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.
The emails and the full story
Every source, in one log
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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
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.
