NPR Asked Who Profits. It Never Asked Who Was Talking.

In 2021, the White House said 12 people produced 65% of vaccine misinformation online. I was No. 8. This film puts every document behind that number on screen.

Before NPR called my work “a business,” its reporter and I recorded a cross-interview. He asked about my income; I asked who funds NPR.

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Watch the cross-interview here.

The 65% came from a nonprofit’s sample of 483 posts in 30 Facebook groups. NPR’s story quoted that nonprofit’s CEO and an analyst from a government-partnered monitoring project, and disclosed neither role, nor the $4 million Gates Foundation grant NPR held for global health coverage. In August 2021, Meta called the sample “in no way representative.” NPR’s stories are still online, with no editor’s note.

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Chapters

0:00 — One statistic, July 2021
0:17 — Named on the “Disinformation Dozen”
0:29 — The accounts go dark
1:19 — Where “65%” came from
1:47 — What the report never explained
2:15 — NPR’s “business of misinformation” story
3:01 — Follow the money, all of it
3:48 — From newsroom to White House podium
4:01 — The Virality Project
4:54 — What Meta’s own data said
5:34 — No correction, no apology
5:45 — The chill
6:18 — The documents

Primary Sources Shown

CCDH: The Disinformation Dozen — March 24, 2021
Virality Project: Weekly Briefing #14 — March 30, 2021
Virality Project: Email to Twitter — March 17, 2021
NPR: “For Some Anti-Vaccine Advocates, Misinformation Is Part of a Business” — May 12, 2021
NPR: “Disinformation Dozen” Test Facebook’s, Twitter’s Ability to Curb Vaccine Hoaxes — May 13, 2021
Gates Foundation: Committed Grants Database
National Public Media: PhRMA Case Study
White House: Press Briefing — July 15, 2021
Meta: “Taking Action Against Vaccine Misinformation Superspreaders” — August 18, 2021

More in This Series

Disclosure: I am the subject of the NPR story. I founded GreenMedInfo, which offers paid memberships, and have a financial interest in Regenerate Company. Any organization named here may send a reply; I will link it.

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