter.[49]
ThePalmer Report also wrote a story claiming that Trump paid $10million to Chaffetz, which was later shared byconstitutional law professorLaurence Tribe.[5][50][11][51] The article pointed to a "report" from a tweet sent by a user with 257 followers.[5] In response to Tribe sharing thePalmer Report's article, political scientistBrendan Nyhan wrote: "Is this a joke? This is tinfoil hat conspiracy stuff".[52] A few years later, Tribe acknowledged he made "a mistake" and did not realize thePalmer Report "was as unreliable as it is."[53]
In May 2017, SenatorEd Markey was forced to backtrack a false claim that agrand jury had been impaneled in New York in relation to theSpecial Counsel investigation; the source for the claim was thePalmer Report and Mensch's blog, according to one of his aides.[54][55][56][51] In the same month, thePalmer Report reported thatSupreme CourtChief JusticeJohn Roberts had orderedNeil Gorsuch to recuse himself from all Trump-related Russia hearings, with his only source being a "single tweet from an anonymous Twitter account under the name 'Puesto Loco'".[12]
During the 2017Niger ambush, where four US soldiers were killed by militants from theIslamic State in the Greater Sahara, thePalmer Report speculated that US troops in Niger were involved in a "secret Russian-controlled military operation" approved by Trump.[57] ThePalmer Report also pushed a conspiracy theory that the Trump administration'stravel ban against Chad was connected to the Niger ambush.[58]
In October 2017, thePalmer Report published a story claiming thatJared Kushner had "secretly" flown toSaudi Arabia "ahead of his possible arrest", citing aPolitico article. The citedPolitico article debunks thePalmer Report's own story since it stated that Kushner had actually departed on a diplomatic trip two days prior to the announcement thatRobert Mueller's team would begin issuing indictments in relation to the Special Counsel investigation and that Kushner returned to Washington, D.C. to celebrate his wifeIvanka Trump's birthday before anyone had been taken into custody.Snopes rated thePalmer Report's story as false.[54] A few days after the story was published, Palmer acknowledged that Kushner returned home and was not arrested.[59]
2018–present
During the 2018Kavanaugh hearings, thePalmer Report and others falsely claimed that attorneyZina Bash, who is of Mexican and Jewish descent, flashed a "white-power" symbol.[60] JournalistDavid Harsanyi said thePalmer Report and others were "conspiracy-mongering in much the same wayAlex Jones is conspiracy-mongering".[61]
Following a speech Trump delivered on January 8, 2020 concerning anIranian missile strike at American bases and other hostilities with Iran, thePalmer Report incorrectly claimed that ageneral standing behind Trump gave a "horrified look" when Trump mentionedhypersonic missiles. ThePalmer Report also incorrectly claimed that by acknowledging the missiles, Trump leaked "classified information". A video of the speech shows no general giving a horrified look and it is a well known fact that America possess hypersonic missile technology.[62]
In August 2020, thePalmer Report "[led] the charge" against MSNBC hostChris Hayes after he reported on theTara Reade sexual assault accusations against Biden. ThePalmer Report commented, "I won't stop going after Hayes until he retracts his false story or he's off the air." According toThe Daily Dot, "All Hayes did was address the story. But Biden supporters... are throwing their arms up at a member of the media for covering it, demanding he be fired, calling it fake news, and searching for conspiracies, refusing to interrogate that a candidate who has a history of making women uncomfortable could do something like that."[63][64]
In an October 2018Simmons Research survey of 38 news organizations, thePalmer Report was ranked the fourth least trusted news organization by Americans – underneathBreitbart News and theDaily Kos – withOccupy Democrats,InfoWars, andThe Daily Caller being lower-ranked.[66] In an October 2020 study by theGerman Marshall Fund examining misinformation on social media during the 2016 election, thePalmer Report was one of the websites categorized as "false content producers" or "manipulators".[16] ThePalmer Report is labeled a biased source in theColumbia Journalism Review's collected index of "fake-news, clickbait, and hate sites".[15]
Evaluation by journalists
Various journalists have publicly discouraged individuals from sharingPalmer Report articles.[17] Bethania Palma, writing forSnopes, stated that thePalmer Report "generally relies on supposition, often extrapolating conclusions from flimsy sourcing, to make rather explosive claims that have fooled many".[54]Snopes' managing editor, Brooke Binkowski, said that the stories were "nominally true" but sensationalized innocuous information.[20] In 2017, Zack Beauchamp ofVox said that thePalmer Report was "devoted nearly exclusively to spreading bizarre assertions".[11] AuthorColin Dickey, writing inThe New Republic, said that thePalmer Report "routinely blasts out stories that sound serious but are actually based on a single, unverified source".[12]The Atlantic'sMcKay Coppins called thePalmer Report "the publication of record for anti-Trump conspiracy nuts who don't care about the credibility of the record".[49] JournalistGlenn Greenwald ofThe Intercept wrote that thePalmer Report is "a classicfake news site created by... a crazed fanatical follower of Hillary Clinton who got caught purposely disseminating fake news during the election".[41] In 2017, George Zornick, writing forThe Nation, described thePalmer Report as "churn[ing] out Russia-related fake news by the pixel load".[67]The Washington Post columnistDana Milbank identified thePalmer Report as "part of a larger phenomenon that has already taken root online, where in some quarters full-blown cases ofTrump derangement syndrome have already broken out."[44]David G. McAfee [sv]'sThe Curious Person's Guide to Fighting Fake News described thePalmer Report as a website that "provides skewed content featuring sensational headlines and stories with unverified conspiracy theories".[68] In February 2017,The Atlantic ran an article titled "The Rise of Progressive Fake News" and used thePalmer Report as one of its leading examples.[41]
In 2023,Newsweek issued a correction to a news story, writing in an editor's note that they had "incorrectly referred to Palmer Report as a fake news website".[70]
Evaluation by academia
Political scientistAlan Wolfe wrote in 2019 that Trump's connection with Russia "has created a wide-open field for leftist conspiracy theorists to make one wild claim after another; nearly all of them... can be conveniently found on a website called thePalmer Report."[9] In a 2019 report from theNYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, thePalmer Report was described as a "left-leaning dubious-content site" where many of the articles "range from the unsubstantiated... to the sophomoric."[59] InYochai Benkler's 2018 book,Network Propaganda, found that thePalmer Report (along withOccupy Democrats) were the "clearest examples" of left-wing sites that adopted the "hyperpartisan strategy" of successful right-wing sites in 2017.[71]David Greenberg, a professor of history and journalism, identified thePalmer Report as a "junk-news" site and a source not to be trusted.[72]Brendan Nyhan believes with sites like thePalmer Report, the left risks "poisoning" the Democratic Party.[31] SociologistEllis Jones gavethe Palmer Report an "F" grade on his"A" through "F" scale.[73]
Operation
ThePalmer Report is operated by Bill Palmer, whomBusiness Insider described in 2017 as a "mysterious individual" whose history is largely unknown. ThePalmer Report, like many of Palmer's previous publications, has a long list of writers on its website; in 2017 it was reported that many of them had only written a single article for the site, and most of the content appeared to have been written by Palmer himself. In 2023, while Palmer still writes many articles himself, there are five other regular writers. Palmer has used severalGoFundMe campaigns to raise funds for his publication and the Palmer Report now features a prominent call for donations on each page. Palmer has clashed with other liberal social media groups, includingPantsuit Nation.[17] Palmer describes himself as a political journalist;[74] media sources have variously described him as a journalist,[11] political analyst,[75] left-wing political blogger,[76] and anti-Trump Twitter user.[77]
References
^abcSources describing thePalmer Report as a fake news website include:
Hobbes, Michael (October 29, 2020)."What Is The Internet Doing To Boomers' Brains?".HuffPost.Archived from the original on June 30, 2021. RetrievedJuly 1, 2021.Both liberals and conservatives get their news from sources that range from mainstream, credible outlets...to fringe partisan and conspiratorial websites (Breitbart,Palmer Report').
Cassidy, Chris (May 11, 2017)."Ed Markey issues mea culpa for grand jury claim".Boston Herald.Archived from the original on March 24, 2021. RetrievedJuly 2, 2021....the senator got the information from two conspiracy blogs: one run by Louise Mensch, a former Tory member of the British Parliament, and thePalmer Report, a left-wing website.
McAfee, David G. (2020).The Curious Person's Guide to Fighting Fake News. Durham, NC:Pitchstone Publishing.ISBN978-1-63431-207-3.OCLC1192499268.ThePalmer Report is another 'news site' that provides skewed content (with a liberal twist) featuring sensational headlines and stories with unverified conspiracy theories.
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