HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF: A Black Eye for the Columbia Journalism Review.

Last month, the CJR published an article by trans activist Parker Molloy essentially demanding that when it comes to the issue of male-bodied individuals seeking to compete in female athletics, journalists should present only one side of the issue—on the basis that naysayers don’t “have all the facts,” and their words “could be used to reinforce ignorance.” These are thinly coded appeals to de facto self-censorship, and it is strange to see them published by an outlet whose nominal purpose is to promote excellence in journalism.

This month, CJR stepped over the line again. And this time, the resultant hit on the CJR brand was worse. Molloy’s piece was torqued and one-sided. But it did not contain any actual errors. The same was not true of Jared Holt’s June 12 CJR piece, entitled Right-wing publications launder an anti-journalist smear campaign, which attacks a study by researcher Eoin Lenihan that shows a close ideological connection between Antifa and the journalists who follow Antifa most closely on Twitter.

As a Quillette editor, I initially was interested to see what Holt had come up with, since he often has performed valuable work as an investigator with the progressive advocacy group People For the American Way, and because Quillette is featured as one of the “right-wing publications” that allegedly served to “launder” Lenihan’s work.

But, to quote a headline from last week, Holt’s article “backfired.”

Read the whole thing.

Hat tip to Will Collier, who tweeted, “The Columbia Journalism Review serving partisan and ideological ends is not a surprise. @VodkaPundit and I had a notable dust-up with the late Steve Lovelady, then executive editor of the CJR and not exactly impartial 15 years ago.”