''Crooks and Liars'' is a anti-fake-news, progressive political news blog founded by John Amato. The website has been described as hyperpartisan.

History

Crooks and Liars, a self-described liberal political blog, was started by John Amato in September 2004. Amato, known as the "Vlogfather," was a pioneer of video blogging, which he turned to after an injury undermined his saxophone career during a hiatus from a reunion tour with

Duran Duran Duran Duran () are an English pop rock band formed in Birmingham in 1978 by singer Stephen Duffy, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and guitarist/bassist John Taylor (bass guitarist), John Taylor. After several early changes, the band's line-up settled ...

. Amato said he started the site "because he thought that mainstream media wasn't critical enough of the Bush Administration, and he felt motivated to speak out". In 2002, the site's coverage of CNN catching a falsehood in

Fox News The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conservatism in the United States, conservative List of news television channels, news and political commentary Television stati ...

' coverage of Bill O'Reilly was highlighted by The Hill, as was its writeup about six potential President Barack Obama Supreme Court justice nominees, former House Speaker

Newt Gingrich Newton Leroy Gingrich (; né McPherson; born June 17, 1943) is an American politician and author who served as the List of speakers of the United States House of Representatives, 50th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1 ...

's attacks on Obama, critiques of Obama "appeasing" House Republicans, criticism of President Obama's surrogates, the 2009 Republican Party leader's focus on supporting gay marriage and the site's 2009 donation drive. In 2021, Crooks and Liars helped expose President Donald Trump's supporters' efforts to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 election. According to

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

, the site "dug up tax filings" that exposed connections between nonprofits and a chairman of the Federalist Society who opposed efforts to make it easier to vote.

Influence, recognition, and content

Crooks and Liars received the ''"Best Video Blog"'' award at the Weblog Awards in 2006, and a ''"Best Weblog About Politics"'' at the 2008 Weblog Awards. ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine listed Crooks and Liars as one of the 25 Best Blogs of 2009. In 2010, Crooks and Liars' content was featured by '' New York'' magazine's Intelligencer. A 2011 study in ''Journalism'' included Crooks and Liars in a list of the "12 most popular partisan blogs." A 2017 study by Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center found that Crooks and Liars was among the 50 websites whose content was most frequently shared on

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

by supporters of

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator represent ...

in the United States presidential election, 2016. In 2016, Indiana University Kokomo professor Paul Cook included Crooks and Liars in a list of sites with a "tendency to rely on clickbait headlines". The same year, Melissa Zimdars, an assistant professor of media at Merrimack College, identified Crooks and Liars as one of several news websites with "a baiting or heavily biased tone". A 2019 study identified Crooks and Liars as a "biased source". The Oxford Internet Institute identifies Crooks and Liars as a "junk news" source. A 2019 study published in the ''

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Scie ...

'' found that self-identified Democrats trusted

more than Crooks and Liars. The same study classified Crooks and Liars as a hyperpartisan source. Jane Mayer, writing in ''

'', described Crooks and Liars as a "progressive investigative reporting site."

References

{{Reflist

External links

Crooks and Liars website
American political blogs Internet properties established in 2004