Buzzfeed Ben: Facebook and Other Media Companies Are Too Deferential to Conservative Media; Prefers (Get This!) The Weekly Standard to the Daily Caller

You've gotta be fucking kidding me.

At a private meeting late last week, some publishing executives criticized Facebook Inc. for being overly accommodating to conservative outlets, days before social-media executives are to appear on Capitol Hill to discuss how content is displayed on their sites.

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At the off-the-record meeting between Facebook officials and publishing executives in New York on Thursday, BuzzFeed Editor in Chief Ben Smith said that, by his count, there were about six conservative-leaning publications among the dozen or so outlets represented at the gathering. He said the ratio implied a fundamental misconception among Facebook employees about the workings of the news industry, according to people familiar with his remarks.

Mr. Smith said that the number of conservative publications in attendance indicated that Facebook had bought into the idea, promoted primarily by conservatives, that mainstream outlets such as the New York Times are liberal and should be counterbalanced by right-leaning opinion outlets, said people familiar with his remarks.

Mr. Smith objected in particular to the presence of the Daily Caller, a conservative-leaning outlet whose journalistic standards he called into question. He said other conservative outlets present, such as the Weekly Standard, held higher standards.

Yes, the Weekly Standard, which has joined the left in fact-checking conservative sites (some incredibly small and almost entirely unknown) while largely ignoring claims made by liberal sites.

Buzzfeed Ben had a second for that motion:

Mr. Smith's assessment of the Daily Caller's journalistic standards was echoed by Lydia Polgreen, the editor in chief of HuffPost.

So Buzzfeed Ben is pissed off that conservative sites even get to attend meetings with FaceBook, and feels that his Listicle Emporium isn't adequately catered to.

By the way, the Huffington Post editor also expressed anger at the Daily Caller for daring to report that one of its "contributors" has a history of making "jokes" about the Holocaust and praising Louis Farrakhan.

The Wall Street Journal -- whose reporters, remember, are almost invariably left-liberals (as contrasted with its conservative-leaning editorial page) -- chooses to obscure what those tweets were and refuses to link to the Daily Caller article in question so that people can decide for themselves.

More: Apparently Listicle Ben has a bee in his bonnet about the Daily Caller, and also claims that the Holocaust jokes are just fine because Leftist:

Someone pointed this out to me -- Listicle Ben has a lot of balls accusing anyone else of "stealth corporate propaganda," given his cat-gif emporium's constant McDonald's boosterism.

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posted by Ace of Spades at 03:54 PM

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