The Patriot Post® · Portnoy vs. Washington Post Hacks

We here at The Patriot Post have long noted the leftist bias present in most major news media outlets. Indeed, it’s why we use the term “Leftmedia” as a shorthand descriptor of this reality, and combating it is why we exist in the first place. Of course, mainstream media figures have long denied this reality, claiming that they’re just practicing journalism as objectively as possible. This regular and repeated denial is why it’s helpful to highlight very clear incidents when their bias is undeniably exposed.

The Washington Post recently revealed its leftist bias when it was caught pursuing a disingenuous propaganda narrative against Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy in an effort to get him canceled. Long story short, the paper had an agenda to destroy him and never even bothered to try to get his side of the story — until he blew the lid off the operation.

The backstory begins with Portnoy’s decision to host a pizza festival in which the best pizza places he’s reviewed for his One Bite Pizza Reviews were invited to participate. Post “reporter” Emily Heil decided to use the occasion to write not a genuine story about the festival but a hit piece against Portnoy, portraying him as “misogynistic” and “problematic” with the obvious objective of coercing the pizza joints to abandon him.

Heil sent an email to several of the sponsors of the festival soliciting negative comments against Portnoy. One of the email messages read:

We are planning to write about the festival and how some of the sponsors and participants have drawn criticism by seeming to associate themselves with Dave Portnoy, who has a history of misogynistic comments and other problematic behavior. I wanted to make sure that [redacted] had a chance to respond to this since the company is the most prominent of the “partners” for his festival.

This isn’t journalism; its propaganda. It was an effort to poison the well so Heil could publish a negative piece with desired quotes that would reinforce her predetermined agenda against Portnoy and then call it “reporting.”

Humorously, Portnoy got wind of the story before it went to press, and he confronted Heil about it over the phone — a call he recorded and posted to X. He directly questioned her over soliciting negative feedback from the sponsors, asking why she had already formed an opinion on him without even contacting him and questioning him. Heil denied the charge but did admit to misleading sponsors to speak negatively against Portnoy.

After Portnoy challenged Heil for not interviewing him before constructing a story against him, she insisted she had always intended to talk to him and agreed to interview him the next day. Unsurprisingly, that interview never happened. One would have thought that after such an embarrassing episode, WaPo would nix the story, but one would be wrong. The Post went forward with publishing its hatchet job, and the title of the article says it all: “Pizzerias navigate buzz, backlash around Dave Portnoy’s pizza festival.”

Well, that “backlash” was entirely of Heil’s making. Rather than simply reporting on the pizza festival, Heil went out of her way to smear Portnoy as a bad guy, and his festival, which he was using to raise support for small businesses, was tainted because of the “problematic” views that he has expressed.

Why would Heil be motivated to undermine Portnoy, who is by no means politically conservative? While Portnoy’s political views may best be described as center-left, he has long been a vocal critic of the woke Left. And like many, he values the American principles of free expression and free speech. That’s anathema for the new Left.

Character assassination is the MO of the Leftmedia. It’s not enough simply to report the news. Leftmedia outlets like The Washington Post must attempt to destroy those who dare to express views that don’t comport with the Left’s increasingly narrow worldview. In 2017, the Post adopted the pretentious motto “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” but that’s less a defiant stand than a mission statement for the paper’s grossly partisan “reporting.”