The Washington Post

The Washington Post has promoted a claim that 200 named websites are stooges and tools of the Kremlin — a great news story, except for lack of evidence.

Click here to tell the editor in charge of The Washington Post: “Smearing is not reporting.”

The notorious Sen. Joe McCarthy used similar techniques. Now, more than 60 years later, the pointed question that helped to bring him down can be appropriately directed at The Washington Post: “Have you no sense of decency?”

Click here to sign a petition that takes The Washington Post to task for violating “basic journalistic standards” while doing “real harm to democratic discourse in our country.”

The following headlines from a variety of media outlets give you a sense of the cogent critiques that have been published since the Post put out its story on November 24:

* “Washington Post Disgracefully Promotes a McCarthyite Blacklist From a New, Hidden, and Very Shady Group”
— The Intercept

* “Washington Post’s ‘Fake News’ Guilt”
— Consortium News

* “Journalists Denounce WaPo Fake News as Red Scare Redux”
— Common Dreams

* “The Washington Post ‘Blacklist’ Story Is Shameful and Disgusting”
— Rolling Stone

By clicking here, you can quickly join with others in urging The Washington Post to “prominently retract the article and apologize for publishing it.”

Let’s not allow ideological smears to trample dissent and further narrow political debate in the United States.

After signing the petition, please use the tools on the next webpage to share it with your friends.

This work is only possible with your financial support.

— The RootsAction.org Team

P.S. RootsAction is an independent online force endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Coleen Rowley, Frances Fox Piven, Lila Garrett, Phil Donahue, Sonali Kolhatkar, and many others.