(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post has been forced to rescind previous statements about anti-critical race theory journalist Christopher Rufo.
The Post’s journalist Valerie Strauss recently penned a hit piece titled “DeSantis moves to turn a progressive Fla. college into a conservative one” attacking Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, along with Rufo, Just the News reported.
Rufo accused Strauss of misrepresenting him in a way that included “distortions, inaccuracies, and flat-out lies.”
Soon after the initial publication, Rufo wrote a Twitter thread debunking the Post’s nonsense by listing five lies told in the story.
Last year, I forced the Washington Post to retract a blizzard of lies about my work. Now, the paper has dispatched another hack, @valeriestrauss, to push a fresh round of distortions, inaccuracies, and flat-out lies.
Let's debunk them one by one. 🧵
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) January 8, 2023
“Last year, I forced the Washington Post to retract a blizzard of lies about my work. Now, the paper has dispatched another hack, @valeriestrauss, to push a fresh round of distortions, inaccuracies, and flat-out lies,” Rufo began. “Let’s debunk them one by one.”
Lie #5. The WaPo also manages to lie about my work on the DeSantis Stop WOKE Act. Again, it's likely that Strauss simply did not read the law—if she had, she would have known that her reporting here is not true. pic.twitter.com/989rBx1ylX
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) January 8, 2023
Soon after Rufo’s obliteration of their story, the Post issued a correction.
“A previous version of this story called Christopher Rufo a Republican activist who denies the existence of systemic racism. He is a conservative activist who has said American law is not currently discriminating against racial minorities,” they wrote, adding that they added more clarifications regarding DeSantis’s law.
“The story also clarifies language about diversity trainings used by the federal government and businesses in Florida, which were not technically forbidden but were broadly restricted in what they could say about systemic racism,” the correction continued.
Rufo further noted that Strauss misrepresented DeSantis as well by suggesting that he has actively prohibited diversity training, when the law in fact only prohibits “trainings that promote racial scapegoating and certain enumerated divisive concepts, including the idea that one race is inherently superior to another.”
“The story also clarifies language about diversity trainings used by the federal government and businesses in Florida, which were not technically forbidden but were broadly restricted in what they could say about systemic racism,” Strauss had initially lied.
