12/22/2020 NewsGuardNutritionLabel

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georgiastarnews.com

A conservative news and commentary site launched in late 2020 that focuses on U.S. and Georgia politics. The site has advanced misleading claims about the 2020 election.

A conservative news and commentary site launchedin late 2020 that focuses on U.S. and Georgia politics. The site has advanced misleadingclaims about the 2020 election.

OwnershipandFinancing TheGeorgiaStar Newsis owned and operatedby privatelyheld Star NewsDigitalMedia,Inc.,accordingto the site. Star NewsDigitalMediawas founded in September2018 by conservativeradiohosts MichaelPatrickLeahy and Steve Gilland Tea Party activistChristinaBotteri,accordingto a companypressrelease.Leahy and Botteriarelistedas Star NewsDigitalMedia’smajorityshareholderson the company’swebsite.Gill leftthe companyin August 2019,Leahy told NewsGuardin a 2019 email.

The company is registered in Delaware and based in Nashville, Tennessee.

Star News DigitalMedia also owns TheOhioStar.com,TheVirginiaStar.com, TheMinnesotaSun.com,TheMichiganStar.com,and TennesseeStar.com — sites that are nearly identical in design to The Georgia Star News.

Leahy, who started his career as a management consultant, is an author and contributing writer for the conservative news site Breitbart. He co- founded the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition in 2009. Four years later, in 2013, Leahy co-founded The Real Conservatives National Committee PAC and served as its treasurer until it led for termination two years later, according to Federal Election Commission documents.

Botteri was also a co-founder of the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, and In 2010, she co-founded the National Tea Party Federation, another coalition of national and regional Tea Party groups.

Star News Digital Media has an associated nonpro t, called the Star News Education Foundation, that is also run by Leahy and Botteri. According to Star News Digital Media’s corporate website, the foundation has the goal “of returning K-12 education in the United States to its former status as best in the world by 2030.” The organization produces educational materials focusing on the Constitution and economic self-su ciency.

Star News Digital Media earns revenue through advertising and an online store called “Flyest President” that sells Trump-related products.

Content GeorgiaStarNews.compublishesnews and commentary from a conservativeperspective,which it does not clearly disclose. The site notes on the About pagethat it features “articlesreportingnews, politics,and policy at the state level,primarily from Georgia.” In addition to its coverage of Georgia,the site publishesarticles from other Star News Networksites.

The site was launched in November 2020, just after the U.S. general election and less than two months before the Jan. 5, 2021, U.S. Senate runo elections in Georgia. In an unusual twist, Georgia has two U.S. Senate elections this year, and both moved to runo s when no candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote. The outcome of the two races will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.

At the time of NewsGuard’s review in December 2020, much of the site’s news coverage focused on the Senate runo s. Many articles also highlighted claims that the 2020 general election was marred by widespread fraud, echoing President Trump’s unsubstantiated claims. The site’s coverage of national issues often centered on criticism of Democrats, particularly incoming members of President-Elect Joe Biden’s administration.

Typical headlines have included “Trump Campaign Estimates 38K to 45K Illegal Absentee Ballots Cast in Georgia Election,” “Attorney Lin Wood: Trump Will Be Inaugurated Based on Voter Fraud in Dominion Voting Machines,” and “Osso Continues to Accuse Perdue of Insider Trading – Even After He’s Been Cleared of Wrongdoing.”

The site runs articles from the Daily Caller News Foundation and Just The News, another conservative site.

Credibility GeorgiaStarNewsdoes not typically conduct originalreporting.Instead,the site summarizes news reportsfrom other right-leaningpublications or cites interviews and social media posts from Republicanpoliticians and conservative commentators.The site’s aggregatedcontentfrequently advances misleadingand unsubstantiatedclaims, particularly in its coverageof the 2020 U.S. presidentialelection.

For example, a November 2020 article titled “Commentary: If All the Fraud Is Uncovered, Trump Will Win” claimed, without evidence, that “if all of the cheating in the 2020 presidential election can be uncovered and reversed, then Trump will emerge the clear winner.” The article also stated that “it’s becoming increasingly obvious that all this fraud was carefully coordinated and calculated at every level. The criminality has not been

https://api.newsguardtech.com/label/georgiastarnews.com?cid=4aa2b6d4-0c5b-49ab-be67-3a9da0c77f46 1/5 12/22/2020 NewsGuardNutritionLabel haphazard or sloppy; on the contrary, the various kinds of vote manipulation appear to have taken place only in a small number of swing states. And the number of invalid votes in those states that have been credited to Biden, and of valid votes denied to Trump, seems to have been calculated very carefully so as to ensure that each of those states would be stolen from Trump and that Biden’s lead would be slim but de nitive.”

Theseclaims aboutwidespreadfraud and a conspiracyto stealthe electionfromDonaldTrump arebaseless.Top electiono cials in all50 states a rmedthe integrityof the 2020 election,accordingto a New York Timesreport.Numerousfederal governmento cials and independent observershave reachedthe same conclusion.In a Nov.12,2020,statement,the U.S.Cybersecurityand InfrastructureSecurity Agency (CISA),partof the Departmentof HomelandSecurity,called the 2020 election“themost secure in Americanhistory,”stating,“Thereis no evidencethat any voting systemdeletedor lostvotes,changedvotes,or was in any way compromised.”Attorney GeneralWilliamBarr told The AssociatedPress on Dec.1, 2020, that “wehave not seen fraud on a scale that could have e ected a di erentoutcomein the election.”

A November 2020 article titled “Georgia Secretary of State Brad Ra ensperger Silent on Demands He Audit Absentee Ballots” claimed that during Georgia’s recount of its presidentialvote, thousands of ballots “vanished” and were not counted. Referring to Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer,the article stated that “Shafer also said thousands of ballots vanished. And no one counted them. Shafer tweeted Wednesday that one monitor discovered a 9,626 vote error in the DeKalb County hand count.”

Shafer was referringto the fact that during Georgia’s hand recount of about 5 million votes cast in the 2020 general election,DeKalb County at one point mistakenly reported the number of votes for Biden in one batch of ballots. “‘One batch was labeled 10,707 for Biden and 13 for Trump — an improbable margin even by DeKalb standards. The actual count for the batch was 1,081for Biden and 13 for Trump,’ Shafer said,” Georgia Star News reported.

In fact,DeKalbCounty’sresultsafter the handrecountwere unchangedfrom the totalreportedafter ElectionDay.The “error”referencedby GeorgiaStar Newswas a clericalmistakethat arose duringthe handrecount,but it did notfactor into the nalvote totals.Dueto safeguardsput in place to ensurethat counties reportaccuratevoting numbers,DeKalbcounty o cials quickly noticed that the batchof ballotscontainedan inaccuratenumber,and correctedthe guresto re ect the accuratetotals, GabrielSterling,Georgia'svotingsystemimplementationmanager,told reporters. “This iswhat happensin an audit.This is why you don't releaseinterimaudit resultsbecausehumanbeings are goingto make mistakes in a hand countaudit,”hesaid,

It is also inaccurate to say that this error was discovered by a “monitor,” as it was actually noticed by a DeKalb o cial, CNN reported.

Because GeorgiaStarNews.com routinely publishes unsubstantiated claims, NewsGuard has determined that the site does not gather and present information responsibly.

Headlines on the site are often deceptive, and distort the content published in those articles.

For example, a November 2020 article ran under the headline,“Atlanta Mayor to Face Trial for Ethics Violations in 2017 Runo Election,” suggesting Atlanta’s mayor has been indicted for ethics violations and would be appearingat a trial. However,the article notes that Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms,who is under investigation by Georgia’s State Ethics Commission for allegedly receiving unlawful donations during her 2017 mayoral campaign,would be appearingin a public hearing. Bottoms has not been charged with any crimes and is not on trial.

A December 2020 article ran under the headline, “Prominent Atlanta Pastor Michael Youssef Says He Received Three Mail-In Ballots for Adult Son Who Lives Overseas,” suggesting that there are problems with the state’s mail-in voting system, since people are only allowed to submit one ballot. However, the article itself makes clear that it is not possible that Youssef received three mail-in ballots for his son, because at the time he wrote that tweet, Georgia had not yet begun sending ballots for its Jan. 5, 2021, runo election; more likely, he was receiving ballot applications for his son. “Chuck Eaton is a commissioner on the Georgia Public Service Commission. He tweeted, ‘The runo ballots have not been mailed yet. Guessing you’re receiving absentee ballot request forms from 3rd party groups (not the state)…many of whom are under investigation by @gasecofstate,’” the article explained, contrary to the headline.

A September2020 article ran under the headline,“Vote FraudHits Virginiaas Hundredsof Voters ReceiveMultipleBallots,”suggestingthat Virginia voters who receivedduplicate absenteeballots were somehowcaughtup in a voter fraud scheme.However,as the article noted,“1,400 Virginia voters have recently receivedduplicateabsenteeballots in the mailbecauseof printingerrors.”Contrary to the headline’sclaim,there is no evidence to suggestthat the duplicateballots were an exampleof “votefraud.”Besides,in the rareinstancesin which people receive multiple ballots,they are only allowedto vote once legally,and stateelection systems have processesto detectwhen a personhas cast more than onevote.

Because headlines on GeorgiaStarNews.com routinely distort facts and do not re ect the content of the article,NewsGuard has determined that the site does not avoid deceptive headlines.

GeorgiaStarNews.com invites readers to submit corrections, and notes on its Contact page that “If The Star News is found to have published a material error, a correction notice will be published online.” At the time of NewsGuard’s review in December 2020, just weeks after GeorgiaStarNews.com launched, NewsGuard found one correction on the site, in the form of a note at the bottom of the article.

However, because the site during its brief lifespan has published false, debunked, and unsubstantiated claims in headlines and in articles, as noted above, NewsGuard has determined that the site does not meet NewsGuard’s standard for regularly correcting errors.

Georgia Star News states that it is “a member of the Star News Network family of digital newspapers,” presenting itself as an objective news source. “We feature articles reporting news, politics, and policy at the state level, primarily from Georgia. We round out our daily coverage with national stories and thoughtful commentary of interest to our readers,” the About page states.

Nevertheless, the site advances a conservative perspective that it does not disclose, with News articles — not just Commentary — re ecting this right-leaning perspective. Articles published in the News section ahead of the Jan. 5, 2021, runo Senate elections invariably featured praise for the Republican candidates and criticism for the Democrats.

For example, a November 2020 News article titled “RNC Blasts Jon Osso and Raphael Warnock for Fundraising for Out-of-State Dollars” quoted a Republican National Committee press release at length about Osso and Warnock, the Democratic candidates for Senate. “Members of the Republican National Committee are warning Georgians about what they describe as Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jon Osso ’s out-of-state

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fundraising and Raphael Warnock’s questionable past,” the article stated. The article did not include any indication that there were any attempts to contact the Osso and Warnock campaigns or other Democratic sources for comment.

Another November2020 Newsarticle,titled “Loe er CampaignLaunches‘RadicalRaphael’WebsiteDetailingWarnock’sPoliciesand Past”detailed GOP SenatorKelly Loe er’s e orts to portrayher opponent,Warnock,as “radical.”TheGeorgiaStar Newsarticlestatedthat Loe er’s website, RadicalRaphael.com,“summarizesWarnock as a ‘left-wingradicalwith a dangerousagenda’with ‘anti-Americanvalues’ as presentedthroughhis policy and speech,”thearticlestated.GeorgiaStar Newshas notpublishedany comparablearticleshighlightingWarnock’scriticismof Loe er, and this articledid notincludeany commentfrom the Warnockcampaign.Thearticledid notethatthesiteattemptedto contactthe Loe er campaign; thearticleincludedno such mentionof the Warnockcampaign.

News articles on the site often highlight prominent Republicans’ comments on the race.A November 2020 article titled “Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn Opens Fire on Schumer,Osso , and Warnock” summarized an appearance by Blackburn on Fox Business, in which she said, “These two Democratic Senate nomineesare the two most radical,leftist Senate nominees I have ever seen,” referring to Osso and Warnock. No sources defending the Democratswere quoted.

A similar News article,publisheda few days later,titled “U.S.Sen. TomCotton Warns Georgiaof Dire FutureIfVoters Elect Dems to Control US Senate,” covered a speech Cotton gave supportingLoe er and DavidPerdue,the RepublicanrunningagainstOsso . “If the residentsof Georgia don’t want radicalsocialists to imposetheir ultimatewish list upon America then they better get out and vote Republicanon January 5. That was the messagethat U.S.Sen. TomCotton (R-AR) relayedto a couple hundredpeopleat a Defendthe Majority Rally at the Georgia NationalFairgroundsin Perry on Thursday,”the article stated.

No such articles reported on Democratic politicians who have campaigned on behalf of Osso and Warnock.

Because News articles,and not just Commentary,on GeorgiaStarNews.com advance a conservative perspectivethat the site does not disclose, NewsGuard has determined that the site does not handle the di erence between news and opinion responsibly.

NewsGuard did not receive a response to two December 2020 emails inquiring about the articles cited above and about the site’s headlines, corrections policy, and handling of news and opinion.

Transparency Georgia Star News discloses its ownership by Star News DigitalMedia on the About and Contact pages.

The site’s About page names the site’s senior leadership, including Star News Digital Media editor-in-chief Michael Patrick Leahy and executive editor Christina Botteri. Botteri is identi ed as “an early organizer of the Tea Party movement,” and John Fredericks, the publisher of the Georgia Star News, is identi ed as a “Trump 2020 delegate and the chairman of the Trump Virginia Delegation.”

The site does not disclose that Leahy,who also serves as CEO of Star News DigitalMedia, was also an early Tea Party activist and organizer — although this information appears on other sites in the Star News Network. However, because Leahy’s full biography is provided on Star News DigitalMedia’s corporate website, which is linked on Georgia Star News, NewsGuard has determined that the site meets NewsGuard’s standards for revealing who’s in charge and making their potential con icts clear.

Most articles on Georgia Star News namethe author. Articles written by Georgia Star News sta members link to an archive of the writer’s work, and often include short author biographies, including links to social media pro les and individualemail addresses.

Advertisements are clearly distinguished from editorial content.

History Georgia Star News was created in November 2020; its domain was registered on Nov.11, 2020, and less than two months before Georgia voters would go to the polls again for two run-o elections for the U.S.Senate.

In an April 2018 article, Politico dubbed Star News Digital Media publications “baby Breitbarts” — part of a national trend of “opaque, locally focused, ideological outlets, dressed up as traditional newspapers.” Steve Gill, who then served as Tennessee Star’s political editor, told Politico he agreed that it would be fair to call the site the Tennessee Star the “Breitbart of Tennessee.”

Writtenby: Gabby Deutch Editedby: Eric E ron

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Sources

Ownership and Financing http://tennesseestar.com/2018/09/04/tennessee-star-parent-company-launches-ohio-star-and-minnesota-sun/ https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/30/breitbart-tennessee-fake-news-560670 http://theohiostar.com/ http://theminnesotasun.com/ https://www.breitbart.com/author/michael-patrick-leahy/ https://twitter.com/michaelpleahy?lang=en https://www.amazon.com/Rules-Conservative-Radicals-Collaborative-Technologies/dp/0979497442 https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-gill-1199a532/ http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/418/201509290300005418/201509290300005418.pdf

https://api.newsguardtech.com/label/georgiastarnews.com?cid=4aa2b6d4-0c5b-49ab-be67-3a9da0c77f46 3/5 12/22/2020 NewsGuardNutritionLabel http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/07/tea-party_leader_urges_birming.html https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00542811/?tab=about-committee https://www.wkrn.com/news/political-news/political-commentator-not-surprised-at-cancellation-of- nal-republican-gubernatorial- debate/1308065738 https://wlac.iheart.com/schedule/monday/ https://www.c-span.org/person/?stevegill https://ballotpedia.org/Steve_Gill#cite_note-CSPAN-5 http://content.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2005371,00.html https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/28/tea-party-in ghting https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-botteri-5836999/ https://www.newsweek.com/look-tea-party-election-day-battle-plans-73977 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01K94XZKS/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0 https:// yestpresident.com/about-us https://domainbigdata.com/gmail.com/mj/LJpJ3QKb6bv_lujzFxctT1OEOYSEFFVtoPXvFQ3BkL8 https://domainbigdata.com/nj/41rLN0je95J6CjcrLgldXh5tNhyQzVLDRnsEI4QSka8 https://domainbigdata.com/themichiganstar.com https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00542811 https://newrepublic.com/article/72947/the-tea-party-glossary https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/john-bolton-partners-with-tea-party-to-launch-election-day-tea-party https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/formation-of-national-tea-party-federation-announced-90220787.html https://townhall.com/columnists/robertknight/2011/05/17/throwing-out-the-bums-before-election-day-n1202738 https://twitter.com/christinakb?lang=en https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/detailsPage? ein=843712310&name=THE%20STAR%20NEWS%20EDUCATION%20FOUNDATION&city=&state=&countryAbbr=US&dba=&type=DETERMINATIONLE TTERS&orgTags=DETERMINATIONLETTERS https://starnewseducationfoundation.org/ https://www.lulu.com/shop/michael-patrick-leahy-and-claudia-henneberry-and-john-harris/the-star-news-digital-media-guide-to-the-constitution- and-the-bill-of-rights/paperback/product-24212594.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Content https://georgiastarnews.com/2020/12/01/trump-campaign-estimates-38k-to-45k-illegal-absentee-ballots-cast-in-georgia-election/ https://georgiastarnews.com/2020/12/01/attorney-lin-wood-trump-will-be-inaugurated-based-on-voter-fraud-in-dominion-voting-machines/ https://georgiastarnews.com/2020/12/02/osso -continues-to-accuse-sen-perdue-of-insider-trading-even-after-perdue-cleared-of-wrongdoing/

Credibility https://apnews.com/article/barr-no-widespread-election-fraud-b1f1488796c9a98c4b1a9061a6c7f49d https://www.cisa.gov/news/2020/11/12/joint-statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-election https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/PreliminaryReportoftheOASEOMUSA2020.pdf https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/us/politics/voting-fraud.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/19/politics/georgia-gop-recount-dekalb-county-fact-check/index.html https://archive.vn/nJSuv https://archive.vn/aAIKn https://archive.vn/pOJ0K https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/keisha-lance-bottoms-mary-norwood-states-ethics-commission/85-a89079bb-89bf-4f28-baa4- 225628396fe8 https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/atlanta-mayor-bottoms-campaign-fails-to-appear-at-ethics-commission- hearing/ZJMQ47QDN5ARHP5J7RIM3PKEAQ/ https://www.cbs46.com/news/new-date-set-for-mayor-bottoms-ethics-violation-hearing/article_e6b9a1a6-2311-11eb-b5e4-7b7e783e5529.html https://archive.vn/yztvb https://archive.vn/zB8vS https://archive.vn/EfRQ1 https://archive.vn/XseJZ https://georgiastarnews.com/contact/ https://georgiastarnews.com/2020/11/26/rnc-blasts-jon-osso -and-raphael-warnock-for-fundraising-for-out-of-state-dollars/ https://georgiastarnews.com/2020/11/14/loe er-campaign-launches-radical-raphael-website-detailing-warnocks-policies-and-past/ https://georgiastarnews.com/2020/11/17/tennessee-sen-marsha-blackburn-opens- re-on-schumer-osso -and-warnock/ https://georgiastarnews.com/2020/11/20/u-s-sen-tom-cotton-warns-georgia-of-dire-future-if-voters-elect-jon-osso -and-raphael-warnock/

Transparency https://tennesseestar.com/about-us/ https://georgiastarnews.com/about-us-va/ https://georgiastarnews.com/contact/

Proceed with caution: This website fails to adhere to several basic journalistic standards.

Score: 47/100

Does not repeatedly publish false content (22 points) https://api.newsguardtech.com/label/georgiastarnews.com?cid=4aa2b6d4-0c5b-49ab-be67-3a9da0c77f46 4/5 12/22/2020 NewsGuardNutritionLabel

Gathers and presents information responsibly (18 )

Regularly corrects or clari es errors (12.5 )

Handles the di erence between news and opinion responsibly (12.5 )

Avoids deceptive headlines (10 )

Website discloses ownership and nancing (7.5 )

Clearly labels advertising (7.5 )

Reveals who's in charge, including any possible con icts of interest (5 )

The site provides names of content creators, along with either contact or biographical information (5 )

Criteria are listed in order of importance. More information.

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