Special Livestream at 1 p.m. ET: On the Ongoing Global Engagement Center Saga
Washington Examiner reporter Gabe Kaminsky and I will be discussing the bizarre and sordid ending (we hope) to the State Department censorship story, involving the Global Engagement Center
America This Week will still be airing tonight at 8:00 p.m. ET, but I’ll be doing one additional broadcast at 1 p.m. ET today, with Gabe Kaminsky from the Washington Examiner.
Gabe and I never spoke before 2023, when our paths crossed over the State Department’s Global Engagement Center. The tail end of my work on the Twitter Files led to research of GEC’s “anti-disinformation” contractors, while Gabe independently was preparing what turned out to be an explosive series on GEC and its funding of content-scoring agencies like Britain’s Global Disinformation Index.
Thanks to an investigation by the House Committee on Small Business, Gabe and I ultimately learned we’d both been put on GEC’s naughty list. As the organization squirmed out of being shuttered by scattering employees on different floors of State Department buildings, a lawsuit was filed by a watchdog group called the Functioning Government Initiative with the aim of recovering all documents about GEC’s efforts to counter our reporting.
Gabe and I have both been through something very unusual with GEC, like the journalism version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. We wanted to have a talk today to (hopefully) put a wrap on this story, about which you can also read in Real Clear Politics. To tune in, click on the following links:
Or tune in on Twitter: @mtaibbi
Niceee. I love to pay you to report the shit out of this beat. Also nice to see (hear?) you mix it up with new interlocutors :)
Illuminating. Gabe!