Your tax dollars are at work again at NPR, this time helping to publish a ridiculous hit piece against The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro. But unlike past attempts to demean and suppress conservative voices,  this one is unique in that it exposes, perhaps by accident, exactly how the media are using claims of “misinformation” to do their dirty work.

It is via those false claims of misinformation that media outlets and their Democrat allies justify censorship at the highest levels. The starkest example of that came during the 2020 election when the Hunter Biden laptop story was crushed by social media. Yet, that’s hardly the only example.

This was just a few days ago via a story over at Townhall.

Does Facebook censor? You tell me. Went from viral to totally shutdown in 10 mins. This is a story about Hunter Biden’s tax probe. Facebook protects POTUS and his family at all costs. But at the same time they’re pissed because Joe says they kill. So which is it? @itsSpencerBrown pic.twitter.com/UXCT7CG5KH

— Storm Paglia 🇺🇸 (@storm_paglia) July 18, 2021

RedState has also battled the social media censors, having objectively true stories targeted because our reaction dared to cross left-wing orthodoxy on an issue. For example, for almost a year, if I wrote a piece sharing facts about COVID’s origins and then opined that I thought a lab leak was the most likely explanation, that piece would often get struck by the social media giants. Meanwhile, the mainstream media would counter with their own claims that right-leaning sites were spreading “misinformation.”

But what exactly does that mean? Well, this NPR piece just comes out and says it — that anything the left doesn’t like is essentially misinformation, even if what’s being said is objectively true.

Shapiro shares some of the excerpts from the piece that show that.

According to NPR, Facebook should presumably suppress us because we are overtly conservative. Not because of "misinformation." Because we are conservative. We make no bones about this. pic.twitter.com/gjJu3eqifQ

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) July 19, 2021

CNN is overtly left-wing, and anyone who denies that is either dumb or dishonest (or both). Does NPR believe they should be suppressed? No, they don’t, because the supposition of what makes an outlet biased is completely subjective among the mainstream media gatekeepers. There are many conservative sites with higher editorial standards than MSNBC, for example. One viewing of Joy Reid’s television show will make that more than apparent.

The Daily Wire, RedState, etc. are routinely held to a higher standard when it comes to fact-checking vs. left-leaning outlets, and we strive to not offer our opponents any fodder in that regard. The other major difference is that we are honest about who we are. We are going to bring you the facts, but when we opine on those facts and how they should be responded to, our opinions are going to skew rightward because we are conservatives. There’s nothing wrong with that, and it’s far preferable to admit one’s bias than to hide behind a clearly false pretense of objectivity as “journalists” at CNN, the Times, etc. do.

Being honest about one’s political leanings in giving commentary is not “misinformation,” yet that’s exactly the ridiculous standard NPR pushes in their article.

The founders could hardly have been expected to foresee that the chief advocates for suppression of informational distribution would be members of the press. But that's where we are. And they're making no bones about it.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) July 19, 2021

Mainstream outlets forgo “context” in their reporting constantly, yet only conservative outlets are being attacked with that charge. Heck, many times mainstream outlets forgo reporting at all on stories that are deemed harmful to the left. That’s the ultimate lack of “context.”

To be frank, it is not my job to provide to every random, often inaccurate counter from the left to an issue I may be writing on. I’m going to give you the facts of a situation or the quote in question and then I’m going to tell you what I think about it because that’s why people read my articles. That is not misinformation, and it’s no more lacking in context than when Wolf Blitzer eschews a conservative viewpoint in his reporting.

In the end, though, none of this is really about concerns over accuracy in the news. Rather, it’s about the legacy news media reestablishing their monopoly. This is why you see them pursuing a strategy of labeling anything that hurts them politically as misinformation. They can not compete in the arena of ideas so they are seeking to crush their competition on the margins instead. They will not succeed.