I’ve been fighting back against fake and clickbait news sites on social media this entire election cycle. They are a scourge and played a large role in my having to utter the words “President Trump.”
For further reading:
“A blog posting fake news about the Wisconsin recount is causing some major confusion in Waukesha County…One such story posted on the website “The Palmer Report” cites an observer accusing officials of double-counting votes for Donald Trump…CBS 58 News reached out to the main contact at “The Palmer Report” to ask if he had followed-up on any of accusation before publishing but there was no response.”
Bill Palmer thinks knitters who write about politics are “stupid and shitty liberals” who “give good knitters a bad name.”
About Me
I’ve been a paralegal for twenty years. I can conduct legal research and write as well as any attorney. If you drop a case in my lap, I can perform all work necessary to move the case to conclusion.
Even though I can produce the same quality work product as an attorney, I cannot call myself an attorney and do attorney work. It’s unethical – one of the fundamental ethics rules for paralegals is being honest with our clients, attorneys, and the courts about who we are and what our role is.
Because of my paralegal training and background my research skills are top notch. Distilling facts and information into a persuasive argument is second nature — the same process as brief writing.
These skills come in handy because I also like to write about politics. I compose writings with a heightened level of paranoia. I expect a judge or an attorney to split hairs about everything I write, so I try not to make sloppy arguments. If I link to information, it’s the very best source I could find.
When I’m doing research for an article, I’m extremely careful with my source material. I try to unearth primary sources from reputable sites. If I can’t do that, I’ll compare three or four articles on the same subject and see if the information is in alignment. I’ll look for slant, information about the writer, information about the publication – anything that provides a clue about the credibility (or lack thereof) of the information I’m including in my article. I follow the information breadcrumb trail until it disappears.
Because of this blog, I have a fairly large social media footprint. Everything I say about who I am and what I do can be verified by an average Internet sleuth, and all paths lead to a real person – me.
If I’m writing an article about Palmer Report, why am I telling you all of this?
Here’s why: You now know more about my ethics, training, career, and research and writing abilities than you do about Bill Palmer’s.
Why am I picking on Palmer Report?
Palmer Report caught my attention last week with the headline “Three Wisconsin precincts revise vote totals after caught padding Donald Trump’s numbers.” (Emphasis mine.) It piqued my interest because whoa – if someone was caught padding vote totals, that’s a HUGE story. The article said, “evidence of either gross negligence or foul play has been exposed in three Wisconsin precincts – which had resulted in quite a number of phantom votes given to Donald Trump.” WOW. That is a big deal.
So, I checked out the two sources linked in the article. One was a tweet showing a change in vote totals. The second was a link to a news article about an error in the vote tally, which stated:
In order to give election returns to the Outagamie County Clerk’s office as quickly as possible the Chief Inspector added together the votes from the election machine tapes. An error was made while keying the numbers on the calculator during this process resulting in an incorrect number of votes reported on Election night. The official process of tallying the votes was completed and rechecked. These vote numbers were recorded and delivered to the Outagamie County Clerk’s office the morning of November 9th. The official tally reflects the accurate votes in the Village.
Nowhere in any of the sources cited was there even a suggestion that any precincts were “caught padding” vote totals, nor was there any evidence of “gross negligence or foul play” or “phantom votes given to Donald Trump.” This is not slant. This is misrepresenting facts. This is writing an opinion piece (a conspiracy theory, at that) and passing it off as journalism.
I’m picking on Palmer Report because it’s kudzu. I see articles from Palmer Report shared at least ten times a day, many times by organizations that should know better. Bill Palmer comes off as a liberal savior because he writes what we all want to hear. Of course his articles get shared – they provide hope.
However, Palmer goes a step too far by holding himself out as a journalist. Being dishonest about who he is and what he is doing is dangerous. We must be more selective about the news articles we consume and share. If not, we become part of the problem.
Bill Palmer’s Background
I don’t like to point to a lack of information to prove a fact, but Bill Palmer the journalist does not exist outside of the confines Daily News Bin and Palmer Report. I could not find a LinkedIn profile, a byline with any publications or websites not created by him, or any other journalistic credentials. He even admits that he has none.
He’s currently listed as the Editor of BeatWeek, an online news magazine. I couldn’t get any of the magazine issues to open, but it appears the last issue was published on May 18, 2015.
{UPDATE} After I published this post, a ghost from Bill Palmer’s past tipped me off that Palmer used to be a podcaster. It was so long ago I thought it was irrelevant. As it turns out, the same criticism I’ve leveled here has been following Palmer around for years. For this reason alone, I’m updating this post to include this information.
He has no journalistic integrity, never cites a source to support anything he says and generally makes stuff up and reports it as fact.
He disables comments, so his message doesn’t get diluted by the truth.
Palmer talked about Apple products on the iOS Show. Related to this, he wrote for iProng Magazine (which redirects to BeatWeek). He also wrote for MyMac Magazine, but all the articles are now dead links.
A bad idea deserves to be exposed for what it is, and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing for the past week. Those who spend years spreading around a bad idea deserve to be called out for it, so no apologies for anyone who needed to be put in their place in the process.
Indeed, Bill. I don’t know a thing about the Mac Mini, but I couldn’t agree with your sentiment here more.
Before writing, he was a math major and a teacher.
That’s all I could find after a considerable effort.
Palmer Report
“What is Palmer Report? Let’s find out together. It’s a personal editorial experiment, a side project if you will, even as I continue to put my primary focus into Daily News Bin.” In his introduction post, Bill Palmer makes it clear that his writing is an experiment in editorial content. Oh. I must be mistaken, he makes it clear that he is writing opinion pieces.
I’m a political journalist who spent the past eighteen months reporting on the 2016 election cycle from start to finish for the independent news outlet Daily News Bin, a site which received a great deal of respect from those in knowledgable political circles as well as the usual random barbs from internet trolls. As the publisher of an independent news site, I can promise you all of the following: Every one of our articles includes supporting source links for independent verification. If you’re not familiar with Palmer Report, you can use those links to confirm the accuracy of our reporting for yourself.
Some have enquired about my professional background. Prior to these past eighteen months, I have no previous background in political journalism whatsoever. And yet my reporting is often praised for being more honest and accurate and timely than the reporting that comes from those who have been doing this their entire lives. In other words, such backgrounds don’t necessarily count for much.
If you see a new Palmer Report article and you’re wondering why you’re not also seeing similar headlines on major news outlets, give it a few days. The way these things tend to go is that an independent news outlet pieces together the facts, lays out all the supporting evidence and sources, and takes all the heat from those who are natural skeptics – only for the bigger news outlets to eventually report the same story days later, often without acknowledging that someone like me broke it first. That’s not a complaint. It’s just a day in the life of an independent news site.
While he suggested that he is writing editorial content in his introduction, he calls himself a political journalist on Palmer Report’s About page. An ethical journalist would ensure that distinction is clear. Palmer does not.
If you’re “wondering why you’re not also seeing similar headlines on major news outlets,” it is because major news outlets gather information, fact check, and engage in an editorial process before a news piece is published.
Reviewing a press release or news article, summarizing it, and slapping a clickbait headline on it is not journalism. It is blogging.
[bctt tweet=”@PalmerReport makes it clear that his articles are an experiment in editorial content.” username=”jensalilloopy”]Palmer Report is a political opinion blog, not a political news site.
The Daily News Bin
“Daily News Bin is the place for politics and more. Founded in the summer of 2015, we provide news and commentary on the 2016 election as well as other important political and social issues.”
If you scroll down to the “Facts about Daily News Bin” section on the About page, you’ll see a list of shout-outs to people who shared articles from Daily News Bin. It’s laughable that this information is listed as “facts” on which this “news” site is based. Social shares aren’t credentials or proof that this site is credible.
There hasn’t been a new article on Daily News Bin since November 16, 2016. Daily News Bin’s Facebook page hasn’t recently posted any Daily News Bin content. Rather, all recent posts are shares of Palmer Report articles.
Articles on Daily News Bin are generally high on hyperbole and thin on facts, if any sources are cited at all. As a news source, it fails most people’s sniff test.
Donald Trump is Not My President
Palmer also created the Donald Trump is Not My President Facebook group (public at the time of this article – I am not a member), where he regularly shares articles from Palmer Report. Members are cautioned not to attack news sites:
If someone posts an article from a publication you haven’t heard of, it’s your prerogative to research it or ignore it. But it’s not appropriate to arbitrarily accuse an article or news source of being “fake news” or “satire” or “does anyone know if this is real” just because you haven’t heard of it. For instance I’m the publisher of Palmer Report and Daily News Bin, two respected news outlets, and there are plenty of other respected independent news sites that are often more honest than the mainstream media. Don’t randomly commit libel against any news site just because you’re unfamiliar with it. This is a cardinal sin (an a violation of civil law) and you’ll be banned for it.
Do you know who makes rules like these? People who get called out for creating clickbait “news” sites like Palmer Report and Daily News Bin. He even waves the “if you criticize my sites you are committing libel” hammer at his own group members. Not only does he not understand journalism, he doesn’t understand law, either.
Real journalists don’t make rules like these because they care about truth in reporting. When someone points out a factual error in an article, either they correct it or an editor does.
Considering how harmful fake and poor quality news sites were during this election, we should welcome people to challenge news sources. The bar should be raised, not lowered. High quality news is vital, now more than ever.
Why Palmer Report is Not a Credible Source of Information
Articles on Palmer Report and Daily News Bin contain deliberately misleading headlines. Those headlines and the claims made in the articles tend not to be supported by the sources cited in the article. So, they are opinion pieces, not news articles. This would be fine if they were clearly labeled as editorial content, but they aren’t.
There’s no indication that an editorial process is in place, nor does Palmer appear to independently gather facts from primary sources. I’m not saying he doesn’t have an editorial process, but rather there is no evidence of one. To illustrate this point, compare the “Facts about Daily News Bin” to NPR’s ethics and standards.
Social proof is not evidence of quality or value. It is not evidence of anything other than “I wrote a thing and someone clicked and shared it.” Palmer is masterful at creating clickbait-type headlines and building communities – which lead to the social proof he points to as evidence of his credibility. Having articles shared by political figures, celebrities, and other news sites is evidence of nothing but the share itself. Again, all of this would be fine if he were honest about who he is – a political blogger.
Lack of journalistic experience and credentials isn’t such a big deal these days. I’ve written a few political pieces myself. The problem I have with Palmer Report isn’t that Bill Palmer is writing about politics. The problem is that he is a political blogger who is calling himself a journalist.
To make his sites appear more credible, Palmer disparages other news sources and tries to intimidate people into not speaking out against his. Wolves don’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.
Following the path backwards, BeatWeek stopped publishing in May of 2015. Daily News Bin opened up shop shortly thereafter. Daily News Bin hasn’t been active since November 16, 2016, and Palmer Report is getting all of the love. This smells like someone following the money trail straight to a jackpot. You can’t fault someone for that, but you should give any information they provide the weight it deserves.
In the aftermath of this election, there is a growing mistrust of the mainstream media. Donald Trump is doing everything he can to fan those flames. It’s hard enough to find good sources of independent journalism. Sites like Palmer Report and Daily News Bin muddy the waters and make the search for quality sources of information that much more difficult.
Fighting back against misinformation is time-consuming and a waste of effort that could be better spent on moving the ball forward. It’s bad enough that we have it coming from the right. When we also have to spend time addressing misinformation on our own side, it undermines the very effort we are trying to support.
Just because you can do the thing doesn’t mean you are the thing. I can do attorney work but can’t call myself an attorney. I can write articles, but can’t call myself a journalist. That’s ethics.
So, Mr. Palmer, if you’re reading: I’m asking you to use your powers for good. People love your political commentary, and you should keep doing that if it makes you happy. But don’t contribute to our misinformation problem by calling what you do journalism, and don’t call being first to the publish button breaking news. Call it what it is – aggressively blogging for dollars.
Let’s Talk About It
If you want to verify a news source, this article on FactCheck.org offers the following tips:
- Consider the source;
- Read beyond the headline;
- Check the author;
- Review the supporting sources;
- Check the date of the article;
- Check your biases; and
- Use fact checking sites like Snopes, FactCheck, Politifact, and the Washington Post Fact Checker.
On fact checking, NPR says:
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Most sites will have a lot of information about the news outlet, the company that runs it, members of leadership, and the mission and ethics statement behind an organization. The language used here is straightforward. If it’s melodramatic and seems overblown, you should be skeptical. Also, you should be able to find out more information about the organization’s leaders on places other than that site.
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Look at the quotes…Or rather, look at the lack of quotes. Most publications have multiple sources in each story who are professionals and have expertise in the fields they talk about. If it’s a serious or controversial issue there are more likely to be quotes — and lots of them.
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[The headlines of fake news stories will] often will be written in exaggerated language with the intention of being misleading and then attached to stories that are about a completely different topic or just not true. These stories usually generate a lot of comments on Facebook or Twitter. If a lot of these comments call out the article for being fake or misleading, it probably is.
Just because it isn’t fake news doesn’t mean that it is reliable or credible news. This recent post has a list of independent news sites. The articles may have slant, but the sites are not funded by corporations or politicians.
How do you vet your news sources?
I don’t vet my news sources because I don’t watch the news… and I kind of feel like if we all avoided it, the world would be a very different place.
I know, though. I realize we should be aware of things. I just have a problem with the bias toward negativity in the news. Because, what we focus on grows.
I hear you — news is so negative, and consuming a lot of negative news really does affect your day-to-day. That’s why I try hard to stick to reading articles from sites that are independent and have minimal bias (easier said than done).
I find Palmer over the top. Especially his by lines. You hit the nail on the head when you said he gives people hope. Right now, we are short on hope, and if it makes you feel good, dont deny folks their happiness. I trust Maddow, Melber, and the NYT. That’s about it. We are inundated with news. Fake news and real news. It’s just important to select someone you believe in to tell you the truth. I’ve read Palmer, just not my style, but he’s more accurate than Fox or Alec Jones. And 40% of the country gets their news from Fox. And believe in it. The real challenge isn’t to fault Palmer, but get people to distinguish fact from fiction. Sadder yet, if it’s a trump supporter, they don’t care about truth. There is your challenge. Palmer is a picker next to Fox. And if Palmer makes you feel good, read him by all means.
This is something you and every American should be aware of.
I can’t imagine anyone would be opposed to discovering why so many voting machines malfunctioned in Detroit, MI on election day.
Read the article and see if you don’t agree it is at least worth looking into.
http://www.palmerreport.com/politics/michigan-gop-leaders-rigging-trump-detroit/460/#comment-3321
I am concerned with voting irregularities and get my information about that from actual news sources.
But, I’ll take you up on your offer to see how awesome Palmer Report is for myself (again).
Here’s why Palmer’s article is crap:
Palmer Report says: Republican State Senator Patrick Colbeck goes on to suggest the precinct workers used “fraudulent procedures.” In other words, the Republicans running Michigan are trying to find a way to blame the people working at the Detroit precincts for the suspicious discrepancies.
The source cited says: Sen. Patrick Colbeck, R-Canton, called the planned audit “a good place to start” that could help determine whether Detroit elections workers “followed the correct procedures” or “fraudulent procedures” on Election Day.
What Palmer said is different from what Sen. Colbeck said. Sen. Colbeck did not suggest precinct workers used “fraudulent procedures.” He said an audit is a good way to get to the bottom of what happened. There is not even a hint of “Republicans running Michigan…trying to find a way to blame the people working at the Detroit precincts” anywhere in the articles he cited.
The headline makes the claim that Michigan GOP leaders are rigging the election for Trump. Not accurate or supported by any facts cited in that article.
This is clickbait faux news. I’m smart enough to read actual news, digest the information, and form my own conclusions. I don’t need Bill Palmer to spoon feed conspiracy theories to me.
What are your news sources?
I read a LOT of news. I read NYT, Washington Post, USA Today, and NJ Spotlight daily. I also really like Mother Jones and Christian Science Monitor. When I have time I pop around to news sites from other countries, because it’s interesting to see what we look like to outsiders. I’m also really interested in law, so I read SCOTUSblog, National Law Journal, ABA Journal, and a few local legal newspapers. How about you?
Whenever I read the Washington Post online (which is every day, with few exceptions), I feel great comfort in their “motto”:
“Democracy Dies in Darkness”. Right now (in May ’17—I was late getting to this site) it is more telling than ever.
I implore all people to remember those four words, and ruminate on the consequences of not keeping informed with reliable news sources, and to “follow the facts” (and attributions) if one is even slightly “suspicious”.
So much this. Thank you for all of your comments, I appreciate them. Xoxo
Ooh. Yes. A thousand times.
Some attorney is lucky to have you as her paralegal.
I totally forgot about his libel threats. He’s a misogynist IMHO. And Bill, if you read that- it’s an opinion, therefore not libel or slander.
Thanks, Cybele. =)
Has Bill Palmer seen this? He will unleash a thousand suns of white hot anger at you….. be prepared.
When someone tells me to sit down and shut up, I yell more loudly. 😉
I just was just subjected to the wrath. Wow. I have no words for this person. Rage…
UGH, I’m so sorry you were on the receiving end of that nastiness.
I too work in a field where my credibility and ability to convey true and factual information makes or breaks me. I appreciate this post, that you laid out your own bona fides first so that I’d know who was speaking and where you were coming from. Now I know why I keep seeing these Palmer Report headlines showing up in my feed and I appreciate your doing the work on it so I didn’t have to. I hope this is as helpful to as many people you intended it for. Thank you for taking the time.
Hi Mimsy, thank you for your kind words. I hope this post is helpful, too. =)
This is excellent ! Real News isn’t sexy or sensational, but we can’t allow ourselves to be dumbed down .
Thanks, Julia, I agree!
I used to follow Daily News Bin till the ass kissing got pathetically annoying. Palmer was followed like Moses. I started disagreeing and the group disappeared. I made comments after his articles that didn’t show up, and signed up for his email that I never got. If anyone who marvels in their followers glow of admiration and “knowledge” isn’t willing to be challenged they’re a phony waste of my time. Call me a troll and avoid taking responsibility for your own actions. Now he has Palmer Report that’s apparently failing. No wonder.
This reminds me of a certain orange person we all know. 😉
Thank you for removing my comment….You have shown me who you really are. You can now remove this one also. I won’t “annoy” you again.
This blog is my house, and readers are my very welcome guests. When someone crashes the party just to make a mess on the rug, I clean up and show them the door. Constructive criticism and comments are welcome, ad hominem attacks are not.
I read Bill Palmers articles regularly. I agree that some of the titles are overstated and Bill can make leaps of faith with his conclusions. So how is this different from network TV news? How is this different from those on network news passing around their brand of fake news? Bill had no role promoting the Iraq invasion like the New York Times. Had no role in demonizing Hillary Clinton with fake news like The Times Maureen Dowd. The NY Times fake news stories and the fake email story had thousands of times more impact on what we believe to be true than Palmer. So quit picking on the small fish and concentrate on the real messangers of fake news.
Comparing Palmer Report and network TV news is apples and oranges. Just because I didn’t pick on network TV news in this article doesn’t mean that I like it — I wasn’t talking about network TV news this time, I was talking about Palmer Report. I don’t agree with your assessment that the New York Times is fake news.
Overstated titles and leap-of-faith conclusions (i.e., opinions unsupported by fact) are hallmarks of clickbait “news” sites. If you like Palmer Report, by all means keep reading it, but don’t call it news.
FYI: Maureen Dowd is a respected columnist who writes about topical subjects, including politics. She doesn’t claim to be a reporter.
Jennifer – Palmer just reported on the update of Outagamie Co.’s results at 10:30 CT on November 22nd. If the correct results were delivered on the morning of Nov. 9th, why did it take the County’s election officers so long to correct their published result? They apparently didn’t update those results & correct the vote totals until the same day that Jill Stein announced the recount. Why?
And why did HALF of Trump’s lead *evaporate* in a similar way in PA?
We actually decided the “winner” of our election based on these preliminary results. What if they’re incorrect? Why are so many counties in WI resisting doing the hand count?
The GOP is doing the same tricks that it did in 2000. Obstruct, delay, and try to run out the clock. Disgusting. If they’re confident in the result, they should be eager to prove the integrity of the system. Instead, they doing just the opposite.
I understand that you might not *like* Palmer Report — that’s fine. But your evidence against him & his reporting looks pretty thin. I’m unconvinced.
I can’t answer your questions because I didn’t do any reporting on them. If I had, I would have a) looked at the rules governing the process; b) made some phone calls to the folks in charge of recounts; and c) written an analysis which included citations to rules and a comparison of what the rules required vs. what had transpired. Because of all my years dealing with the courts, I can tell you a lot about bureaucracy – special forms; unclear filing fees; terminology that makes no sense unless you work with it; and rules that are sometimes so confusing you have to diagram them to understand which subpart applies. Speed bumps are expected with efforts like these recounts (hell, sometimes there are speed bumps with smaller things like a simple court filing). That doesn’t mean there is fraud, theft, or extortion taking place, and political writers who characterize these expected complications as such either don’t understand the process well enough to report on it or are intentionally misleading their readers. Both are dangerous to the integrity of all news sources. We can do better than trucking with conspiracy theories.
Your point is well-taken. But in this era of corporate-led media widely misreporting stories, fake news, and woefully partisan press, it’s pick your poison. If you support the recount as I do, and are trying to keep up with developments, good luck finding any timely coverage by the NYT or WSJ. NPR Is a little better but gives it short shrift, and other journalists I respect like Kurt Eichenwald were openly contemptuous of Stein’s efforts – presenting opinion as fact with very little information.
Palmer may have overstated that one headline about vote padding to be sure (and I was one of those desperate enough for hopeful news that I jumped to retweet the story) but at least he is trying to keep us up-to-date on the recount. Give him credit where it’s due: while the AP initially blared that Jill Stein had abandoned the recount in PA (they later corrected the headline), Bill provided more accurate information that she was simply withdrawing her state case and refiling in federal court.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that Palmer Report links to Facebook posts and news sites as his sources. Palmer Report does not include links to primary sources, procedural rules, or court filings. Nor does it appear to conduct any independent investigation or interviews. Palmer appears to be reviewing a press release or a news story and summarizing it with his own spin – that’s not reporting and it isn’t news. The reason he is first to publish is because he is not doing the research to provide thorough and accurate reporting (if he is, there is zero evidence of it on the site), so the information he provides should be given the weight it deserves: rumor unsupported by facts.
In other words, fake news.
Exactly.
And is there any argument now that the recount was a waste of time and money? The Clinton campaign had looked into it and didn’t see anything worth pursuing. It wasn’t reported on because experienced media knew it wasn’t going anywhere…and it didn’t. Meanwhile Stein and the Greens got tons of PR that they didn’t have to pay for. Anyone who thinks that Stein pushed those recount for any reason other than publicity was naive, and hopefully has learned from it.
this is exactly right…i could smell that publicity stunt/fundraiser a mile away…now many more people know who she is and can put a face to her name. she’s a politician….
You sound like envy on a blog–they have Dick Morris and Alex Jones and yet you are going after him? He has an opinion and when does an education not qualify you to write? I don’t take everything I read on there or here as credible but he has made some interesting points during the election. I find the attacks oh him concerning all at once–your blog seems childish…but to discredit another when you are no research either–do you go out and fund your sources or just connect with journalists and fact checkers???
I’m just a blogger with a thoroughly researched and well-informed opinion, and haven’t claimed to be anything beyond that.
Why would anybody waste their time on a source they don’t always find credible when there is so much good journalism available? The issue of credibility, and how mis-information gets spread is one of the most important there is.
Great article.
I support the recounts (and have found the GOP’s resistance to them suspicious), but Palmer Report is filled with a bunch of lies.
Glad to see someone call them out.
Thanks. I support the recounts, too. I don’t know if I see anything shady, but more creaky wheels that have never been used trying to function on short notice. I have my eyes open for facts. 😉
Thank you for this well researched post. We need more writers like you on the internet!
Thanks, Melissa. I appreciate it.
Thank you. I have been FB friends with him for over a year, followed Daily News Bin and his Hillary Clinton group, plus read a few of his Palmer Report articles. I came to the same conclusion as you a few weeks ago and discussed posting a challenge to him with my daughter.
I am happy that you’ve done all my work for me. So it looks like a great time for me to completely unplug from his drivel. He’s all talk, no substance, no credible sources.
BTW, here’s a site that keeps a comprehensive and updated list of several web sites, identifying their leanings.
Thank you, again.
Thanks, I’m glad I am not the only one who has caught on.
What happened to the link to the website that ronifae mentioned? (“BTW, here’s a site that keeps a comprehensive and updated list of several web sites, identifying their leanings.”)
Hi, Jen. Well stated and right on. Keep up the good work! Hopefully your words help more people to open their eyes and minds, and question what they are reading instead of blindly accepting without verification.
Thanks, I hope so too!
Thank you for publishing this. It seemed like this “Palmer Report” just showed up suddenly and seemed hinky to me. I appreciate your diligence, and I’m happy to be able to blithely scroll past his stuff now.
You asked how we very our news sources; I wrote some thoughts about that at http://www.pricklypam.com/2016/11/dont-be-fooled.html?
Again, thank you.
Pam
Hi Pam, thanks for popping by. Your post has a lot of great tips on how we can confirm that the news we’re reading is actually news.
Hello Jen,
It appears you started a veritable FaceBook storm. On one hand, I can hardly blame a guy for wanting to reinvent himself (I’ve done it many times), or for opportunistic self-promotion (not my strongest suit); but I agree with you. Palmer is more blogger than journalist, and his Achilles’ Heal is a thin skin. There is an active discussion right now on FB; look up Maureen Gill and this post: “Please stop sharing links to these sites”
As a former documentary filmmaker (retired), blogger, and opinion columnist for a major newspaper chain, I know the difference. Despite my background, I do not consider myself a journalist. As Popeye would say: “I yam what I yam.”
Hi Jeffrey, thanks. This post sure did open a can of worms! I hope that if nothing else it sparked useful (and much needed) conversations about the quality of our news sources. =)
Yesterday I left a comment on the post on Palmer Report that rebuts your post. My comment was critical, but also extremely civil and fact-based, pointing out some mistakes and inconsistencies in several recent PR posts. My comment is still in moderation, while six comments that are supportive/glowing of PR have managed to get through. That’s just scummy, and compounds my already suspicious feelings about the site.
Oh my gosh. He really seems to be bothered by my insignificant little knitting blog. I’m not surprised he wouldn’t let your comment through based on how he handles criticism. :/
Three comments now, none of them posted. I just emailed him asking what’s up. Next step is to write a blog post of my own.
Part of me feels like it’s not a good use of my time to go after someone who has many of the same political views that I do, but the way I see it, the people who read sites like Breitbart and InfoWars are beyond help. I want to keep our side honest.
Not surprising – he doesn’t handle criticism very well. I think any effort spent on elevating the quality of our news sources — right or left — is a worthy endeavor. You may not change a thing about how fake news sites do business, but at least you’re adding a perspective and providing information for people to be able to make an informed choice.
I agree with all you say! I was getting suspicious of the Palmer Report, because he was telling me what I loved hearing, but it never showed up anywhere else. Then when he started ranting about a ‘knitting’ person, My trust in him deteriorated almost completely. Now, I thank you for this information. Look forward to hearing more from you.
Thanks, Kathy. I appreciate your having an open mind enough to pop over and check out what a random knitting lady had to say. 😉
This site is not credible, nor is the writer. Jennifer is loopy. Someone who has a blog for knitting, is not considered a journalist.
This is a thoroughly researched opinion piece, and I said right in the post that I am not a journalist. If you are suggesting knitters are not entitled to have opinions about anything other than knitting…that’s just silly.
Just for the record – I respectfully disagree. I have found Palmer report quite accurate and I do follow his links.
With all the Breitbart BS you waste time knit picking palmer’s reporting? And it IS reporting. These days anyone with a twitter account can report / offer up primary sources if they witness something. They may or may not find a platform that cares.
You give palmer short shrift in that he is actually the first to give a deep dive to small details and connect the gots on many stories that later on I see in big outlets.
Given the Trump madness and massive disinformation storm he and his yes men keep spreading, I find it perplexing that you would pick on Palmer.
AND why so self righteous about it? Keep reading his stuff and at least pick out and give credit for specific scoops as well as mistakes.
but to discredit all his considerable work is unfair and truthfully unprofessional, which I guess is to be expected because, as you say you , yourself have no press credentials … so. Uh. Do you not see the irony of trying to destroy a budding journalist?
And do you not realize: every journalist starts SOMEwhere. It’s not like you have to go to journalism school to be a journalist! Experience and an ability to write is far more important. Many (most) of the great journalists didn’t go to journalism school. (Bob Woodward was in navy . peter Jennings high school dropout, bob woodruff teaching English as a second language in China when he talked ABC news into letting him serve as a translator/fixer. , Katie Couric went to UVA when they didn’t even have a journalism major to name ….just to name a few)
Meanwhile some people who have the greatest trouble telling the truth DID study journalism (i.e., Sarah Palin)
You owe the guy an apology or at least the courtesy of pointing out his scoops as well as his missteps.
If you’re not making mistakes you’re not reporting.
Ask any “real” reporter.
The danger in your trying to destroy Palmer Report is the false equity it creates with the truly dangerous sites like Breitbart.
Have you read Deborah Tanner’s book The Argument Culture? She is a linguist expert at Georgetown university ( not a “journalist ” but author of many books and articles ). Long ago she wrote of the danger of journalists who in their effort to show “both sides” fail to tell the truth. Because sometimes one side is lying (halocaust deniers) and does not deserve to be elevated to an opposing “side” as there is none. It is why she refused to speak on a panel with a skin head halocaust denier at all. You can’t argue with liars.
In your effort to fight clickbait , you’re trying to take down a reporter who is doing the sweat of the brow work that others should be doing but weren’t.
But now we see it confirmed Russians interfered with the us election. What he’s been postulating since the election and Hillary losing a state where she held a mathematically insurmountable lead going in thanks to early voting. Wikileaks’s spilled only democrats’ emails not those of GOP. (Ha. Or trumps IRS records or even IF he truly is even under audit at all!)
That doesn’t shout red flags to you?
I’m glad Palmer isn’t taking this bs lying down.
These things don’t bother you? Then stick to your knitting. If the do, why not offer Palmer olive branch AND your paralegal skills and use them for good, not evil.
Anyone can be a reporter these days. Huffington post started out as “just” a blog. Go for it. Be part of the solution not just another critic in a hyper critical world.
Go find the truth.
Please and thank you.
Palmer Report is exactly like Breitbart – highly opinionated clickbait, not news.
I agree with you regarding the Palmer report -thank you. Jen is extremely loopy and she has no credibility to be making a statement like crying “fake news.” Being a paralegal- if she’s even practicing that part of the legal profession doesn’t make her a journalist either- more often than not Palmer reports are in main news media and he cited those sites. I have not seen blatant misinformation from his articles and there were serious problems with fraud in the election voting system people are looking the other way.
Susan -I agree with you. Per my note below, I meant to agree with you- not the person above my note. Jen is crying “fake news” and that’s not correct- his news does end up in main news sites and he does site his information. There was a person at the Michigan voting recount that he was in contact with who had agreed to be an observer in the recount- people and main news sites were simply looking the other way about the fraudulent voting- it is just too sad and weird. But beyond even that he has been following the news accurately such as the Russian hacking.
It’s silly to suggest that the source Palmer used re: the Michigan vote recount was credible. It was a Facebook opinion from nobody in particular that existed on FB for two seconds, and Palmer never even interviewed the person (granted, he tried, they just wouldn’t talk). So he took a Facebook screed and posted it as a fact supporting fraud in Michigan. There were many other news articles from reputable sources which provided facts and interviews which called into question the opinions shared by his Facebook “source.”
Fake news.
There are plenty of places to get information that don’t try to contort opinions into facts.
FB suggested the “Donald Trump is Not My Preaident” page to me. I joined and read and followed. I noticed Bill Palmer attacking those that questioned him. He is as thin skinned as Trump and his supporters on that page are rabid about protecting him. When he posted his first article on Jill Stein’s recount attempts he called it a “money grab”. Within hours he posted another saying he checked with his “fundraising experts” and Stein MUST use the money for the recount so everyone should donate. I was worried he was giving false hope to those that were devastated already. I posted exactly what Stein’s page said, that she could not guarentee a recount and any left over money would go toward “electoral reform”. I also asked Bill Palmer who those “experts” were, with no answer. People on the page attacked me as a closet Trump supporter. I asked Bill Palmer for his credentials several times and another woman was doing the same. Suddenly the entire thread was gone, he was on it at the time. I went to another and asked why he had deleted the previous thread and told him I was suspect if he couldn’t provide his credentials or answer my questions. I am an Independent and thouroughly research everything. I could not find anything either on Bill Palmer, other than what you did. I left the group and I found a private message sent by one of his supporters to me asking why I acted like an idiot and that I needed to take my meds so I could control my outburts because they were not pretty. Needless to say I didn’t respond I just blocked her.
Bill Palmer has created the left’s version of the Tea Party with blind followers that beleive his every word. They don’t use critical thinking skills. I figured this out after only being in his group for a month or so.
I am glad you wrote this and noticed the same things.
researching mor questioning.
Wow, I’m sorry you had that experience – it seems to be common for people who question his sources.
I can find no difference between your site and palmer report. Opinion based clickbait. The only difference they are making clickbait from actual news and your making clickbait from clickbait.
Key difference: I don’t misrepresent myself.
First, let me say I am no fan of Bill Palmer’s. He has issues no doubt.
I do however, wish to defend Journalism. Our Constitution guarantees free speech and freedom of the press for all. Therefore, anyone who so wishes, can call themselves a Journalist an write whatever they so wish. They do not have to have an academic degree or be part of an “establishment” to be credible as a writer. There are not set standards other then the Status Quo to define who and who doesn’t qualify as a Journalist. To place those demands on anyone would be oppressive. Just saying.
You raise a fair point, and I agree that you don’t have to have an academic degree or be part of an establishment to be credible as a writer. However, there is a difference between journalism and blogging. Journalists have ethical standards, have an editorial process, engage in fact checking, and do original reporting (using primary sources, interviewing witnesses, etc.). Palmer does none of that, but rather repackages reporting done by others and spins it up into an outrage bow. That’s blogging, not reporting.
Bloggers can be journalists, but only if they do the work. It is dangerous to the integrity of our news sources if we let it be ok for Bill Palmer to do what he is doing and call it reporting.
I joined Palmer’s “Donald Trump Is Not My President” group on Facebook (on which he often posts his own Palmer Report and Daily News Bin articles). Recently, (after prompting people with his sensationalized stories) he suddenly lashed out at people in the group for being angry with liberal politicians for not doing anything to stop Trump. He suggested that there was nothing they could do about it, and that people who made such comments were ill-informed and unhelpful.
I rarely comment on public posts, but was bothered by the fact the he first provoked people, and then attacked them, for looking for ways in which to voice their dissent. In my comment, I didn’t mention the fact that I was a lawyer for the federal government for over a decade, but diplomatically suggested that his comments about the law weren’t always accurate, and that he should be more conscientious because he has a large following and people expect him to report the truth.
He didn’t even comment back. He just blocked me on the group and from his personal account. It says a lot about a person that they can’t take criticism and respond professionally.
I saw that! The crazy thing is that his post is counter to the months of articles he wrote about how his followers needed to do everything they could to prevent Trump from taking office.
If his readers are ill-informed and unhelpful, it’s because he’s been feeding them crap for the past year and they haven’t bothered to look at anything beyond his words. He created it, and for him to then attack his readers for essentially responding to his dog whistle? Ooof. It defies logic.
I agree with you. We need to hold our news sources to a higher standard. If Palmer wants his site be considered legitimate news, he needs to do better. It’s a shame he can’t handle constructive criticism – he’s done really well at building a community and could do a lot of good with a little effort.
I joined his Facebook Group, “Donald Trump Is Not My President” and asked about his sources about an article that linked to his blog. I was attacked harshly and even sent a threatening message that I would be sued for libel and my life possibly threatened. I researched him afterward and came to the same conclusions that you did, Jen. This guy is a bully, among other things.
(All attacks have been saved and printed for my local police to investigate)
I’m so sorry that happened to you, Jan. He’s a scary man, which is why I feel it is so important to document it.
He’s a nasty person and runs his group like a despot. He’s just like Trump in that he can’t tolerate the slightest criticism.
Thank you for this excellent article. I have pasted an email exchange I had yesterday with Bill Palmer:
On Jan 12, 2017, at 12:30 PM, WallersteinOuellett wrote:
Hi Bill:
I stumbled upon your site the other day and found it to be interesting and informative.
Today I scrolled down through your headlines and found you characterizing Robert Kennedy as an “alt-left whack job”. I find that characterization troubling and unfair, especially within the context of your front page showing a number of basically objective headlines. Trump this and Trump that, but Robert gets called a whack job?
I’ve had many discussions regarding vaccines. I am a skeptic, based on what I’ve read and the experiences I’ve had as a parent. I’ve asked our doctor and others to show me the double blind studies that prove the efficacy of vaccines. Seems to be a challenge to show vaccine efficacy with the same robust science we expect from other scientific conclusions. Aside from the efficacy, we know there are serious vaccine safety risks. (If you don’t know, consider that vaccine manufacturers are exempt from liability, with a separate federal fund for vaccine damages; and autism has nothing to do with this) The responsibility of course is to weigh those costs versus the benefits.
You and other smart people, such as Rachel Maddow, seem to have a knee jerk, almost religiously zealous feeling toward the beauty and the wonder of vaccines. I wonder why that is? It is interesting to me that otherwise extremely thoughtful people love to accept vaccine efficacy and safety merely on faith. And then accuse us skeptics of being anti-science.
Before you smear people based on the propaganda you’ve been fed, I hope you will follow your usual journalistic ethics.
If it turns out that Robert and I are wrong, so be it. But that doesn’t mean we are whack jobs.
Steve Wallerstein
Raymond, NH
And here is Bill Palmer’s response:
“Hi Raymond,
You’re a total whackjob and you’re a danger to your kids. You believe total fiction over scientific evidence. You are an abusive parent.
Don’t ever contact me again.” (End of email from BP)
My belief in his journalistic and human ethical standards was obviously misguided.
Wow, that’s an awful response to your very reasonable email. It’s one thing to disagree, it’s another thing to attack a (former) reader. That’s how he seems to roll.
I just posted a link to one of his tweets on twitter. It was merely a link to media bias fact check’s info on the palmer report. He immediately blocked me. Apparently there is a reply from him but I cannot read it. I’m not used to being blocked. Obviously does not like any criticism even from trusted sources like media bias fact check. Blocks all critics.
I want to bring Bill Palmer down.The crap he is feeding people is hate.Now they are boycotting anything that Bill tell’s them to.I always leave not so pleasant replies to his articles,and never fails i’m attacked by his followers.One of their favorite lines is Get Educated.
The good news is that he’ll bring himself down sooner or later – that seems to be how his career arc went for the last few things he’s done. I would love to see his readers engage their brains a little more before they respond to his dog whistles. That was my goal in writing this.
@ Kitty – His fans are mindless sheep. I’m surprised more people haven’t caught on. He has a history of sending threatening PM’s to anyone who criticizes him. Everyone who’s received his nastygrams should report him to Facebook.
“Donald Trump Is Not My President” Facebook page just blocked me after I posted what I had found about “Bill Palmer”.
Of course they did. They’ve been block happy lately from what I’ve heard. Palmer squashes dissent faster than Herr Trump.
Jen, can ypu message me?
This article is spot on. Bill Palmer is just a blogger, not a reporter by any stretch of the imagination. He’s a sloppy writer too. His articles are usually full of typos, meaning he doesn’t even bother to proofread. Furthermore, his editorials remind me of junior high, when you had to do a report and all you did was paraphrase an encyclopedia. He makes a few minor changes to cover his ass against plagiarism. He has an odd habit of linking to random things on Amazon, to make it appear that his articles are full of source links. He has a vendetta against Snopes and he can’t tolerate the slightest criticism. If you dare to question the veracity of his articles, he’ll have a meltdown and threaten to sue you for libel. The guy is a joke.
Matt – YES! His articles do read like a middle school encyclopedia summary! I guess he is trying to use Amazon affiliate links to monetize now — not something that should be happening on a “news” site.
This article is spot on. Bill Palmer is just a blogger, not a reporter by any stretch of the imagination. He’s a sloppy writer too. His articles are usually full of typos, meaning he doesn’t even bother to proofread. Furthermore, his editorials remind me of junior high, when you had to do a report and all you did was paraphrase an encyclopedia. He makes a few minor changes to cover his ass against plagiarism. He has an odd habit of linking to random things on Amazon, to make it appear that his articles are full of source links. He has a vendetta against Snopes and he can’t tolerate the slightest criticism. If you dare to question the veracity of his articles, he’ll have a meltdown and threaten to sue you for libel. The guy is a joke.
well done! I noticed what you noticed, told him to stop…now I am blocked but not before him posting publicly that I incite violence…which I do not do
OMG. He will say absolutely anything. He recently told someone else that was “not human” when she disagreed with one of his posts. It’s not you, it’s him. 😉
i hate to see democrats get into the fake news business
w/ trump there is no need to make things up anyway
He sends threatening PM’s to anyone who criticizes him. I am trying to encourage anyone who’s had a run-in with him to take screenshots of his messages and report him to Facebook.
Early on, he called me a gun fetishist and blocked me for saying that you can’t ban rifles and shotguns because in rural areas they are tools that people legitimately use in daily life. He wanted all guns banned, which is a ridiculous and is never going to happen. I also got the nasty pms. This was not long after he started News Bin. We have a lot of work to do to educate people about how to evaluate sources. I have watched Palmer’s credibility take a nosedive, and I thank you for doing such a thorough job of explaining exactly why.
Today, Bill Palmer posted yet another piece of Clickbait and FAKE news. I am horrified. He wrote about Jill Stein being a “material witness.” Material Witness has a specific definition as you know. It means that she is a witness in either a case that is FILED or a grand jury proceeding. It would mean she had been arrested. This is the worst sort of crap to be spreading:1) It teaches readers nothing about the law and how things work by using a term of art as if you can just toss that around for whatever purpose you like and 2) it makes it appear that Jill Stein is some nefarious criminal who is uncooperative with law enforcement when there is not even a case filed.
Good grief! He needs to stop that.
Hi,
It looks like you jumped the shark with this post.
Hard to read any of his posts lately that have not panned out.
Some seeds fail to grow but many germinate to create blossoms of truth even if it hurts as an american.
I would suggest your readers to go and see for themselves.
With all that is going on I did a search for truth, which led me to The Palmer report site, which caused me to fact check them, which led me to your site, which caused me to fact check you and your site, which then led me to this opinion about The Palmer Report. I interpret from your opinions that you are not a supporter of President Trump and you are not a supporter of people who call themselves journalists when they only blog their opinion, calling it news. Regardless of our difference in political leadership, you at least use commonsense, no name-calling of us or the United States President (there was name calling in the comment section though) and your ability to call-out those who are impersonators of news reporters (journalists). You mentioned the word “side” in your piece and I wish you were on our side, but you make your side at least look civil (again, except for some comments about my President). LOL Thank you for calling Bill Palmer out for his terrible character flaws.
Thanks Debra. I try to be pretty fair here, and nobody gets preferential treatment just for being a Democrat or Progressive. 😉
i hope someday, the sooner the better, that we don’t have “sides”. I am against fake news completely. I did not vote for Trump and I do not like him. I found Palmer’s Facebook page where he shares his Blog posts. I stopped
following his FB page once I could see what he is up to…this has to be called out more and more by everyone…thanks!
Here’s what he said to me today over a simple question: https://scontent-lax3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/17203022_10155063009428965_3838335569244147664_n.jpg?oh=993c7db6df323067b1edd52742ff5c08&oe=596AD6BF
In my first response to his reply, I informed him that my friend was autistic. I misspelled the word and then immediately edited my reply to correct it. For some reason, when I correct a word in any Facebook post, the word vanishes entirely until I refresh the page. I screencapped the conversation before refreshing the page, which is why the word “autistic” does not appear in my first reply.
So yes, Palmer DID know that my friend is autistic, and accused him of plagiarism anyway. The jump in conversation halfway down is from me editing out other people’s replies to me, which I ignored to focus on Palmer.
Oh for crying out loud, why does Palmer have to be so nasty? He always claims his articles contain sources. Fairly often, they do not. If you follow the links in his articles, they almost always lead to an obscure local news site, a Facebook post, etc., and MOST of the time those articles do not say what he represents they say. Basically, Palmer writes a 4th grade book report about an article he reads, puts his spin on it (regardless of whether his spin is true), publishes it, and cashes in. Wash, rinse, repeat. He likes to pretend he breaks news because he is the first person saying something, but fairly often he is the ONLY ONE who ever says it. Law of averages lets him make the occasional accurate prediction, which he then touts as evidence of his journalistic skills. It what he is doing weren’t so dangerous, it would be funny because he is so over the top and obvious about it.
Kudos for getting deeper into Palmer’s past than most anyone else. He still seems a mystery. Plus anyone who goes to great lengths to try to convince someone one his news sites that he is real seems a bit dubious. Plus if I started a news organization, I would take full credit for it (or certainly the people paying for it would if their goal was legit) whereas his websites keep the ownership hidden.
Thanks Gail. I agree with you – transparency is a HUGE indicator of credibility when we’re talking about news sources. I still don’t know for sure who “Bill Palmer” actually is, whether that is a pseudonym he adopted when he first started publishing websites or otherwise. For someone who has such a large public digital footprint, it is surprisingly impossible to trace back to an actual person.
I know Palmer is very slanted, but he writes on many things you will never see elsewhere. Therein, you have a place to start looking at how credible his piece is. I don’t follow him on FB, but he comes up frequently on my newsfeed and reading his opinions are always left slanted… but when I do repost I check it out 1st and when the right complains it’s fake news because it’s “The Palmer Report” you have to remember that you’re dealing with people who want you to believe their Breitbart based truths, which is no comparison when it comes to who is citing the more based in reality post. Like I said, he opens eyes and I’ll usually use the post from some other place else I find the story if I choose to say something about the concern. If there is nothing, I know he really has nothing! These days, there are more concerns than there were in the election! I expected to by now have time for a puppy or kitten to post!
Thanks Robert – yes, so important to double check any news story at this point. It’s sad that these days we have to do that extra step, but it’s the world we live in now.
All I can say is that a goodly number of Palmer Reports info is verified LATER (maybe a day or two, maybe weeks, months) It is possible that some of it is never verified by news outlets because it is still “classified.” It is also possible that some of it IS absolute crap and always will be. However, my usual purpose in posting it on my feed is “Take a look at this, and see if it shows up in the media eventually, because if it does, it will be something to keep track of.” In case you need to know who you are talking down to, keep the following in mind:
I have been following politics all my life My maternal grandmother’s father and half-brother both served in the Texas Legislature (James Coleman Witcher and Henry Witcher of Bells, Grayson Co., TX). Henry Witcher’s best friend was Sam Rayburn (yes, THAT Sam Rayburn). I was 5 years old when I went to Washington with my mother and grandmother and visited “Mr. Sam” in his office. So my mother was a Democrat. My father, on the other hand, was a Republican until his death in March, 1963. So I “teethed” on politics.
My mother was a legal secretary from 1968 until 1989 for Andrews, Kurth in Houston, Texas. My brother is an attorney. My sister-in-law is an attorney. I am by training, an applied statistician. I went to the U. of Texas-Austin. BA, Sociology, Summa cum laude at the age of 20. I also attended U of WI-Madison, Graduate School of Demography and Ecology. U of Texas-Austin — MBA Program and PhD Program in Applied Statistics. I have published co-authored papers in my field. I was reading by age 2. I speak and/or read and/or understand spoken: Spanish, French, Portuguese, Swedish, German, Romanian, Czech and bits of 5-6 other languages. As you may be aware, while I am not a journalist nor trained in journalism, I am more than adequately trained in academic research, sourcing, citations. I did work as a typist for the ACLU in Austin, TX back in the 1970s while in college. So I most certainly have as much respect for, and knowledge of, proper sourcing. If you have read as many of The Palmer Report posts as I have, you should have gotten the idea that one of the reasons he doesn’t cite sources is that many of his sources are apparently “leakers” whose identities are kept secret, probably because naming them would cause trouble for them. They may work in government offices, agencies, or other places where they come in contact with this information as part of their job. That does NOT make what they tell him “fake news” or what he writes as his interpretation of what they told him “clickbait.” It is entirely possible that some of what he has written is a misinterpretation, or that what they told him got hung up by classifications or some higher up’s decision to sit on it, negotiate with it, or failure to find additional corroborating evidence of that bit of information (i.e.,some of the threads get tossed aside for some reason). The fact that you cannot locate any valid source that confirms or denies Palmer’s writing does not mean he is totally, always, off track from the truth. While I have not kept a log of his reports and whether later confirmation from traditional sources became available, I have made mental notes and my gut tells me that if I had kept a log, he probably comes out a little over 50%
Yeah, that’s not news. News organizations strive for truth and accuracy in reporting and when they get it wrong, they issue retractions and apologies. 50% accuracy is not any kind of an endorsement for The Palmer Report.
Do you know who does this “I’m going to say something without any sources to back it up, and someday you’ll see I was right all along”? Donald Trump, who has an equally low rate of accuracy.
Saying something now, seeing if it’s true later is not how news works, nor should it be. I’ve spent plenty of time analyzing Palmer’s articles. The “sources” he uses for his *maybe it’s true, we’ll see* posts are either Facebook posts from nobodies from nowhere or tin-foil hat opinion pieces from obscure television network sites (Oh hey, fake news relies on other fake news! So meta.). Using an occasional leaked source is one thing, but if Bill Palmer were the caliber of “reporter” who had access to leaked sources, he’d be a real reporter with a byline in a reputable news organization. If you look at all he’s done leading up to this moment (as I outlined in this post), it’s pretty hard to make an argument that anyone decided Palmer is the guy to leak to, choosing him over all of the other real journalists out there who do the work and have the reputation for being accurate and reliable.
Sorry, I don’t buy your argument in support of Palmer.
Is Bill Palmer a paid Russian Internet troll? Or even an ordinary troll? Those are the people I am most worried about. I appreciate very high journalistic standards, but we have not been in anything like this information street fight before. If you have time, please his latest report on Trump and Russia. Keep up the good work.
Thank you for this article! I was on the Hillary support site and it turned into Palmers little playground. When I asked about one of his articles – and it was BS at best (not een his usual re-written from other sources with salacious titles so you would click and he gets paid) he told me to rot in hell and called me a troll. Yeah right I am a tRUMP troll (NOT) my entire background is pro Hillary and democratic. I appreciate you shedding light on this no talent troll- he gives democrats and the left a bad name.
Thanks Karin! He sure does give (some) Democrats a bad name.
I first saw the Palmer Report about one month ago and I have not seen or experienced any attacks that you write about, however such attacks do concern me. When I read the PR, I’m not looking for great journalism. I read it because, at least in the past month, he’s been accurate. I have not jumped on his bandwagon, don’t follow him on FB, do read the N.Y. Times, Washington Post, Atlantic, and New Yorker magazine’s to name just a few. I do consider myself well read and a critical thinker. I approach his site with a wait and see attitude. I wouldn’t call it news or fake news. Just another option and opinion.
What he is doing would be fine if he were honest about who he is and what he is doing. Like, if he’s going to write opinion pieces or prediction pieces, great! Just call them what they are rather than passing them off as hard-hitting investigative pieces, which they are not and he is unqualified to provide.
Good gawd. Me thinks you should stick to the paralegal thing, and leave the thinking to others…🙄 I feel dumber for stumbling into this litter box.
I’m letting this comment through because I think it is hilarious, not because I endorse it.
Palmer Report is very creditable. He makes it clear when he is posting facts and when he is speculating. He also gets to the point months before the gutless MSM, but he is generally proven right a month later when the NYtimes or WoPo proves him right. Here is the latest https://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/jason-chaffetz-bails-on-congress-amid-revelation-russia-is-blackmailing-him-over-donald-trump/2355/
Ok. I took the bait and gave the guy some clicks. I still call bullshit on Palmer Report being “very creditable.” The article you linked to contains a bunch of opinion which is supported by a link to another Palmer Report posts. Hoping to find some factual information to support the opinions, I clicked on all of the links in the “source” article. Guess where all of those links lead? Palmer Report posts. I kept digging, hoping that at some point I would get to a site that contained factual information or sources other than Palmer’s imagination and I did not find even ONE link to something beyond a Palmer Report post.
For this one post, ALL of his source material is unsupported speculation which he has passed off as fact. He’s like the Russian nesting doll of “journalism.”
This is not journalism. The information he provides is not factual. And there will always be people who refuse to see that.
Hi Jen..
I just came across your blog and your comments about Palmer today. I had a “run in” of sorts with Palmer back at the beginning of Daily News Bin, so I basically support all that you write. My skirmish was minor. It was the first time I came across the News Bin and Palmer. I don’t remember the topic of the article, but Palmer had included some information about jobs numbers.
I am a jobs numbers junkie and I’ve been writing a blog for 6 years primarily dedicated to interpreting and debunking jobs numbers. (This was particularly important during the early Obama years; I’ve let the blog go over the past year or two.) Well, Palmer’s article had something wrong.. It was fairly minor, and I assumed that it was just a mistake. I kindly and warmly corrected Palmer and went on my merry way. This was back in the days when Palmer did allow comments. My comment never saw the light of day, nor did he correct his text to accommodate my correction. I thought that was odd, but I let it go. A similar thing happened a couple of weeks later. I gently corrected something Palmer mentioned, my comment was never published, and I forgot about it. I did decide that it was not worth my effort to comment on the News Bin with any additions or corrections.
A few months later I asked to join a FB group which turned out to be a Palmer group.. I didn’t know that at the time. I got kicked out of that group a couple of times and couldn’t figure it out since I don’t write controversial posts in groups unless I know the group fairly well. Then I got a note from someone telling me that I got kicked out of the group because I had blocked Palmer. Well, of course I hadn’t blocked Palmer! I checked and doubled checked and I had never blocked Palmer. Again, I shrugged and went on my merry way, as I’m in enough groups and getting kicked out of a Palmer group was not going to affect my life one way or another.
However, it was frustrating, because I would continue to see links to Palmer sites lauding his stories. I was now very skeptical of much that I saw just in the headlines, as I would rarely go to his site. It was several months later when more and more people started to complain about Palmer and his groups and I started to feel somewhat vindicated.
I continue to ignore Palmer and his sites. I’m sorry that you have had some people come out of the woodwork to argue with you and call you names, but I am glad that I found your site! Good luck to you!
Hi Molly – Ugh, so frustrating to see people patting Palmer on the back when you know he’s nonsense! I am either hanging out with a better class of people or he’s starting to fall out of favor (likely the latter) because I almost never see anyone posting Palmer Report articles anymore. It was only a matter of time until he jumped the shark with this site too. Thanks for popping by and validating the experiences of the people who have had run-ins with him.
Palmer won’t make it to Christmas 2017
I believe that it is the same Bill Palmer who posted numerous articles around 1995-1996 in a USENET newsgroup soc.culture.russian. Back in 1996, in a general atmosphere of playful trolling, I created a USENET newsgroup for him called alt.genius.bill-palmer. It created quite a stir online. Life was so much fun back then.
Thanks for this. I have been curious who this guy was so I emailed him and stupidly suggested he take a journalism class. (His complaints about criticism from real newspapers led me to suggest that there’s a reason he’s criticized.) I didn’t expect the reaction–and then I stupidly wrote and said his words were not in any way different from Trump’s!
He’s a work of art,.
Blogger–yep.
Journalist–nope.
(He made fun of my email address too and said I libeled him–not a very smart man. Clever, but not smart!)
Yeah, he doesn’t take criticism very well. He uses the word libel often enough you’d think he’d make some effort to understand what it means.
I particularly like when he uses the phrase “criminal libel.” Few states have such a statute any longer.
Someone posted a scathing article about him on Modern Liberals. Unfortunately, that page has been deleted.
Original link: http://modernliberals.com/the-palmer-report-is-not-news-and-its-an-insult-to-the-left/
You can still see it in the Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Z9NFD0PR2zkJ:modernliberals.com/the-palmer-report-is-not-news-and-its-an-insult-to-the-left/+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari
Hmmmm, I wonder why Manny took that post down. It was a good one.
Glad you have this article out here. A person suggested I would get better info about Mueller on Palmreport. I take it he was dissatisfied with my previous findings on his 2013 actions in FBI and my choice of attorneys to follow, Judicial watch and Jay Sekulow. You spared me the time of learning this guy is not to be trusted or believed. I’m certain I would have quickly saw he is on the same level as CNN.
Late to this party but I don’t like Palmer Report either. I politely questioned him about sources on a clickbait post and he got very nasty and immediately blocked me. Seems like a piece of work, Mr. Palmer. Something definitely off with that guy.
I have sent several political obversations to Bill Palmer thet he latter used without a mention or thank you. Today I chided him for two inaccuracies and his only responce was:
Palmer Report
Today at 7:37 AM
ToJohn Scarry
Message body
Please don’t contact me again with these kinds of invented technicalities. You think you’re making yourself look clever, but you’re just wasting people’s time. Thank you.
Invented technacilites? I guess thet’s what facts are in his mind. Here is what I wrote (the “invented technacilites”) in my 2 emails to him.
1) About Maria Butina being moved to a differant jail.
The real reason Maria Butina was just abruptly moved to Paul Manafort’s jail
First the reason she was moved was because Russia claimed the jail she was in was too dangetous as reported by the WaPo yesterday. Second men and women are not housed in the same jail. They are in the same jail complex which contains seperate jails for men and women.
When you call out the mistakes of mainstream you should make sure to be precise and correct in your writting.
2) About Priebus and Spicer talking with Special Councel’s office.
Reince Priebus and Sean Spicer have also flipped on Donald Trump
Speaking with mueller’s team doesnot mean a person has flipped. People are said to have flipped when they are a coconspirator and decide to give evidence against their partner in crime. Reince annd Sean have not been called much less charged as coconspirators in any crime so they can not have flipped.
Again precision and correctness are important no matter how bad you and I both want things to be and look for Trump.
These are the kinds of over statements that allow Trump to get away with screaming fake news.
So for Bill Palmer pointed out uncomfortable FACTS become invented technicalities.
Sorry Bill but Facts are not invented unless you are of the same mind set as Trump.
I actually enjoyed reading this, honestly. The points are well said.
Thanks so much Maureen!
My experience of Palmer Report: One writer in particular consistently expresses very negative attitudes toward all Americans and America in general. (He is an ex-pat living in Britain.) His writing also includes material which is not factual. When he is challenged and presented with the facts or an opposing view he becomes very abusive. If you continue to speak out, your comments are deleted and you are banned from the site. Bill Palmer has been contacted by readers about the abuse and lack of a balanced point of view but resolves the issue by banning the reader.
Yep, sounds accurate. I didn’t know he was an ex-pat. When I wrote this I was pretty sure he was living in Florida (based on property records and social media). Interesting.
Robert Harrington’s very brief bio on Palmer Report notes that he is a portrait painter and an ex-pat living in Britain. He often comments about living in England and how superior it is to America. I cannot understand why an American writing for an American blog about American politics would be so insistently anti-American and anti-America or get away with it. But it seems to draw other ugly people who also hate America.
I was just booted from his page (well, I actually saw myself out) after I commented on one of the articles which was actually written by another writer for Palmer Report. The writing was so full of sentence fragments, that it was terribly distracting, and I felt that it was damaging to Palmer Report’s credibility. I’ve noticed it quite a bit, actually, in articles written by one particular writer. Bill replied to my comment threatening me and telling me that if I ever “question his credibility again,” I would be kicked out and blocked. I told him I would just see myself out, thank you. Geez! What a tool!
Lately, a lot of his articles appear to be just him watching, The Rachel Maddow, then claiming she agrees with him.
I have a friend who is highly educated, very erudite, and a wonderful writer. That said, she is also a knitter because she has a hard time with movement, and can’t get around like when we were younger. She also writes a wonderful blog primarily targeting fellow knitters. When some of her hundreds of readers/followers started suggesting that she write about politics on occasion (especially during an election year) she picked up the ball and ran with it. Her web page is not just enjoyable (with a few knitting patterns thrown in daily) but very informative. Her sources are legitimate, and she makes no bones about the fact that she’s NOT a journalist, but mainly a “facilitator” who starts conversations about many topics, including political news.
With my friend’s respected intellectual background and education both here in America as well as abroad, I don’t think anyone would take issue with her “just being a kooky knitter”. No way.