The Dispatch
Share this post
Fact Check: Is The Babylon Bee a ‘Fake News’ Site?
factcheck.thedispatch.com
The Dispatch Fact Check

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

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

Alec Dent
Apr 6
Comment21
Share
A Miami Herald headline accused Ron DeSantis of using a “fake news site to raise cash.” (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.)

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.

Twitter avatar for @MiamiHeraldMiami Herald @MiamiHerald
DeSantis calls out ‘fake news,’ but his campaign used fake news site to raise cash
miamiherald.com/news/politics-…

April 5th 2022

49 Retweets151 Likes

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.

Comment21
ShareShare

Create your profile

0 subscriptions will be displayed on your profile (edit)

Skip for now

Only Dispatch Members only can comment on this post

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in

Check your email

For your security, we need to re-authenticate you.

Click the link we sent to , or click here to sign in.

Dusty
Apr 6

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.

Expand full comment
Reply
5 replies
Jason Bellomo
Writes The Bell Tower Newsletter ·Apr 6

Love the Bee.

Expand full comment
Reply
19 more comments…
TopNewCommunity

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2022 The Dispatch
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Publish on Substack Get the app
Substack is the home for great writing