Lee Fang

Last updated

Lee Fang
Lee Fang.png
Fang on The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann in 2012
Born
Lee Hu Fang

(1986-10-31) October 31, 1986 (age 37)
Prince George's County, Maryland, U.S.
Alma mater University of Maryland–College Park (B.A.)
Occupations
  • Journalist
  • author
Employer The Intercept
Spouse
Maytak Chin
​
(m. 2018)​
Website leefang.substack.com

Lee Hu Fang (born October 31, 1986) is an American journalist. He was previously an investigative reporter at The Intercept , [1] [2] a contributing writer at The Nation , [3] and a writer at progressive outlet the Republic Report. [4] [5] He began his career as an investigative blogger for ThinkProgress . [6] Fang shared the 2018 Izzy Award of the Park Center for Independent Media with fellow Intercept reporter Sharon Lerner, investigative reporter Dahr Jamail, and author Todd Miller. [7]

Contents

Early life and career

Fang's home town is in Prince George's County, Maryland. [8] He attended the University of Maryland, College Park, graduating with a B.A. in government and politics in 2009.[ citation needed ] In college, Fang served as President of the Federation of Maryland College Democrats, editor of the Maryland College Democrat blog, and on the Campus Progress Advisory Board. [9] Fang interned with ThinkProgress and served as a researcher for Progressive Accountability. [10] As an undergraduate, Fang also interned for Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH), Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD), for progressive media watchdog group Media Matters for America, and for the lobbying firm Westin Rinehart. [8]

ThinkProgress

In 2011, Fang published several articles alleging that special interests manipulated the media reaction to the Occupy Wall Street protests. [11] [12]

United States Chamber of Commerce article

In October 2010, ThinkProgress published an article by Fang in which he alleged that the United States Chamber of Commerce funded political attack campaigns from its general fund, which solicits funds from foreign sources. Fang stated that the Chamber was "likely skirting longstanding campaign finance law that bans the involvement of foreign corporations in American elections." [13] [ non-primary source needed ]

The story was repeated by The Huffington Post and the progressive activist group MoveOn.org asked the Department of Justice to launch a criminal investigation of the Chamber's funding. [14]

The fact-checking website FactCheck.org analyzed the claim that was being made by the Democratic Party that "foreign corporations are 'stealing our democracy' with secret, illegal contributions funneled through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce". It referred to Fang's article as the original source of the allegations. [15] FactCheck concluded that "It's a claim with little basis in fact." [15] Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times wrote that the article "provided no evidence that the money generated overseas had been used in United States campaigns." [16]

Reporting on Koch Industries

In April 2011, Fang wrote an article titled "The Contango Game: How Koch Industries Manipulates The Oil Market For Profit," in which he said "Koch Industries occupies a unique role in manipulating the oil market." [17] The story was picked up by CBS. [18]

Fang had previously written about Charles and David Koch, [19] [20] and he was involved with a Robert Greenwald documentary titled Koch Brothers Exposed . [21] In March 2011, he reported that New Media Strategies, a firm employed by the Kochs, had been caught manipulating Wikipedia content and were banned from the website for sockpuppetry. [22] Politico wrote that "Fang's relentless chronicling of the Koch brothers have made him something of a star on the left." [23]

The Intercept

Fang started working with The Intercept as an investigative reporter in February 2015. [3] In April 2023 he left, and began writing for Substack. [24]

In June 2020, Fang was accused of racism by Akela Lacy, a colleague at The Intercept. This occurred after Fang shared a Martin Luther King Jr. quote about remaining non-violent and tweeted out an interview in which a black man at a George Floyd protest expressed concern about black-on-black crime. Fang's tweets set off a "firestorm" on Twitter and he issued a lengthy apology. [25] [26]

Twitter Files

In December 2022, Fang reported in The Intercept that Twitter "provided direct approval and internal protection to the U.S. military's network of social media accounts and online personas." [27] The Department of Defense utilized a network of Twitter accounts to shape opinion on American interventions in the Middle East as part of a "government-backed covert propaganda campaign." [27] Many of the accounts operated without disclosure of their US government affiliation. The piece was a part of a broader journalistic effort by Matt Taibbi called the Twitter Files , initiated after Elon Musk's purchase of the platform, an investigation into Twitter's content moderation practices and their effect on American political events.

Political views

Fang has been described as a "liberal" by The New York Times , and as both "liberal" and "progressive" by Salon . [28] [29] Liberal commentator Jonathan Chait described Fang as "left-wing" and wrote "Like many Bernie Sanders supporters, Fang often lacerates mainstream liberals both for insufficient populist zeal and, on occasion, for excessive focus on identity at the expense of class. His views on economics put him well to the left of the Democratic Party, while his views on race and gender would sit comfortably in the middle of it, and often put him at odds with fellow leftists." [25]

According to Fang, regarding his field research for his book The Machine: A Fieldguide to the Resugent Right, "I like hanging out with fully grassroots Tea Party activists because, for the most part, whatever their motivations are, they're just upset about society and they want to do something about it which, at the core, I respect even though I pretty much disagree with their worldview." [30]

Personal life

Fang's brother, Daniel, is the drummer for the band Turnstile. [31] [32]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Center for American Progress</span> Liberal think tank in the United States

The Center for American Progress (CAP) is a public policy research and advocacy organization which presents a liberal viewpoint on economic and social issues. It has its headquarters in Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Koch</span> American billionaire heir and businessman (1940–2019)

David Hamilton Koch was an American businessman, political activist, philanthropist, and chemical engineer. In 1970, he joined the family business: Koch Industries, the second largest privately held company in the United States. He became president of the subsidiary Koch Engineering in 1979 and became a co-owner of Koch Industries in 1983. Koch served as an executive vice president of Koch Industries until he retired due to health issues in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matt Taibbi</span> American author and journalist (born 1970)

Matthew Colin Taibbi is an American author, journalist, and podcaster. He has reported on finance, media, politics, and sports. A former contributing editor for Rolling Stone, he is the author of several books, former co-host of the Useful Idiots podcast, and publisher of the Racket News on Substack.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Yglesias</span> American blogger and journalist (born 1981)

Matthew Yglesias is an American blogger and journalist who writes about economics and politics. Yglesias has written columns and articles for publications such as The American Prospect, The Atlantic, and Slate. In November 2020, he left his position as an editor and columnist at the news website Vox, which he co-founded in 2014, to publish the Substack newsletter Slow Boring. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center.

FreedomWorks is a conservative and libertarian advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. FreedomWorks trains volunteers, assists in campaigns, and encourages them to mobilize, interacting with both fellow citizens and their political representatives. It was widely associated with the Tea Party movement before firmly aligning with Donald Trump. The Koch brothers were once a source of the organization's funding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glenn Greenwald</span> American journalist, lawyer and writer (born 1967)

Glenn Edward Greenwald is an American journalist, author, and former lawyer.

ThinkProgress was an American progressive news website that was active from 2005 to 2019. It was a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a progressive public policy research and advocacy organization. Founded by Judd Legum in 2005, the site's reports were regularly discussed by mainstream news outlets and peer-reviewed academic journals. ThinkProgress also hosted a climate section called Climate Progress, which was founded by Joe Romm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Progressive Britain</span> Political organisation linked to the Labour Party in the United Kingdom

Progressive Britain, formerly known as Progress, is a political organisation associated with the British Labour Party, founded in 1996 to support the New Labour leadership of Tony Blair. It is seen as being on the right of the party.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP), founded in 2004, is a libertarian conservative political advocacy group in the United States affiliated with brothers Charles Koch and the late David Koch. As the Koch family's primary political advocacy group, it is one of the most influential American conservative organizations.

The Franklin News Foundation, previously the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, is an American online nonprofit news organization that publishes news and commentary from a conservative and free market, limited government perspective on state and local politics. Its journalism platform is called The Center Square, rebranded from Watchdog.org. Founded in 2009 in North Dakota, the organization moved to Virginia and is now based in Chicago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Koch network</span> Charles G. and David H. Koch and their activities in US politics

Charles G. and David H. Koch (1940–2019), sometimes referred to as the Koch brothers, have become famous for their financial and political influence in United States politics with a libertarian, more so, right-libertarian or American-style libertarian political stance. From around 2004 to 2019, with "foresight and perseverance", the brothers organized like-minded wealthy libertarian-oriented conservatives, spent hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money to build an "integrated" and "stealth" network of think tanks, foundations, "grassroots" movements, academic programs, advocacy and legal groups to "destroy the prevalent statist paradigm" reshape public opinion to favor minimal government. As of mid 2018, the media has been encouraged to refer to the "Koch network" rather than the "Koch brothers".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Center for Media and Democracy</span> Non-profit organization in the US

The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a progressive nonprofit watchdog and advocacy organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. CMD publishes ExposedbyCMD.org, SourceWatch.org, and ALECexposed.org.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Swalwell</span> American lawyer & politician (born 1980)

Eric Michael Swalwell is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. representative for California's 14th congressional district since 2023. His district, numbered as the 15th district from 2013 to 2023, covers most of eastern Alameda County and part of central Contra Costa County. He is a member of the Democratic Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foundation for Defense of Democracies</span> Think tank and policy institute

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit think tank and a registered lobbying organization based in Washington, D.C., United States which took in 2019 a decisively anti-Iranian stance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freedom Partners</span> Former public advocacy organization

Freedom Partners was a nonprofit 501(c)(6) organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The organization, which was founded in 2011 under the name Association for American Innovation, was purposed to promote "the benefits of free markets and a free society." It was partially funded by the Koch brothers, and sponsored various Republican politicians and conservative groups. The group was dissolved in 2019 amidst a restructuring of the Koch family's giving.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First Look Media</span> American nonprofit media organization

First Look Media is an American nonprofit media organization founded by Pierre Omidyar in October 2013 as a venue for "original, independent journalism". The project was started as a collaboration with Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, and Laura Poitras with a promised $250 million in funding from Omidyar. The organization announced plans to support multiple publications, the first of which was The Intercept, launched in February 2014.

<i>Judd Legum</i> American journalist

Judd Legum is an American journalist, lawyer, and political staffer.

Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters. It allows writers to send digital newsletters directly to subscribers. Founded in 2017, Substack is headquartered in San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chamber of Progress</span> American trade group

The Chamber of Progress is an American trade group that represents technology companies on issues such as antitrust law, content moderation, and self-driving cars. The group describes itself as a progressive advocacy organization, while some have characterized it as an astroturfing corporate front group opposing government regulation and unionization. It was established in 2020 by Adam Kovacevich and is funded by Amazon, Uber, Meta, Google, Apple, Twitter, and other technology companies.

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.

References

  1. ↑ Reed, Betsy (February 4, 2015). "Welcome to The Intercept, Lee Fang". The Intercept. Retrieved April 26, 2023.
  2. ↑ "I left The Intercept last month. I am going to devote my time primarily to Substack". Twitter. Retrieved April 26, 2023.
  3. 1 2 Reed, Betsy (February 4, 2015). "Welcome to The Intercept, Lee Fang". The Intercept. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  4. ↑ "Lee Fang". The Republic Report. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  5. ↑ "Lee Fang". The Intercept. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  6. ↑ Shakir, Faiz. "Farewell to our Friends and Colleagues Matt Yglesias and Lee Fang". ThinkProgress. Retrieved December 10, 2013.
  7. ↑ "The Annual Izzy Award". Ithaca College. Retrieved April 23, 2023.
  8. 1 2 "Lee Fang". ThinkProgress. Archived from the original on January 10, 2014. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  9. ↑ "Student Advisory Board (2006–2007)". Generation Progress. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  10. ↑ Shakir, Faiz (November 19, 2011). "Farewell To Our Friends And Colleagues Matt Yglesias And Lee Fang". ThinkProgress. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  11. ↑ Julia La Roche (October 10, 2011). "Blogger Tries To Smear Occupy Wall Street Critics By Tying Them To A Hedge Funder". Business Insider. Retrieved October 14, 2013.
  12. ↑ Ungerleider, Neal (September 21, 2011). "Occupy Wall Street: Tahrir Over Here?". Fast Company. Retrieved October 14, 2013.
  13. ↑ Fang, Lee (October 5, 2010). "Exclusive: Foreign-Funded 'U.S.' Chamber of Commerce Running Partisan Attack Ads". ThinkProgress.Org.
  14. ↑ Stein, Sam (October 5, 2010). "MoveOn Asks DoJ To Launch Criminal Investigation Of Chamber's Funding". Huffington Post. Retrieved August 30, 2012.
  15. 1 2 "Foreign Money? Really?". FactCheck.org. October 11, 2010. Retrieved August 30, 2012.
  16. ↑ Lichtblau, Eric (October 8, 2010). "Topic of Foreign Money in U.S. Races Hits Hustings". The New York Times. Retrieved August 30, 2012.
  17. ↑ Fang, Lee (April 13, 2011). "The Contango Game: How Koch Industries Manipulates The Oil Market For Profit". ThinkProgress. Retrieved October 2, 2012.
  18. ↑ Sherter, Alain (April 15, 2011). "Contango Lesson: How Koch Industries Raises Gas Prices". CBS. Retrieved October 2, 2012.
  19. ↑ Cynthia Stead (April 21, 2011). "Revealing insights in media reform". CapeCodOnline.com. Archived from the original on October 15, 2013. Retrieved October 14, 2013.
  20. ↑ "The Koch Brothers – People & Power". Al Jazeera English. March 29, 2012. Retrieved October 14, 2013.
  21. ↑ "Lee Fang". Koch Brothers Exposed. Retrieved January 4, 2014.
  22. ↑ Koch Industries Employs PR Firm To Airbrush Wikipedia, Gets Banned For Unethical 'Sock Puppets', Think Progress , Lee Fang, March 9, 2011. Retrieved February 26, 2016.
  23. ↑ Smith, Ben; Vogel, Kenneth (April 12, 2011). "Center for American Progress news team takes aim at GOP". Politico. Archived from the original on October 21, 2013. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  24. ↑ Taibbi, Matt (April 12, 2023). "Welcoming Lee Fang to Substack". Substack (Alias: Racket News). Retrieved April 27, 2023.
  25. 1 2 Chait, Jonathan (June 11, 2020). "The Still-Vital Case for Liberalism in a Radical Age". New York Magazine. Retrieved June 15, 2020.
  26. ↑ Evans, Zachary; Loftus, John (June 11, 2020). "The Cancel Counter". The National Review. Retrieved June 15, 2020.
  27. 1 2 Fang, Lee (December 20, 2022). "Twitter Aided the Pentagon in Its Covert Online Propaganda Campaign". The Intercept. Retrieved January 8, 2023.
  28. ↑ Rutenberg, Jim (February 23, 2013). "A Conservative Provocateur, Using a Blowtorch as His Pen". The New York Times. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  29. ↑ Greenwald, Glenn (July 30, 2012). "Free speech and donations". Salon. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  30. ↑ "Lee Fang talks about his book "The Machine: A Field Guide to the Resurgent Right" & corporatist influence in the U.S." Eclectablog. April 30, 2013. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  31. ↑ Instagram Post
  32. ↑ "Daniel Fang on Instagram: "Lee Fang aka Pglee day I love you 🎈❣️"". Instagram. Retrieved May 3, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.