Setting The Record Straight

Campus Watch corrects false allegations made against it.

Response to:

'Campus Reform' Is Funneling Koch Money to Groom Right-Wing 'Journalists'
by Eleanor J. Bader
Truthout
November 15, 2020

Categories:
False allegations of suppressing free speech
False accusations of being part of a lobby or conspiracy
False allegations of connections to other organizations

Original text from 'Campus Reform' Is Funneling Koch Money to Groom Right-Wing 'Journalists':

The Leadership Institute, which itself had a budget of nearly $17 million in 2018, has become a financial matchmaker of sorts. Thanks to the institute's connections, Leadership Institute staff have introduced conservative funders to Campus Reform and other right-wing student networks: Turning Point USA, The College Fix, The Clarion Project and the Middle East Forum Campus Watch.

Campus Watch Responds:

In an article accusing the right of mendacity and that mocks the term "journalist" being applied to young conservatives, Eleanor J. Bader spins conspiracy theories and falsely asserts ties between Campus Watch and other groups. Specifically, her charge that Leadership Institute (LI) personnel have acted as a "matchmaker" for relations between CW (and the Middle East Forum) and donors is entirely false. At no time has anyone from CW or MEF spoken with LI personnel or "connections" about foundations, individual donors, or anything related to development. Bader's assertion is false and without merit.

It also offers a window into the sloppy, conspiratorial, paranoid style of a certain kind of far left activist, for whom villainization trumps empirical fact. Such people are tiresome and can normally be ignored without consequence. But when CW is maligned in this way, we must respond. Perhaps next time Bader will bother to do some basic research before sitting down to write.

(Posted by Winfield Myers)