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NBC Picked the Wrong Partner to Take to the Republican Debate | Opinion

We are one year away from the 2024 presidential election and once again, the mainstream media is ignoring the threat of extremist propaganda machines. Today, the media, specifically NBC News, is failing the United States electorate.

Not just because NBC News is uncritically platforming misinformation as a co-host of tonight’s third Republican debate, but because the network is working with one of the far-right’s most powerful propaganda machines, Rumble, to do it. By co-hosting tonight’s debate with Rumble, NBC is legitimizing a video-sharing platform that bankrolls self-described misogynists and promotes right-wing conspiracy theorists.

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The event, hosted by the Republican National Committee, will be moderated by Lester Holt, Kristen Welker, and Hugh Hewitt. It also will be live-streamed by the online site Rumble.

The platform drew scorn from the gender tolerance advocacy group UltraViolet which accused Rumble “of extremist rhetoric and content that promotes misogyny, antisemitism, and racism.” The group called on NBC to cancel the program.

UltraViolet calls on CNN to Cancel Scheduled 2024 Town Hall Event with Donald Trump in New Hampshire

CNN came under fire almost as soon as the news of the event broke.

MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan tweeted on Monday that CNN was “giving a live primetime platform to an indicted insurrection-inciter, who also incited violence against their network.”

Hasan added that he had been asked many times whether the media had “learned lessons” from 2016 and 2020, and that CNN’s decision indicated to him that “clearly some in our media have not.”

Liberal activists were equally condemnatory of the decision.

Shaunna Thomas, the co-founder and executive director of UltraViolet, a pro-gender equality organization, called Trump “a flagrant misogynist” and “insurrectionist” to whom CNN was about to give “free airtime and an unfettered platform to spew lies and hate.”

Her organization is calling on the network to cancel the event.

What Tucker Carlson’s departure means for Fox News

Immediately after Carlson’s departure was announced, fans and detractors started discussing his exit, with both sides critical of Fox News for different reasons. Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, denounced Carlson, tweeting that he used Tucker Carlson Tonight and Fox News to “spread misinformation and harm LGBTQ people.” Bridget Todd, director of communications for the women’s group Ultraviolet, described him as “one of the nation’s most prolific mouthpieces for white supremacy, misinformation, and misogyny. By providing Tucker with a platform on national TV for so long, Fox News has done extensive damage to our democracy. Good riddance, Tucker Carlson.”

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With his abrupt departure from Fox News on Monday, Tucker Carlson lost the megaphone that many have accused him of using to spread conspiracy theories about Covid-19 vaccines, gender identity and election integrity.

Civil rights activists and media experts expressed hope that a major force in the misinformation ecosystem had been muzzled.

The television host was “one of the nation’s most prolific mouthpieces for white supremacy, misinformation and misogyny,” said Bridget Todd, director of communications at the gender equity advocacy group Ultraviolet.

“We are not sad to see him go,” Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and chief executive of the L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organization GLAAD, wrote on Twitter.

Women’s rights group UltraViolet calls on CNN to suspend Don Lemon from talking politics after Nikki Haley insult

A top women’s group is calling for CNN anchor Don Lemon to be suspended from covering politics over his comments about women and age this week while discussing Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley.

“While Don Lemon’s egregiously sexist comments about women being ‘in their prime’ have no place on CNN or anywhere in the news media, this isn’t the first time Lemon’s bias has influenced his on-air reporting,” said Bridget Todd, director of communications at UltraViolet, a leading national gender advocacy group. “From athletes to politicians and even his co-anchors, Lemon has used his power and platform to consistently undermine and demean powerful women.”

Medical providers, activists urge Google to ban ads from anti-abortion clinics

A coalition of more than 100 medical providers and advocacy groups asked Google to stop accepting ads from anti-abortion clinics and crisis pregnancy centers in a letter sent to the tech giant Wednesday.

The letter, led by women’s rights group UltraViolet, urges Google to ban ads from anti-abortion centers in order to help mitigate efforts to “mislead, harm, and misdirect people away from reproductive health and abortion care,” according to a copy of the letter shared with The Hill.

“Allowing anti-abortion centers to place ads on your platforms that steers unsuspecting people into the hands of those who will deny them care is unethical. The best way to prevent this is to remove and ban intentionally misleading advertisements sponsored by anti-abortion clinics and centers, especially crisis pregnancy centers,” they wrote.

Privacy fears emerge over corporate policies covering travel for abortion

Companies must establish guidelines for how they will respond to potential legal attacks on their policies, said Sonja Spoo, the director of reproductive rights campaigns at the feminist advocacy group UltraViolet.

“If you’re going to provide these benefits to workers, you need to make sure you have a plan in place to protect them,” she said. “Make sure employees are safe from attempts by whoever is in power to see information and weaponize it.”

Match halts some political donations after accusations of ‘reprowashing’

What they’re saying: The women’s rights group UltraViolet is calling the practice of donating to causes that directly oppose company statements on reproductive rights “reprowashing” — and along with other progressives is pushing to stop corporations from doing it.

• “Companies have to both provide the best benefits for their workers and also make sure that they’re not funding politicians who are making it necessary for workers to have to travel to get basic health care in the first place,” Sonja Spoo, the Director of Reproductive Rights Campaigns at women’s activist group UltraViolet, tells Axios.

Anti-sexual violence group places full-page NYT ad backing Jackson’s confirmation

A sexual violence coalition has placed a full-page New York Times advertisement in support of President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

UltraViolet Action communications director Bridget Todd said in a statement that Judge Jackson is qualified to be a Supreme Court associate justice.

“Judge Jackson is more than qualified to be on the Supreme Court. Her level of poise and endurance in the face of baseless and often sexist and racist questions and attacks from Republicans in the Senate further demonstrate the quality of her character.  We stand with Judge Jackson and are eagerly awaiting her confirmation to the Supreme Court as the first Black woman justice in American history,” Todd said.

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