Ashley Feinberg | |
|---|---|
| Born | Dallas, Texas, U.S. |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Alma mater | Trinity University |
| Period | 2011–present |
| Subjects | |
| Notable awards | Forbes 30 Under 30 |
| Website | |
| ashleyfeinberg | |
Ashley Feinberg is an American journalist, covering politics, media, and technology. [1] She is known for her internet sleuthing, through which she has uncovered information about the online activity of public figures. [2]
Feinberg was born in Dallas. [3] She attended Trinity University and studied English and Communication, graduating in 2012. [4]
Feinberg began her journalism career in 2011 as an intern at the San Antonio Current . [3] She joined Gizmodo in 2013 as an Editorial Assistant.
Feinberg drew attention with how-to story about the "creepiest things you can do on Facebook, such as tagging yourself in someone else’s engagement photo and requesting a relationship status." [3] She later was promoted as a staff writer at Gawker. [3] Discussing Gawker's closing in 2016, HuffPost cited Feinberg's work for the site among the reasons that "[i]f you care about free speech, then you should care about Gawker." [5]
In August 2015, Feinberg broke news of 19 Kids and Counting participant and conservative Christian activist Josh Duggar's use of Ashley Madison, an online dating service marketed to married people seeking extramarital affairs. [6] Duggar's paid account was exposed in a July 2015 hacking of the site. [6]
In March 2017, she discovered FBI director James Comey's secret Twitter and Instagram accounts, [7] which he confirmed later that year. [8] Comey had previously mentioned a secret account in an interview [9] and Feinberg connected the pseudonym "Reinhold Niebuhr", who was the subject of Comey's college thesis. [10]
In October 2017, Feinberg joined HuffPost. [3] In November 2017, according to Fox News, Feinberg tweeted, "Congratulations to John McCain's wife and children on their upcoming tax-free inheritance", alluding to McCain's treatment for brain cancer. She subsequently received significant criticism, and later deleted the tweet and apologized. [11] She later joined Slate , in May 2019. [1]
Writing in the Columbia Journalism Review , Matthew Kassel said, "Feinberg's highly ironized persona gives her the air of a digital-era Andy Kaufman." [3] Feinberg's Gawker colleague John Cook described her as "sort of an anti-troll ... She uses the weapons of the troll for the forces of good." [3]
Her interview with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was reported internationally, [12] with Dorsey and commentators saying that it made Dorsey "look bad". [13]
Feinberg was chosen for the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 in Media list, which noted she is "known for uncovering secrets about public figures through digital sleuthing, having discovered Donald Trump Jr.’s hundreds of posts on an online hunting forum, Sebastian Gorka’s Amazon wishlist and James Comey’s once-private Twitter account" as well as Duggar's Ashley Madison account. [14]
In March 2019, Feinberg reported in HuffPost that American news website Axios had paid a firm to improve its reputation by lobbying for changes to the Wikipedia articles on Axios and Jonathan Swan. [15]
In August 2019, Feinberg and her former employer, HuffPost, were sued for defamation by Professor Derrick Evans for a 2018 article alleging he and Douglas Kennedy had supplied cocaine to fellow students at Georgetown Preparatory School during Brett Kavanaugh's time there, while also insinuating a connection to the drug overdose death of Kennedy's brother. [16]
In October 2019, Feinberg uncovered an anonymous Twitter account that Republican senator Mitt Romney had used to, among other political comments, post criticism of Donald Trump. [17]
In December 2019, Feinberg investigated editors on the English Wikipedia who made edits that appeared to have been written either by Pete Buttigieg or by an individual with intimate knowledge of his early life, family, education, friends, and career. The Buttigieg campaign responded by claiming that these editors were not Buttigieg. [18] [19] [20] [21]
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of America's leading public intellectuals for several decades of the 20th century and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. A public theologian, he wrote and spoke frequently about the intersection of religion, politics, and public policy, with his most influential books including Moral Man and Immoral Society and The Nature and Destiny of Man. The latter is ranked number 18 of the top 100 non-fiction books of the twentieth century by Modern Library. Andrew Bacevich labelled Niebuhr's book The Irony of American History "the most important book ever written on U.S. foreign policy." The historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. described Niebuhr as "the most influential American theologian of the 20th century" and Time posthumously called Niebuhr "the greatest Protestant theologian in America since Jonathan Edwards."
Trapt is an American rock band formed in Los Gatos, California. Eight studio albums have been recorded to date: Amalgamation (1999), Trapt (2002), Someone in Control (2005), Only Through the Pain (2008), No Apologies (2010), Reborn (2013), DNA (2016), and Shadow Work (2020). Its lineup for all studio recordings have consisted of Chris Taylor Brown (vocals) and Pete Charell (bass), with various members filling other roles over the course of their career.
James Brien Comey Jr. is an American lawyer who was the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2013 until his termination in May 2017. Comey was a registered Republican for most of his adult life; however, in 2016, he described himself as unaffiliated.
Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg is an American politician and former naval officer who is currently serving as the 19th United States Secretary of Transportation. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the 32nd mayor of South Bend, Indiana, from 2012 to 2020, which earned him the nickname "Mayor Pete".
r/The_Donald was a subreddit where participants created discussions and Internet memes in support of U.S. president Donald Trump. Initially created in June 2015 following the announcement of Trump's presidential campaign, the community grew to over 790,000 subscribers who described themselves as "Patriots". The community was banned in June 2020 for violating Reddit rules on harassment and targeting. It was ranked as one of the most active communities on Reddit.
Jonathan Swan is an Australian journalist who works as a political reporter for The New York Times. He won an Emmy Award for his 2020 interview with then-US president Donald Trump.
Ronna McDaniel is an American politician and political strategist serving as chairwoman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) since 2017. A member of the Republican Party and the Romney family, she was chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party from 2015 to 2017. Since McDaniel's 2017 election as chairwoman of the RNC, the Republican Party has had a net loss of seven governorships, three seats in the United States Senate, and 19 seats in the House of Representatives, and the presidency. In December 2022, Axios wrote that McDaniel "has thus far failed to preside over a single positive election cycle."
Jayda Kaleigh Fransen is a British far-right politician and activist who was convicted of religiously aggravated harassment in 2018. Formerly involved with the English Defence League (EDL), she left due to its association with drink-fuelled violence. She then joined the far-right fascist political organisation Britain First. With Paul Golding as leader, Fransen was deputy leader from 2014 to 2019. She became acting leader for six months from December 2016 to June 2017, while Golding was imprisoned in December 2016.
Axios is an American news website based in Arlington, Virginia. It was founded in 2016 and launched the following year by former Politico journalists Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, and Roy Schwartz. The site's name is based on the Greek: ἄξιος, meaning "worthy".
The Russian government used espionage to interfere in the 2016 United States elections with the goals of sabotaging the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to the U.S. intelligence community, the operation—code named Project Lakhta —was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The 448-page Mueller report, made public in April 2019, examined over 200 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.
James Comey, the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was fired by U.S. President Donald Trump on May 9, 2017. Comey had been criticized in 2016 for his handling of the FBI's investigation of the Hillary Clinton email controversy and in 2017 for the FBI's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections as it related to alleged collusion with Trump's presidential campaign.
Donald Trump's use of social media attracted attention worldwide since he joined Twitter in May 2009. Over nearly twelve years, Trump tweeted around 57,000 times, including about 8,000 times during the 2016 election campaign and over 25,000 times during his presidency. The White House said the tweets should be considered official statements. When Twitter banned Trump from the platform in January 2021 during the final days of his term, his handle @realDonaldTrump had over 88.9 million followers. On November 19, 2022, Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk, reinstated his account, although Trump has stated he will not use it in favor of his own social media, Truth Social. The first tweet since 2021 was made in August 2023 about his mugshot from Fulton County Jail, but the account has since remained inactive.
Twitter may suspend accounts, temporarily or permanently, from their social networking service. Suspensions of high-profile accounts often attract media attention, and Twitter's use of suspensions has been controversial.
The 2020 presidential campaign of Pete Buttigieg was an election campaign by the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. It was formally announced on April 14, 2019 in South Bend. Buttigieg was the first openly gay candidate to seek the Democratic nomination for president. At 38, he was the youngest candidate in the 2020 primary race. Although considered a lower-tier candidate at launch, his campaign later gained prominence, winning the most delegates in the Iowa caucuses and tying with Bernie Sanders for the most delegates in the New Hampshire primary.
This page describes the stances held by Democratic candidates in the 2020 United States presidential election on a variety of policy issues. Only candidates still in the race during the 2020 Iowa caucuses are included.
Hitting Home PAC was a 527 organization founded by Pete Buttigieg in 2017. Buttigieg launched the PAC in June 2017, several months after his failed bid for the Democratic National Committee chairmanship in its 2017 election.
Tara McGowan is an American political strategist and journalist. She was the co-founder and CEO of multiple organizations which have been noted for large expenditures on digital advertising in preparation for the 2020 United States presidential election, including the political organization Acronym, the company Lockwood Strategy, and the media company Courier Newsroom. She was the director of the advertising branch of Priorities USA Action, which was the primary super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, and was a digital producer for the re-election campaign of Barack Obama. Previously, she was the press secretary for United States Senator Jack Reed. In 2021, she stepped down from Acronym to build media full-time as head of a new company, Good Information Inc.
Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg is an American politician who served as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, from 2012 to 2020, and is currently serving as US Secretary of Transportation. He was a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 United States presidential election.
The Twitter Files are a series of releases of select internal Twitter, Inc. documents published from December 2022 through March 2023 on Twitter. CEO Elon Musk gave the documents to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and authors Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig and Alex Berenson shortly after he acquired Twitter on October 27, 2022. Taibbi and Weiss coordinated the publication of the documents with Musk, releasing details of the files as a series of Twitter threads.
