The Post Millennial

The Post Millennial is a conservative Canadian online news magazine started in 2017. It publishes national and local news and has a large amount of opinion content. It has been criticized for releasing misinformation and articles written by fake personas,[1] for past employment of an editor with ties to white supremacist-platforming and pro-Kremlin media outlets,[2] and for opaque funding and political connections.[3][4]

The Post Millennial
TypeOnline magazine
FormatDigital-only
Founder(s)
  • Matthew Azrieli
  • Ali Taghva
Founded2017
Political alignmentConservative Canadian
HeadquartersMontreal, Canada
Websitethepostmillennial.com

Content

The Post Millennial provides both national and regional news. It runs stories on politics and culture. Its opinion section is a significant portion of its content, and conservative figures such as Barbara Kay have written opinions for the outlet.[4] Most news content provided by The Post Millennial is reused from other media outlets with no additional reporting.[4]

The Post Millennial has been described by Buzzfeed News as an advocacy organization for the Conservative Party operating through opaque personal connections and undeclared social media ties.[3]

The website Bellingcat described an article The Post Millennial published during the 2019 Australia fires as "disinformation". The English conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson released a false story alleging that the wildfires resulted in large part from arson.[1] The Post Millennial used Watson's story as a basis for their own reporting, alleging that "legal action" had been taken against 183 people during the bushfires. Bellingcat argued that their presentation "did not botch the basic facts" but was misleading.[1] In July 2020, The Post Millennial reported on the fatal shooting of a Black Lives Matter protestor in Texas. The site's story alleged that the victim had shot first, based in large part on tweets by Ian Miles Cheong and prominent QAnon conspiracist 'In the Matrixx'. Both Twitter users later took down their tweets, and The Post Millennial subsequently issued a correction. However, The Daily Dot notes that the site still attempts to blame the deceased man as the instigator, and The Daily Dot describes this propagation of content as an example of how "disinformation circulated by fringe groups to support their preferred narrative—that Black Lives Matter protesters are violent and lawless—works its way into the conservative media ecosystem and up to the White House".[5]

In July 2020 The Daily Beast exposed an online network pushing United Arab Emirates propaganda against Qatar, Turkey and Iran, using op-eds placed in news outlets using fictitious authors. The Post Millennial published some of these of these articles. After being contacted by the Beast, it took the articles down without comment.[6][7]

Staff

Andy Ngo has been editor-at-large since 2019. Ngo was previously with Quillette.[8][9]

Yaakov Pollak, a former provincial Conservative Party candidate, joined the media group in July 2019. Pollak ran a variety of Conservative Party-affiliated Facebook groups, including the Liberty Now and the Elect Conservatives groups. Pollak did not declare his connection to these pages, and until he was contacted by interested media groups, the majority of content on those pages was sourced from The Post Millennial.[3]

The Post Millennial has been questioned for its hiring of editor Cosmin Dzsurdzsa. Dzurdzsa started his career in 2015 at Russia Insider, a pro-Kremlin propaganda outlet. Dzurdzsa worked from December 2017 through 2018 at Free Bird Media, a blog which interviewed white supremacists including Richard Spencer and Kevin Johnston both before and while Dzurdzsa worked there. When asked by the National Observer, representatives of the media outlet made no comment on background checks or considerations of past employment in hiring.[2] Dzsurdzsa no longer works at The Post Millennial.

History

The Post Millennial was started in 2017 by Matthew Azrieli and Ali Taghva. The site's Facebook presence expanded rapidly between June 2018 and May 2019, with page interactions growing from 36,000 to 194,000 per month. Meanwhile, a new office was sited in Montreal, and the organization planned for another expansion into Toronto in 2020. In May 2019, Jeff Ballingall, a former political campaigner for Ontario Premier Doug Ford, was hired as chief executive.[4] A media study by National Observer found that 8% of Conservative respondents read The Post Millennial.[10]

The Post Millennial is backed by private investors, but their identities have not been made public. Other funding sources remain unclear, with proceeds from advertising or subscriptions undefined.[4]

References
  1. Evans, Robert (3 April 2020). "How Coronavirus Disinformation Gets Past Social Media Moderators". Bellingcat. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
  2. McIntosh, Emma (22 August 2019). "He used to work for a site that promoted racists — now he edits a Canadian news outlet". Canada's National Observer. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
  3. Silverman, Craig; Lytvynenko, Jane; Boutilier, Alex; Oved, Marco (26 July 2019). "A Set Of Facebook Pages Promoting Conservatives And Attacking Trudeau Are Run By A Post Millennial Staffer". BuzzFeed News. Buzzfeed News. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  4. Yates, Jeff; Rogers, Kaleigh (13 August 2019). "Canadian news site The Post Millennial blurs line between journalism and conservative 'pamphleteering'". CBC News. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
  5. Goforth, Claire (27 July 2020). "Slain Austin protester falsely accused of firing first by far-right trolls, Trump". The Daily Dot.
  6. Rawnsley, Adam (2020-07-06). "Right-Wing Media Outlets Duped by a Middle East Propaganda Campaign". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2020-07-07.
  7. Covucci, David (7 July 2020). "Right-wing troll Andy Ngo busted for publishing stories by fake people". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 3 August 2020.
  8. de Buen, Néstor (11 December 2019). "Fact-Checking the Tweet that Got Andy Ngo Banned from Twitter". Merion West. Retrieved 3 August 2020.
  9. Thompson, Don (5 June 2020). "Portland conservative writer suing 'antifa' for injuries". KATU. Associated Press. Retrieved 3 August 2020.
  10. McIntosh, Emma (7 August 2019). "Canadians' media-consumption habits lead to misinformation, study finds". National Observer.
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