Last week, Huffington Post published an article in which the author, Shelley Garland, argued for the denial of voting rights to white males and the forced redistribution of their wealth.
Naturally, the racist and sexist article led to a severe backlash from virtually every right-leaning media outlet, forcing the liberal publication's South African Editor-in-Chief, Verashni Pillay, to pen an article of her own defending Garland's right of free speech.
HuffPo piece earns deluge of criticism
Pillay's article acknowledged the avalanche of criticism The Huffington Post received for its outrageous piece, which was titled “Could It Be Time To Deny White Men The Franchise?” Pillay then defended Garland by stating that the concept behind the white male-bashing article is "pretty standard" for feminist theory.
The Huffington Post editorial staff may have been able to dismiss allegations of racism and sexism with the wave of a pen, but it will not be so easy to dismiss the latest revelation about the article's author, identified as a philosophy student by the name of Shelley Garland. As it turns out, Shelley Garland does not exist.
As a result of the discovery, Pillay had no choice but to come clean and write an article explaining the embarrassing situation. In her mea culpa blog post, “White Men And The Vote: Why We Took The Blog Down,” the Huffington Post editor declared that “Shelley Garland, who claimed to be an MA student at UCT, cannot be traced and appears not to exist.”
Pillay assured readers, however, that the publication would immediately revamp their blogging procedures so that contributors would have to "verify" their identity.
The Huffington Post will also "hold discussions" on putting better quality controls in place.
Fake news versus fake authors
Ironically, this is the same publication that has relished its role in calling out "Fake News" since the 2016 presidential election. In fact, since January 1, 2017, HuffPo has published 76 articles with the 'fake news' tag, virtually all of which take aim at Donald Trump and his supporters.
For instance, HuffPo's Jon Hotchkiss penned an article using the 'fake news' tag on March 27, titled "Why Do Trump Voters Believe His Lies? It's Not Because They're Stupid." On March 14, Todd Gitlin's article, "Frightbart," described Breitbart News as "a virtual stew of menace, a pit of monsters." On March 6, Terry Krepel bashed Trump-friendly WorldNetDaily for making up "fake news" about former AG Loretta Lynch, and Ed Mazza penned a piece on February 23, declaring, "Sean Hannity Flips Out After Getting Busted Sharing Fake News."
The liberal elitists at HuffPo can say what they want about Breitbart News, Fox News, and WorldNetDaily while holding themselves up as the defenders of truth in journalism and crusaders of free speech -- but at least none of their Trump-friendly competitors have been busted publishing articles by imaginary authors.
