If journalists do have ‘misinformation-driven’ trauma, they should look elsewhere for therapy.
Raise your hand if you’re a journalist who’s been personally victimized by misinformation-driven harassment campaigns. Good news: The Biden administration will pay for your psychological care.
From Daily Caller contributor, Rob Schmad:
The Biden administration has approved $5.7 million in grant funding to George Washington University to create a program that will provide psychological care to journalists who believe they are the targets of “misinformation-driven harassment campaigns.”
The program, called Expert Voices Together, is described in the government grant database as “a socio-technical system that provides real-time support to experts experiencing online harassment.” The project’s goal is to provide journalists, and eventually other “experts,” with means of “monitoring and reporting” alleged abuse, as well as “personalized assistance with digital safety” and access to “mental health care specialists” as a form of “trauma-informed care.”
The National Science Foundation (NSF) first allocated $749,222 in funding to George Washington University in 2021, and approved the project for continuation in 2022, approving an additional $5 million in taxpayer funds. Work associated with the grant is ongoing, with funding projected to end in August 2024.
The NSF characterizes providing journalists with mental health counseling as part of an effort to address the “rapid spread of misinformation” because “harassment undermines confidence in pivotal sources of knowledge and reduces expert participation in the information ecosystem.” The grant is part of a broader NSF initiative to bolster “trust and authenticity in communications systems.”
Chief trauma-causer may be Joe Biden himself, who colluded with social-media platforms to censor information and perpetuated lies about the pandemic that some journalists tried to disprove for years. I certainly wouldn’t trust him with my mental health, not even if my Twitter following depended on it.
Biden’s party has led a variety of other misinformation campaigns. Democrats refuse to admit that they support late-term abortions, calling questions about their stances on abortion limits a “political canard.” They do, however, support late-term abortion. Democrats also denied the Hunter Biden laptop story and shifted the narrative on Biden’s involvement in his son’s business dealings, from the president “never discussed” Hunter’s business dealings with him, to “the president was never in business with his son.” Now, the president will face an impeachment inquiry to judge just how “in business” the pair was.
If journalists do have “misinformation-driven” trauma, they should look elsewhere for therapy.