A government group housed under the State Department won't say whether it will commit to no longer allocating future grants to an organization blacklisting conservative media outlets.
The State Department-affiliated Global Engagement Center, a government inter-agency aiming to fight foreign "disinformation" and "propaganda," awarded $100,000 in 2021 to the Global Disinformation Index, the Washington Examiner reported. However, this same entity has been silent on whether it will cut ties with GDI, despite the National Endowment for Democracy, which gave roughly $545,000 to it between 2020 and 2021, announcing it won't fund the self-styled "disinformation" tracker moving forward.
"The Global Engagement Center’s award to the Global Disinformation Index was closed on 15 March 2022," a State Department spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. "No further work is planned." GDI compiles a "dynamic exclusion list" of conservative websites, including the Washington Examiner, that it flags as the foremost disinformation peddlers. It has claimed that the 10 "riskiest" news outlets, which are all right-leaning, are the Federalist, the American Conservative, One America News, the Blaze, the Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Reason, the New York Post, and the American Spectator.
