Drudge gets desperate

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Via the Center for American Progress:

The Drudge Report (a popular website run by right-wing activist Matt Drudge) has posted an image of an offensive t-shirt, along with a headline “Liberals Sell ‘DeLay Suicide T-shirt’.” It’s clearly a vicious, organized effort to demonize Tom DeLay.

Or not.

The “liberals” selling the shirt are actually … just one random guy named Christopher Goodwin. Christopher runs “Ye Olde Christopher Goodwin Art Shoppe” an online store (hosted for free by CafePress.com) where he sells drink coasters, tote bags, and throw pillows emblazoned mostly with images of his own “abstract and representational art”; only two of his featured items are political in nature, the DeLay shirt and a set of shirts that say “Bush Vile”. Christopher’s profile explains that he lives in Washington and “enjoys attending Small Claims Court hearings, interrogating his cats, and taking brisk walks on the roof.” According to Alexa.com, Christopher Goodwin’s website is the 2,071,537th most visited site on the Internet; to put that in perspective (and to make clear Goodwin’s profound obscurity) consider that the homepage for Chicken of the Sea tuna is ranked 163,081.

In other words, Drudge made a concerted attempt to find absolutely anything to take the heat off Tom DeLay’s various corruption charges, and the very best he could come up with was a stupid t-shirt from “Ye Olde Christopher Goodwin Art Shoppe.” Lame.

What he said.

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Owned by no one—except you.

We just keep seeing it happen: Newsrooms owned by billionaires and corporations are spinning their own narratives, overwriting the truth, following only stories that keep them in the pocket of those with even more power.

Not here. We’re not owned by anyone. We’re not part of any cult that demands our allegiance to a bottom line. We’ve spoken up and spoken out while other newsrooms changed their stories—or cut them altogether—to keep the C suite happy.

Our mission is to find the truth and amplify it. That’s why we’re independent, nonprofit, and, crucially, funded by readers. The investigations on our website will always be free to read, watch, and listen to, but our newsroom is powered by readers who pitch in what they can so we can keep asking the hard questions.

Can you chip in today?

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