The Click Bait Brief: Is a conservative blog peddling fake news about Speaker McCarthy?
If you are going to promote fake news, make sure you clarify you are promoting fake news
What in the world is going on over at Conservative Brief? Their blog posts are not all that good, and their headlines are even worse. Take, for example, one of their latest posts about House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). The headline reads, “McCarthy May Have Gone Back on Key Pledge He Made to Become Speaker.” The excerpt that accompanies the post reads, “‘That Lasted A Month!’ Republicans Sound OFF After Speaker Kevin McCarthy Backtracks on A Major Promise.” You would expect, therefore, that the post would outline how McCarthy went back on a pledge, and would include a list of Republicans “sounding OFF” about it. After reading the article, I was stunned at how deceptive the headline and excerpt were. In short, it was click bait.
It is no secret that American patriots are apprehensive about McCarthy being Speaker. Many of us are still sore from the backstabbing McCarthy engaged in after the 2020 election. It took 15 rounds of voting in 2023 for him to finally get the speakership, thanks to conservative representatives like Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO). He was forced to agree to some pretty significant concessions in order to secure his position. One such concession was a rule change that would prohibit fly-by-night 4,000 page omnibus bills, and require a delay of three to four days for spending bills to be voted on instead of just mere hours.
Even though my Twitter account is permanently suspended, they still see fit to send me e-mails with the latest tweets that might interest me. This morning, the following tweet was in my inbox, which is how I came across this story:
Republicans are not happy.https://t.co/ucrmChgqKQ
— Chuck Woolery (@chuckwoolery) February 11, 2023
It is Twitter, GETTR, Parler, and Truth Social posts like the above that usually accompany the links to Conservative Brief: very cryptic, low on details, and, sadly, misleading. Woolery suggests Republicans are not happy. The headline and excerpt seem to confirm our worst fears: McCarthy has betrayed us again. However, the piece itself does not cite one single Republican who is “sounding OFF”. In fact, all they do in the piece is site one (just one!) tweet from a lefty clown, before delving into the recent history of how McCarthy became Speaker, and rehashing some recent events where he is firing back at media over their hypocritical coverage of committee assignments.
The House is voting on a resolution condemning the Chinese Communist Party’s use of a surveillance balloon.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) February 9, 2023
This resolution came out yesterday and is getting a vote today.
So much for having bills out with multiple days to review! That lasted a month!
Setting aside the obvious for a moment—that a non-binding resolution is not the same as a spending bill—I have to ask: Why? Why would the folks at Conservative Brief choose to create content like this? I shared the link on ClouthHub, and the first response confirmed my fear that many people would only go by the headline and excerpt.
Sadly, this is not isolated to Chuck Woolery. Check out this post from Sebastian Gorka on Truth Social:
Interesting how his “take” on the article is very similar to Woolery’s tweet, is it not? Here, too, the pattern is the same in the replies: people talking about how they are not shocked at McCarthy’s alleged behavior, who more than likely did not read the actual blog post, or if they did, cannot be bothered to think critically about what they just read.
There are those, however, who know the difference between a 4,000 page over-spending monstrosity and a one to two page non-binding resolution condemning the recent actions by the Chinese communist regime.
Bills and resolutions are same?
— Abhishek Dwivedi (@Rezang_La) February 9, 2023
I understand that a headline needs to catch attention. I also understand that part of running a blog/news/opinion site is to get people to read your stuff, and hopefully click on an ad or two. The headline, however, should actually reflect what the article is about, no? Take, for example, this article you are reading right now. I titled it “The Click Bait Brief: Is a conservative blog peddling fake news about Speaker McCarthy?,” because I am writing about how, in my opinion, the Conservative Brief has peddled click bait. The excerpt I wrote (you can see it at the top) summarizes the content; I believe McCarthy backtracking on a promise is fake news, Conservative Brief knows it is fake news, too, but, unlike me, do not call out the fact that it is fake news.
How would you like it if I had used that title (Click Bait Brief…) then proceeded to talk about irrelevant stuff that had nothing to do with the headline, all the while presenting you with ads? What if I posted the link on social media with a misleading excerpt? I probably would never see you again, right? Here is the link to the About page for Conservative Brief. Their bios seem impressive: military veterans, thinkers, authors… yet content like the one referenced here is the kind of crap they put out?
So far, McCarthy has delivered on his promises, yet those of us who are more cynical are waiting for the other shoe to drop at any moment. “Fool me once” and all that, you know? It is my belief that Conservative Brief has taken advantage of that cynicism in the same manner that left wing rags like the New York Times and the Daily Beast take advantage of their audiences’ naivete (fancy way of saying stupidity), and all for clicks they can sell to advertisers.
If their intent was to show some support for McCarthy’s recent actions, and to call out the idiocy of Jake Sherman’s tweet, they failed miserably. Again, if you are going to promote fake news, make sure you clarify you are promoting fake news; otherwise, you are a click bait peddler, and I want nothing to do with you, conservative or not.