Heritage ‘censorship’ report shines light on Washington Examiner investigation

A new report released by the conservative Heritage Foundation puts a spotlight on a Washington Examiner investigative series on right-leaning media outlets appearing to be “censored” by government actors.

The report focuses on the National Endowment for Democracy, a State Department-funded nonprofit group that the author, former U.S. Agency for International Development official Tim Meisburger, argued “needs oversight and reform” due to it being “staffed almost entirely by Democrats.” The Washington Examiner first reported in February 2023 that the NED and the State Department’s Global Engagement Center funded the Global Disinformation Index, a British group blacklisting right-of-center websites from advertising dollars.

“According to Gabe Kaminsky, an investigative reporter at the Washington Examiner, the NED made grants totaling $545,750 between 2020 and 2021 to the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British organization that compiles a list of ‘risky’ online platforms that advertisers should avoid,” Meisburger wrote in the report. “The list ranked left-leaning sites as low risk and right-leaning outlets high risk, essentially trying to bankrupt the outlets.”

That the State Department would fund GDI prompted a recent lawsuit by the Federalist and the Daily Wire, two conservative media outlets, against the Biden administration. The media outlets said the State Department’s Global Engagement Center propped up “one of the most egregious government operations to censor the American press in the history of the nation.” Last year, Congress approved a law banning certain Pentagon funds from going to GDI. Microsoft exited political advertising after the Washington Examiner revealed that the company used GDI’s blacklist of conservative media outlets, Axios reported.

The Global Engagement Center gave $100,000 in 2021 to GDI. In 2022, after years of prior giving, the NED awarded over $315,000 to the British blacklister, the NED confirmed to the Washington Examiner. It has since vowed no longer to fund GDI.

“According to Kaminsky, in addition to developing disinformation ‘tools,’ the NED made direct grants to a British group that sought to promote leftwing publishers in the United States while working to suppress conservative publishers,” Meisburger wrote in the report.

“The NED’s interest in the control of speech both in the U.S. and abroad suggests its priority is promoting a particular political message and ideology rather than facilitating an open and democratic environment where all people can freely express their political ideas,” Meisburger argued, highlighting the NED’s board members, who are both Democrats and Republicans.

The Heritage Foundation report said Congress should demand the NED be “truly” bipartisan and requested an independent audit by the Government Accountability Office to investigate “violations of NED’s statutory requirement to be bipartisan.”

“Congress should fold the NED’s appropriation into the U.S. Department of State and USAID international affairs budget,” Meisburger said. “Because the NED duplicates existing government grant-making and diplomatic capacity, Congress should reconsider its annual appropriation. If appropriators wish to maintain current levels of ‘democracy’ funding, these funds can be easily reprogrammed through government agencies and the NED institutes already funded for the same purposes.”