SOURCE: Wikipedia, captured 2020-08-27
This page last modified: 2022-02-01 19:21:51 -0800 (PST)
RED FLAG: excluded from sources -- notorious conspiracy, disinformation and troll site similar to Breitbart News.
The Rebel News Network, Ltd., stylized as Rebel News, and previously known as The Rebel Media, and The Rebel, is a Canadian far-right political and social commentary media website. It was founded in February 2015 by former Sun News Network personalities Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley. It has been described as a "global platform" for the anti-Muslim ideology known as counter-jihad.
Rebel News broadcasts its content on its website and YouTube channel, which previously peaked on 16 August 2017, at 873,800 subscribers, however with the August departures, it had fallen to a minimum of 842,200 as of 31 August. In September-October 2017 the channel resumed its growth. On 25 June 2019, it had over 1.2 million subscribers.
Often cast as Canada's version of Breitbart News, Rebel News has been described as being part of the alt-right movement.
Former Sun News Network reporter [racist, white supremacist] Faith Goldy joined Rebel News after its launch, but was fired for her coverage of the 2017 Charlottesville rally, and an interview with The Daily Stormer -- an American far-right neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and Holocaust denial commentary and message board website that advocates for the genocide of Jews. A co-founder and two freelancers resigned in protest of the coverage.
Gavin McInnes, founder of the far-right neo-fascist organization Proud Boys, has also been a contributor. McInnes left the site in 2017, and rejoined the site for a period in 2019.
The Rebel Media was formed by Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley following the closure of the Sun News Network. Levant said that his online production would be unencumbered by the regulatory and distribution difficulties faced by Sun News Network and that its lower production costs would make it more viable. Levant has cited Breitbart, the American far-right news hub, as an inspiration. A crowdfunding campaign raised roughly $100,000 for the project. The site soon attracted a number of other former Sun News Network personalities such as David Menzies, Paige MacPherson, Faith Goldy, Patrick Moore and, briefly, Michael Coren.
In the summer of 2015, the channel, led by Levant, launched a campaign to boycott Tim Hortons, a chain of Canadian coffee shops, after it rejected in-store ads from Enbridge due to complaints from customers opposed to the oil pipeline projects being promoted by the ads.
In early 2016, the Alberta government banned The Rebel Media's correspondents from press briefings on the grounds that, because Ezra Levant had testified in court in 2014 that he was a columnist or commentator rather than a reporter, none of his current correspondents could be considered to be journalists. On 17 February 2016, the government admitted that it made a mistake and said that it would allow The Rebel Media correspondents into press briefings. The Canadian Association of Journalists supported preventing government from choosing journalism coverage."
In late 2016, The Rebel Media advocated for accreditation by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to permit its access as journalists to their event. The Rebel Media had previously published articles claiming that the public is being deceived about climate change.
Rebel Media did receive support from the federal Canadian government and three journalism organizations and eventually was granted access by the UN.
Following the Quebec City mosque shooting on 29 January 2017, Rebel promoted a conspiracy theory that the shooting was perpetrated by Muslims. In 2017, Rebel Media hired as its British correspondent far-right activist Tommy Robinson, founder of the avowedly anti-Islamic English Defence League. Robinson was convicted of mortgage fraud and using a friend's passport to enter the US.
In March 2017, one of their correspondents, Gavin McInnes, made controversial comments defending Holocaust deniers, accused the Jews of being responsible for the Holodomor and the Treaty of Versailles, and said he was "becoming anti-Semitic." He later said his comments were taken out of context. McInnes also produced a satirical video for Rebel called "Ten Things I Hate about Jews," later retitled "Ten Things I Hate About Israel."
During the 2017 French Presidential Election, Jack Posobiec, The Rebel Media's Washington, D.C. bureau chief, supported far right leader Marine Le Pen and played a role in the 2017 Macron e-mail leaks. The following items are selected excerpts (too numerous to include here), from the reference file on Jack Posobiec, substantiate the reprehensible behavior of Jack Posobiec -- and, via guilt-by-association, Rebel News.
[Disinformation troll] Jack Posobiec was employed from early April 2017 to May 2017 at Rebel News, as its Washington bureau chief. Jack Posobiec left after allegations were made that he had engaged in plagiarism.
As of 2018, Jack Posobiec was working as a correspondent for One America News Network, a conservative cable news television channel.
In September 2016, Posobiec praised Richard Spencer on Twitter as "indispensable." Jack Posobiec later deleted walked back the statement, deleting his supporting tweets and calling Spencer a "scumbag."
In October 2016, Posobiec posted a tweet that included triple parentheses, an anti-semitic symbol.
In May 2017, Posobiec hired neo-Nazi brothers Jeffrey and Edward Clark to help create a documentary about the murder of Seth Rich for Rebel News, a far-right Canada-based website for which Posobiec was working.
Jeffrey Clark was arrested by the FBI on gun charges after saying that the Jewish victims of the October 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting "deserved exactly what happened to them and so much worse." Posobiec later said that he had never heard of Jeffrey Clark and had never made a documentary about Seth Rich, even though HuffPost published photographs of Posobiec and the Clarks working together.
In August 2017, following a "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that led to violent clashes between white nationalists and anti-protesters, Posobiec said that the rally had become "massive propaganda" for the left and that the mainstream media was "fanning the flames of this violence." Jack Posobiec said that Trump should have disavowed Black Lives Matter. Posobiec later tweeted that he had consistently disavowed white nationalism and violence. Jack Posobiec also tweeted that he was "done with trolling" and that it was "time to do the right thing."
Jack Posobiec has repeatedly published posts containing the white supremacist code "1488," or the Fourteen Words, and Posobiec is a supporter of the slogan.
In April and May 2017, Posobiec was a correspondent for The Rebel [now Rebel News], a far-right Canada-based website, and was granted press access to the White House in April 2017. According to Philadelphia magazine, during his short time in the White House press pool Posobiec "seems to have been charged in the press briefing room with haranguing legitimate journalists and running out the clock on press conferences with inane softball questions and Dear Leader obsequiousness."
Lauren Southern left the Rebel News in March 2017.
Rebel News Co-founder Brian Lilley quit The Rebel on 12 August 2017, following the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, writing, "What anyone from The Rebel was doing at a so-called 'unite the right' rally that was really an anti-Semitic white power rally is beyond me. Especially not a rally dedicated to keeping up a statue of Robert E. Lee, a man that whatever else he stood for, also fought on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of America's bloodiest conflict." Lilley accused The Rebel of exhibiting a "lack of editorial and behavioural judgment that left unchecked will destroy it and those around it."
Freelancers Barbara Kay and John Robson also quit the Rebel, and the company was denounced by Conservative MP Michael Chong and Alberta politician Doug Schweitzer of the United Conservative Party [Alberta, Canada]. Chong, Chris Alexander, Peter Kent, Lisa Raitt, and former interim leader Rona Ambrose had previously disavowed the site.
Brian Jean, Jason Kenney, and Doug Schweitzer, who are running for the leadership of the United Conservative Party of Alberta, have condemned the Rebel and said they will no longer grant interviews to the company.
Faith Goldy, a former journalist and online show host of the Rebel, was fired on 17 August 2017, for her participation in a podcast associated with The Daily Stormer. In the course of reporting on the Unite the Right rally, Goldy argued that they suggested a wider "rising white racial consciousness" in America and characterizing a manifesto by white supremacist Richard B. Spencer that called for organizing states along racial lines as "robust" and "well thought-out."
Gavin McInnes left the Rebel at the end of August 2017. Ezra Levant wrote "We tried to keep him, but he was lured away by a major competitor that we just couldn't outbid" in an email to the independent news site Canadaland. In February 2019, after suing the Southern Poverty Law Center for allegedly damaging his reputation and career prospect by characterizing the Proud Boys as a hate group, McInnes announced that he had once again been hired by the media group.
British contributor Caolan Robertson no longer works for the Rebel. Robertson claims he was fired for "knowing too much" about the Rebel's finances, claiming the company dishonestly solicited donations for projects that were already funded and concealing how that money was spent. He also claimed that Southern was fired for refusing to tape a fundraising appeal for the Rebel's Israel trip after fundraising targets had already been met. Robertson also played audio of Levant offering him thousands of dollars of what Levant himself called "hush money." Levant denies these allegations and says he will present evidence opposing this in court, claiming that he was being "blackmailed" by Robertson and his partner. Levant has since briefly talked about The Rebel's finances in his online show and released a summary on The Rebel's website. It was reported that person that negotiated the settlement is the former Director of Communication for [former] Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Kory Teneycke.
During the 2017 Conservative Party leadership race, many contenders, including the eventual leadership winner Andrew Scheer, gave interviews to the outlet.
After the 2017 Conservative Party leadership race, it was revealed that Scheer's campaign manager Hamish Marshall's IT firm Torch provided IT services to The Rebel Media. In 2015, Marshall told the National Observer, that he was only involved in the business side of the Rebel. Marshall explained to that he had left the Rebel after the leadership race ended to avoid a conflict of interest. In September 2017 Marshall's name was removed from the list of directors of The Rebel Media on the federal government's online registry of corporate information. On 16 October 2017, The Globe and Mail asked Scheer if he knew that Hamish Marshall shared office space with the Rebel during the leadership campaign. Scheer replied that he did not ask Marshall about his firm's many clients. Later, a spokesperson clarified that Scheer did not know the specifics of the arrangement. Ezra Levant explained that Marshall's IT firm Torch provided client services for the Rebel. A 2017 National Post article argued that Marshall implemented the Rebel donation system. Scheer told Maclean's magazine in 2018, that Marshall past relationship with the Rebel should not be conflated with his selection as campaign chair.
Andrew Scheer denounced the outlet due to its coverage of the Unite the Right rally, and stated that he would stop doing interviews with The Rebel Media until its "editorial directions" changed. A day later, Scheer stated that he would not be granting interviews with the Rebel going forward, in an interview with the National Post.
Beginning in May 2017, the Rebel was the target of a boycott campaign by the social media activist group Sleeping Giants whereby advertisers were pressured to withdraw their adverts from The Rebel Media's YouTube channel and website. Within a three-month period in 2017, the activist group claimed that the Rebel had lost approximately 300 advertisers, including CCM Hockey, Mountain Equipment Co-op, Red Lobster, Reitmans, Penguin Books Canada, Volkswagen Canada and Tangerine Bank, along with PetSmart, the Hudson's Bay Company, General Motors Canada, the Royal Canadian Mint, the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation, Ottawa Tourism, Porter Airlines, and Whistler Blackcomb ski resort.
The City of Edmonton withdrew from city advertisements after complaints on social media about the controversial nature of Ezra Levant's comments. According to Councilor Oshry, the city would have made this decision regardless of political leanings, because of controversial articles.
Another activist group, Hope not Hate, pressured Norwegian Cruise Lines into cancelling a scheduled Caribbean cruise which was to feature talks by The Rebel Media personalities, many of whom have since left the media website.
In December 2017 Wells Asset Management announced the Rebel Freedom Fund, allowing investors to fund Levant's film and video projects, offering an expected 4.5% return. This attracted news coverage the following February in advance of the fund's ostensible 1 March opening date, generally negative; MoneySense, for example, stated that "This one carries a lot of risk and doesn't clear the MoneySense bar for appropriate retirement investment risk, whatever the political orientation." In June, however, Wells announced that it was shutting down all its funds, and when queried by a reporter from Maclean's magazine, stated that the Rebel Freedom Fund had never launched.
Ezra Levant, a racist / xenophobic, litigious "free-speech" troll, with past affiliations with the Koch Summer Fellow Program (1994), and the Fraser Institute (1996) -- both of which push Koch-influenced neoliberal agendae.
[CBC.ca, 2021-09-08] Trudeau says Rebel News spreads disinformation on vaccines. Following the official French-language leaders' debate, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau tells Rebel News reporter that the organization needs to take responsibility for polarization in Canada.
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