Why We Ask: Our mission and operations are funded 100% by conservatives like you. Please help us continue to extend Liberty to the next generation and support the 2024 Year-End Campaign today.

January 7, 2020

CNN ‘Fact Checks’ Babylon Bee Satire

The Leftmedia cannot accept the conservative Christian satire site effectively lampooning Dems.

“Making fun of Democrats and leftists is beyond the pale” was essentially the message from CNN’s “disinformation” reporter Donie O'Sullivan. The reason for his ire was the wildly popular conservative Christian satire site The Babylon Bee’s parody entitled “Democrats Call For Flags To Be Flown At Half-Mast To Grieve Death Of Soleimani.” O'Sullivan claimed without evidence, “A lot of people sharing this ‘satirical’ story on Facebook don’t know it is satire.” Moreover, he lamented, “This is the same number of engagements the top NY Times and CNN stories on Facebook had over the past week.”

But O'Sullivan’s self-serving objection is just the latest in a long line of Leftmedia pundits bemoaning the Bee’s successful and creative satirical engagement of news and politics, a field of entertainment it loudly celebrated when the butt of the jokes were conservatives and Republicans.

As the Washington Examiner’s Becket Adams observes, “The media-led campaign to warn the public of the dangers posed by the conservative parody site is rich, considering it comes at the tail end of the decades-long fad of satirical political shows hosted by ‘news anchors’ such as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Indeed, after 15-plus years of living in the shadow of beloved and acclaimed then-Comedy Central hosts, it is laugh-out-loud funny that members of the press are getting bent out of shape now over a single conservative satirical website.”

The irony of the Leftmedia being so concerned over the possible spread of “misinformation” from a clearly established satire site is its own history of disseminating fake news. As David Harsanyi points out, “What’s most annoying about all this situational and insincere freakout about the veracity of social-media news feeds is that the people who claim to be most concerned about it have done far more damage to the public’s trust than has any satirical site — not only by spreading half-truths and stoking political hysteria, but by undermining their reputation and leaving millions of Americans without any reliable mainstream news organizations to count on.”

O'Sullivan’s real complaint is that the Bee is beating leftists at their own game. As Adam Ford, the Bee’s founder, cogently notes, “There are websites dedicated to chronicling reactions from people who think Onion [another satire site] stories are real. Foreign leaders have famously been fooled by Onion articles. And this guy’s bio says he ‘covers disinformation’ for CNN. Surely he has taken the Onion to task as well, yes?” Predictably, the answer to Ford’s question is “no.” In fact, O'Sullivan appears to be a big fan of The Onion, as he has approvingly linked to several of its parody news stories on social media. The truth is that O'Sullivan simply doesn’t like the fact that the Bee is free to so effectively expose and lampoon the Left.


Update: The Babylon Bee responded in typical fashion with the article headlined, “CNN Attacks Babylon Bee: ‘The Internet Is Only Big Enough For One Fake News Site’.”

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.