In a recent panel discussion with Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt about “trusting elections,” Beth Schwanke, Executive Director of the Pitt Disinformation Lab, told Pennsylvania voters not to do their own research and use only “trusted” sources.
“One thing everyone can do to make sure they are seeing accurate information is to use trusted sources,” Schwanke said. “So in elections that means using the Department of State, that means using your county elections office, it means using media organizations that follow, that adhere, to professional journalism standards like… your local NPR affiliate,” she continued.
“And it doesn’t mean you know, ‘doing your own research’ and just asking questions and sharing, you know, posts from — I don’t know, in my case, it’s Uncle Joe, right? It means being thoughtful about where your sources are coming from.”
Critics say Schwanke’s claims highlight the fact that sources are “trusted” only if they take a certain editorial line supported by the government and the Democratic Party. For example, NPR, which Schwanke names specifically, refused to cover the New York Post‘s Hunter Biden laptop story. Multiple “trusted” sources dismissed the story as “disinformation” and NPR Managing Editor Terence Samuels declared it as unworthy of coverage. The story turned out to be entirely accurate.
Schwanke’s insistence that voters trust the Department of State is also alarming. The Pennsylvania State Department recently announced its partnership with the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Multiple reports have revealed that CISA routinely engages in censorship of conservatives and other dissidents, including citizens who questioned the safety of mail-in-voting.
