https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/quillette/

I’ve had basically full faith in Media bias/Fact Check until I saw this terrible Quillette review. I just figured they were fairly correct and neutral and hadn’t seen counter-evidence to that claim until now. This is a short blog-post on their media bias and fact check of Quillette. I’ll point out why I disagree with them.

The check itself

Found on this site: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/quillette/

Date: 18/06 2020

Here is their rating:

Here is an image of the full article. I’ll review the full text:

Claims

Main text:

A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no sourcing to credible information, a complete lack of transparency and/or is fake news. Fake News is the deliberate attempt to publish hoaxes and/or disinformation for the purpose of profit or influence (Learn More). Sources listed in the Questionable Category may be very untrustworthy and should be fact checked on a per article basis. Please note sources on this list are not considered fake news unless specifically written in the reasoning section for that source. See all Questionable sources.

This text makes Quillette out to be some far-right conspiracy site. In reality it’s a high quality article/op-ed site with leading social science academics writing high quality opinion pieces somewhat related about their negative academic experience with anti free speech groups. Quillette is very pro free speech and liberty so it’s a lot of culture war but it’s transparent and no one there is trying to trick you, cheat with any data or make illogical arguments. For me that shouldn’t warrant this harsh critique as Quillette is always transparent about the points on the site. But let’s continue to the analysis part of the review.

Analysis/Bias

In review, Quillette is a right leaning blog that features lengthy, well written articles. Headlines occasionally utilize loaded language such as this: Cowardice at Columbia. This story is also properly sourced to credible local media and provides video evidence. In another article, Jordan Peterson, And the New Chivalry they report favorably on Jordan Peterson who has made several anti-Feminist statements and has called for “enforced monogamy”, and “The people who hold that our culture is an oppressive patriarchy, they don’t want to admit that the current hierarchy might be predicated on competence.”

So far the review is largely neutral and he even praises the site just like I did. None of this reveals any low quality writing. It’s culture war but the site doesn’t hide the fact that it is culture war and not just neutral factual reporting. Same way Washington Post or New York Times are mainly about culture.

Editor-in-Chief and Founder Claire Lehmann is considered a part of the Intellectual Dark Web, which is a term used to describe a “group of public personalities who oppose what they see as the dominance of progressive identity politics and political correctness in the media and academia.” The primary mission of the IDW is to reject political correctness and embrace a free thinking discussion of controversial topics. Further, according to the left leaning Village Voice, Claire Lehmann, believes “nationalism is the antidote to racism,” and claims to have been “blacklisted” for “criticizing feminism”.

It’s a bit over the top. Claire Lehmann is not a controversial dark shadowy figure with weird politics. She is largely apolitical and meager besides attacking points that are against free speech. The whole site has a libertarian streak to it. She is a libertarian/old liberal.

In general, Quillette promotes right leaning positions such as anti-feminism and questionable viewpoints regarding racism. For example, in this article they state “Racist attitudes of whites towards blacks have long become socially unacceptable in America, although the reverse, racism of a minority directed at the white majority, is still tolerated or even encouraged.”

Yet again, these are ideological debates in Quillette. There is nothing factually wrong here. It’s factual for some parts of the population in America even though it may not be a huge effect overall for all we know.

Reverse racism is controversial and disputed by some. It is certainly possible for minorities to be prejudiced against Whites, however some believe racism requires “systematic oppression which is built into the government, institutions and social structures. Without this factor of systematic oppression, there cannot be racism.” This article also talks at length about IQ differences between whites and blacks and while not definitively stating it, repeats over and over that genetics are a factor in racial IQ differences (hereditarianism, which is a pseudoscientific viewpoint).

The reverse racism claim by the reviewer is a bit weird as it’s an opinion stated as an opinion. So it’s hard to really understand why it would be the basis for flagging Quillette as right-wing and pseudoscience. He disagrees with their ideology, we see that. But maybe that makes him left-leaning instead of making the site very right-leaning?

There are actually genetic IQ differences between blacks and whites. That’s just a fact of the research as we understand it today. Some may disagree but even so it doesn’t make it pseudoscience.

Further, on May 29, 2019, Quillette published an article by Eoin Lenihan, claiming there are “connections between antifascist activists and national-level reporters who cover the far-right.” According to Columbia Journalism Review, Lenihan “identified himself as an online extremism researcher, despite having no association with any previously known organization that researches extremism. In reality, Lenihan was already an established right-wing troll, now blanket banned for ‘violating rules against managing multiple Twitter accounts for abusive purposes.’” When asked by CJR if the information contained in the story was fact checked, Quillette declined to comment.

There are always some bad fake stories on any media. Quillette with outside writers is surely more prone to it than papers who have internal writers trying to keep their jobs. But what mainly matters here is how they go about fixing mistakes. Do they double down or admit fault and remove the article in such a case? The review should have been focused on that and not on the mistake by itself as such mistakes appear on any media. 60 Minutes did great with their fast firings after they published the fake Killian documents episode. And they achieved to regain their image after that. They of course are never fully forgiven for lying to the public but yet they seem to truly regret that episode. And a site you send articles to is surely given more leeway on this stuff?

Overall, we rate Quillette Questionable based on the promotion of racial pseudoscience and the use of poor sources. (D. Van Zandt 6/4/2017) Updated (8/05/2019)

Poor sourcing is often the case with news articles and blog-posts. I think it’s a huge issue overall. Very few people know how to consistently link to sources or make sure they are easy to find. But the review of the site didn’t go over this part so I can’t know what he reviewed or why. What claims couldn’t he find sources for?

He also makes the race claim again. Black and white IQ differences articles are not really posted on the site anymore as far as I know. Most sites and journals now fear this science too much as they fear social media cancel mobs. And the reverse racism claim he makes only starts a larger discussion instead of ending it. That statement doesn’t show Quillette is wrong. Just that he disagrees with them.

I rate the review 2/10. Terrible. Media Bias/Fact Check overall now also gets a lower rating in my estimate. You can’t easily trust them anymore as they allow these reviews to be posted on their site. They get a 5/10 overall as a site for now. Because they are largely useful for MSM checks.