Fact Check: Is The Babylon Bee a ‘Fake News’ Site?

A Miami Herald headline misrepresents the satire site—and contradicts its own article.

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A headline for an article from the Miami Herald claims that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis “used [a] fake news site to raise cash.” A tweet promoting the article uses the same language.

The article details how DeSantis’ campaign committee and a political action committee associated with his campaign have paid The Babylon Bee for access to its list of subscribers. The Babylon Bee is a conservative satire website.  The article itself describes The Babylon Bee correctly, reporting that the campaign and PAC “have sought help from a satire website with the tagline ‘Fake news you can trust.’”

After a New York Times article referred to the Bee as a “right-wing misinformation site,” the Bee threatened legal action, leading to the Times correcting its article and changing references to the Babylon Bee to make clear that it is satire. Other outlets, such as Snopes, have similarly gone from referring to Bee articles as “false” to “satire.”

While the Babylon Bee certainly has a partisan point of view, it both clearly labels itself as satire and has a reputation for being a satirical website.

If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    It’s an understandable mistake for someone without a sense of humor.

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  2. RC

    Apparently the Miami Herald is a misinformation site.

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    Nate Dunlevy

    I can't with the stupidity.

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  4. Avatar photo
    Frank Lee

    Any source of humor will be seen by the humorless left as “right-wing”.

    The BB is non-partisan. It roasted Trump.

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    1. Avatar photo
      MattA

      Maybe it used to be non-partisan. And maybe it roasted Trump once upon a time.
      But then it really started pulling its punches. And all you need to do is look who is buying ads on the site to see why.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Frank Lee

        Maybe center-right as The Onion is center-left. However, again, the problem is that humor tends to lean right because the left is so easily triggered to and hypersensitive to humor except that which lampoons their political opponents. Liberals tend to take their politics very seriously and don't easily laugh at themselves.

        Here are some examples from The Onion:

        Hillary Clinton Receives $225,000 Speaking Fee For Telling Grandson Bedtime Story

        Kamala Harris Confirms Crack In Office Ceiling Seems Slightly Longer Today

        I think these are hilarious, but I suspect you might not agree.

        Note that The Onion is not banned from Twitter.

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        1. Avatar photo
          Scarlette Tarte

          Oh, that's rich. It is the right that has no sense of humor. Or, should I say, their sense of humor is juvenile? That is more correct. They think it's funny to make fun of people. They are horrible at humor. This is why that comedy program that FOX attempted failed. The right is just not truly funny.

          The best humor is self deprecating. Humor that is unexpected and surprises you. You don't see the punchline coming. Turn of a word and keen wit, like Noel Coward, Winston Churchill. The best humor is affiliative - that reduces tension and bonds people together, as opposed to Republican humor which is aggressive and aimed at a target. Bullying. That is what the right thinks is funny.

          It isn't. And Republicans, in general, don't have the intelligence and wit to do affiliative humor.

          The Onion is great. And Liberals laugh at themselves all the time. Do you ever hear Republicans laughing at a joke about Trump?

          And btw, the Hillary Clinton bit above is hilarious. The Onion writers are liberal. And they make fun of liberals all the time.

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          1. Avatar photo
            Dusty

            Fox comedy show? Are you talking about Gutfield? Because if so, Gutfield didn’t fail. It actually just surpassed Colbert in the last couple weeks to become the most-watched late night show. https://www.mediaite.com/tv/is-greg-gutfeld-the-new-king-of-late-night-tv/.

            “Do you ever hear Republicans laughing at a joke about Trump?”

            Yes, all the time. The Babylon Bee publishes Trump jokes routinely.

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          2. Avatar photo
            Frank Lee

            "And Liberals laugh at themselves all the time. Do you ever hear Republicans laughing at a joke about Trump?"

            LOL. You might live on another planet if this is your observation. Did you remember the "I will resist" armies of crying and angry leftist after the election where terrible Hillary lost? And then those irredeemable deplorable Trump supporters made tee shirts of the name they were called by Hillary.

            I live in liberal land and the liberal cohort in this town are the most humorless easily triggered reactionaries God made. My conservative friends are a hoot... will laugh at liberals, themselves and Trump.

            You don't need to take my word for it.

            https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/opinion/sunday/conservatives-are-happier-and-extremists-are-happiest-of-all.html

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          MattA

          I don't think its a matter of which side is hyper-sensitive. I think both websites have gone downhill because people in general are more easily triggered and can't laugh at themselves.

          At the beginning, that was BBee's strength, they spent a lot more space making fun of their target audience and people loved it. But I just don't see that they do that very much at all anymore, it got more political and now they mostly just lampoon the other side and it doesn't have the same wit.

          Same with the Onion, they just don't take the same risks they used to, not as creative. Those you shared are both alright, but I remember when they had some top-notch humor like "US condemned for pre-emptive use of Hillary Clinton on Iran" and "School board implements abstinence-only approach to combat childhood obesity". And it wasn't just the headlines that were meant to be funny and scrolled past, they put real work into the content.

          Satire in general is a tough business to be in these days, because reality is already so absurd. They can't keep up.
          For example: Babylon Bee, 9/20/2019 https://babylonbee.com/news/ken-ham-begins-construction-on-life-size-reproduction-of-tower-of-babel
          Christianity Today, 7/11/2021 https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2021/july/tower-of-babel-ark-encounter-ky-ken-ham-answers-genesis.html

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          1. Avatar photo
            Scarlette Tarte

            I agree with this bit that satire is tough business today. You are right. Our times are so absurd...our politics so absurd that how can satirists point out the absurdity? We live it every day, no pointing it out needed.

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    2. Avatar photo
      Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

      I love BB, but it skews to the right

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  5. Avatar photo
    The Bell Tower

    Love the Bee.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Dusty

    For all of the rage against the right-wing media ecosystem, examples like this are perfect exhibits to display why the ecosystem was created in the first place.

    I was kind of curious, so I did a very unscientific study and perused the primary legacy papers in markets that I know are more conservative, mostly along the Gulf Coast - Pensacola, Mobile, Biloxi. And even in these markets the papers had an explicit leftward slant. Is it any wonder that conservatives built their own media in response?

    Miami certainly is not a conservative market (though it surprisingly has a Republican, crypto-loving mayor), but the headline highlighted here isn't a mistake. It's an intentionally misleading attempt to paint a narrative. Surprise, surprise.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Joseph Iaco

      Haven’t you answered your own question? 25 years ago, conservative media was hard to come by. Now it is as easy to locate as left leaning media. The internet certainly leveled the playing field. Newspapers like the WSJ editorial board and Augusta Chronicle remain right of center. Sinclair media is one of the largest owners of tv stations and are firmly in the right. People have no excuse when it comes to consuming left wing media: either they chose to, they don’t care or they want to revel in the victim hood of being “forced” to endure left wing media.

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      Scarlette Tarte

      What, in your book, is a "leftward slant"? Are you meaning the opinion columns are "leftward"? How they cover the news? What makes up a leftward slant to you?

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      1. Egal.Fabrice

        The Washington Post, to which I subscribed during the Trump years, has articles like "this year is a landmark year for diversity at the Oscars" in the Arts section, and "Lawmakers targeting trans youth demonize kids to pander to fearful voters" in the Sports sections.

        The Opinion sections has featured guests writing unironically "why is not ok to hate men?" and "can black women and white women be true friends?" - to which the article answered 'it's difficult, because there is no trust'.

        The only reason these extremist, arguably racist columns were published was that they expanded on the progressive perspective. Their Opinions section is actually better than most at showing a diversity of viewpoints, but I don't think I've seen a culturally conservative article like, say, "trans activists threaten women rights", even from their pro-Trump columnists.

        So I'd define a left-wing slant as phrasing headlines and articles in a way that more or less matches what you would expect from a liberal or progressive activist (as opposed to making a deliberate effort at neutrality) while having little to no equivalent contributions from the right.

        I don't think having a slant in necessarily a bad thing, and I'm certainly on the Democratic side. But it's really important to be aware that you are not actually being neutral.

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        Dusty

        Both. Their op-Ed boards overwhelmingly, but also their headlines and coverage.

        Headline example: “Gov. Ron DeSantis’ divisive agenda heads to court” is a leftward slant headline. “H.B. 14 challenged in court” is a nonpartisan headline.

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    3. Avatar photo
      Mike B

      I agree, they knowingly worded their headline to take a cheap shot.

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