What you’ll learn if you read right-wing “Rip-n-Tilt” sites….
We’ve taken to calling websites that primarily exist to add a partisan gloss to content produced by someone else “rip-n-tilt.” They’re abundant. They exist across the media ecosystem. The conservative-tilting sites are especially powerful in determining the agenda of more mainstream news organizations, according to researchers at MIT.
The titles of two organizations caught my attention: Truth Monitor and Right Forever.
I began with Truth Monitor. Its capital letters and advertisements jumped off the page.
I began by reading a post about Trump’s recent claims that former President Barack Obama had wire-tapped his phone, citing no evidence to back up the story. This post targeted the Clintons, claiming they assisted Obama’s alleged spying.
It was evident that the piece was a classic “rip-n-tilt” style post. The author cited speculative information from “The Gateway Pundit” and “Daily Mail,” both similar websites with heavy advertisements and politically charged headlines. The only quotations in the piece were pulled from written statements released by Congressional members and they did not support the headline’s claim.
On the tilt side of the things, without proper evidence to back it up, the author wrote:
“This means Obama’s White House WAS monitoring an opposing presidential campaign using the high-tech surveillance powers of the federal intelligence services.”
I moved on to another piece.
The author began the piece with titled rhetoric.
“The liberal media tries to make it look like Donald Trump supporters are violent bigots, but what happened last night in Berkeley once again shows that Democrats are the crazed intolerant people in America these days.”
Like the first article I read, the author used information from another website. the right-leaning Independent Journal Review. The IJR mixes original content with glosses on other stories.
The tilt in the MEDIA BLACKOUT was evident by padding its narrative with tweets like the one below, that pushed the “liberal terrorist” meme.
Everything comes in threes. So here’s the third story I looked at.
Almost exactly like the stories before it, the piece employed information from an ad-heavy publication called “Daily Wire.” This story also ripped (with a citation) a quotation from NBC News from the reported victim’s mother. Aside from this, there was no original reporting.
There was, however, a fair share of tilt.
“The mainstream media is trying to make illegal immigrants look as innocent as possible in their quest to make Donald Trump look bad. That’s why liberal outlets are refusing to report on this story…”
Right Forever is a different type of publication. It advertises its partisan bent upfront: (Its logo is a red rhino).
The homepage had less advertisements than Truth Monitor, by the way.
The first story I clicked on was front-and-center in its top story bar.
The argument suggested by the headline is not really addressed in the body of the story. The text spends its entirety criticizing Clinton, arguing that “her wrongdoings prove she is not a patriot, more or less a traitor of the motherland,” and also that her liberal supporters “burn the national flag,” but it does not mention Hillary being “bought my Russians.”
Below is a screenshot of the text from the second half of the story, which promised to reveal Hillary’s “true face.” You can also see the ad-heavy sidebars.
The post has not cited its claims. At all. It appears that this post is less “rip and tilt” and more simply, “tilt.”
Others followed a similar pattern. I clicked on a story about Nancy Pelosi next.
The introduction of the piece described career politicians as people who “often start from the bottom or have an example to learn from how to become an emotional vampire and rule the world. That’s the sick ambition of every career politician –to become part of the global elite and poses money, wealth and power beyond imaginable.”
It introduces Pelosi by describing how she “really messed the things up with the new administration” and that “the worse is yet to come. It was just reported that Nancy Pelosi’s worth 196$ million! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!”
The post continues to detail why Pelosi could go to jail.
“The democrats’ leader bought 5$ million Visa stock in one of the most sought-after and profitable initial public offerings (IPO) in American history, then seriously fought comprehensive credit card reform for two years, and then watched her investment skyrocket 203%. This is a huge crime behind Nancy Pelosi because she used her position in order to make huge wealth. That means that she could serve at least 20 years behind bars for this. What are the authorities going to do about this? If this information is true, then the security, financial and juridical institution should take care of Pelosi.
People, we can not turn a blind eye on this. SHARE THIS POST IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE CORRUPTED POLITICIANS BEHIND BARS!”
The key phrase? “If this information is true.” (I bolded it above.)
This post had no original reporting. No rip. No quotations. And by the end of the piece, a clear denotation of a reported rumor: “If.”
A positive story caught my eye next. The reason for its positivity? A discussion of Donald Trump.
The story described President Trump calling a fan up to the stage at a rally in Orlando.
In an effort to learn more, I attempted to contact both sites. I reached out to Truth Monitor by contacting an email address for their editor on the site. The email was not delivered. Right Forever did not have a contact address. They did, however, list a contact email at the bottom of their site that appeared to be left over from their website template: contact@yoursite.com.
I did comment on one of their pieces, hoping they might respond through that, but it has been two weeks with no response.
