Audrey Unverferth and Evita Duffy

Many of the conference speakers argued that the government should regulate the algorithms of social media platforms, which would effectively diminish the reach of people and ideas they don’t like. Meanwhile, none of them entertained the idea that a large portion of the country might just be justified in distrusting the narratives of woke academics, dishonest journalists, and criminal government officials and agencies. 

Our team recognizes the stakes: if Ressa and her friends successfully entrench themselves as information gate-keepers, genuine truth-seeking will be forced underground or stopped completely. We can’t let them get away with this power grab.

We Respectfully Posed Tough Questions

Unlike our leftist peers at the University of Buffalo (who this week forced a conservative speaker to be escorted out by police from his campus lecture), Chicago Thinker student journalists respectfully posed hard-hitting but genuine questions. 

On Wednesday, Senior Editor Daniel Schmidt asked The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum about the corporate-media and Big-Tech suppression of the New York Post story on the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, zeroing in on Applebaum’s rejection of the laptop’s importance. 

“Now, of course, we know a few weeks ago The New York Times confirmed that the [laptop] content is real. Do you think the media acted inappropriately when they instantly dismissed Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation?” asked Schmidt. “And what can we learn from that in ensuring that what we label as disinformation is truly disinformation and not reality?”

Applebaum dismissed the laptop story, explaining, “My problem with Hunter Biden’s laptop is, I think, [it’s] totally irrelevant. I mean it’s not whether it’s disinformation — I don’t think Hunter Biden’s business relationships have anything to do with who should be president of the United States. So, I don’t find it to be interesting.” Moderator David Axelrod quickly jumped in, ending the discussion.