Independent right-wing journalist Mike Cernovich tipped off BuzzFeed to the John Conyers (D-Mich.) sexual harassment story, instead of trying to break the story himself. According to a Medium post by Cernovich, he decided to hand off the “career-making” scoop to prevent “the Democrat-Media establishment hacks” from quashing it due to the source. He also explains that he chose BuzzFeed because the NYT didn’t source him once and CNN lies about him, which seems fair enough.

Often dismissed as a conspiracy theorist, Cernovich claims millions of fans (his Twitter has 376k followers) and routinely lectures the rest of the media about journalism. A Medium post Wednesday, titled “An Open Letter about Sourcing,” responds to critics who question the voracity of Cernovich’s information network,

Whenever I break a big story, members of the fake news media freak out. Here’s why they look silly. Chances are you can’t figure how I get sources. This seems completely stupid to me. I’m famous, and that’s where my sourcing comes from. You might not like me, but millions (maybe tens-of-million) of people do. In fact, here’s a powerful life lesson. The fact that you and so many other journalists hate me is proof that a lot of people like me. (Think it through. You hate me because you know about me, which means I’m notable. Now start doing the math on my notoriety.) “Sources” aren’t magical creatures. They are human beings. Like all human beings they have jobs and obtain information. These people who like me talk to me, and come to me with information. Other sources come to me to play out personal grudges, or maybe even to get someone fired. If the information is true, personal motive is irrelevant to my reporting. Say it again — Sources are not magical creatures! They are people.Sometimes they talk to journalists because getting a bad story out about a rival will boost their own profile. Who knew people live according to their own self-interest? Other sources want to be whistle blowers and are high-minded. Still others like to give me information because they enjoy watching the media freak out when I break another story. Have I ever paid for information? That’s none of your business. It’s also a dishonest and hypocritical question, because y’all ran that Steele dossier, which was paid for (fake) information, and y’all run stories originating from paid opposition researchers. Anyhow, y’all look silly when share conspiracy theories about my sourcing. But please continue to do so. Every stupid article you run about me helps me step right over your heads on my way to the top. Love, Mike Cernovich

Author, journalist, and filmmaker

According to the Washington Post, mainstream media outlets usually consider paying sources to be an “ethically dubious practice” that creates an incentive for potentially illegal information gathering and encourages sources to say more than they actually know. Basically, while it isn’t illegal to pay sources, it is frowned upon.

Regardless, BuzzFeed “carefully vetted” all documents provided by Cernovich to ensure their authenticity, as they would do with any story of this magnitude. While there’s nothing to link Conyers with the ‘shitty men in media’ list Cernovich allegedly purchased, BuzzFeed admitted they were unaware of those allegations at the time. According to The Cut, Cernovich recently paid $10,000 for the list that was making the rounds on the internet,

Extreme right-wing blogger Mike Cernovich says he has gained access to the “shitty men in media” list, which circulated among women in publishing and journalism last week. The vocal anti-feminist activist who was charged with rape in 2003 offered a $10,000 bounty for a copy of the list on October 16. On Saturday night, he promised to publish it “in full,” and has already listed two names, along with the unsubstantiated allegations against those individuals. In a post on his site DangerAndPlay, Cernovich says he wants to “give the men accused of sexual misconduct time to reply” before adding the others — though, he apparently didn’t seem to take the same consideration for the men he outed today. The allegations about one of the individuals on the spreadsheet appeared to be exactly the same as those listed next to another man, suggesting that one entry is a copy of the other. He later tweeted the name of a second man on the list, who had also not commented by early Saturday evening.

If true, this decision soon proved premature when the list was published on Twitter and Reddit, but it’s a good example of Cernovich’s willingness to believe and pursue unsubstantiated claims. His usual indiscretion makes it difficult to believe that he was ever planning to do the work necessary to properly expose the John Conyers scandal, regardless of what he now claims after the fact. This means that passing off the story, and trying to claim some credit as a tipster, was really his only viable option.

Ultimately, Cernovich did the right thing (even if for the wrong reasons), and provides a lot of credit to BuzzFeed in his post. However, it doesn’t assuage the feeling that his real goal was to use this as a way to generate more money for himself — the article ends with a sob story about how he’s losing lots of money exposing these powerful people and some links to donate to his “high impact journalism.” I don’t know if I buy it, Mike.

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