Maddow’s reaction came in response to a Washington Post article detailing the ‘shocking’ revelation that RT content was allegedly promoted by YouTube to help understand the Mueller report. To Maddow’s horror, YouTube algorithms could have left thousands exposed to an episode of the RT program On Contact featuring two award winning journalists challenging mainstream narratives on the Russiagate incident.

One of the journalists in question, On Contact host and Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges, says that the incident sheds light on the shortcomings of the mainstream media:

It exposes the bankruptcy of the corporate media and the American press, which spent over two years peddling a fantasy instead of focusing on the real issues.

Hedges, believes Maddow’s motivations for crying foul likely go beyond her anger over people being exposed to alternate viewpoints.

“This is about profit. CNN made more money last year than I think they’ve ever made in their history, Rachel Maddow is the top rated show and probably the prime conspiracy theorist,” he pointed out. Despite Maddow’s fear mongering over Russia occasionally “reaching the point of absurdity,” her brand of content certainly helped keep the network bringing in the big bucks… at least until the report was actually released and her ratings plummeted.

While the much-peddled report covering allegations of Donald Trump's collusion with Russia turned out to be a dead end, it seems the many voices among the major corporate news networks are just not ready to put their cash cow out to pasture.

Watch the interview on RT.

II.

‘Death by algorithm’: Maddow inconsolable after YouTube recommends RT interview on Mueller report

The MSNBC host ascended her Twitter pulpit to share a shocking Washington Post article detailing how YouTube allegedly recommended an RT video “hundreds of thousands of times” to users seeking information about the recently released report by special counsel Robert Mueller.

“Death by algorithm,” a despondent Maddow commented.

The video in question – an episode of On Contact, which is hosted by Pulitzer prize-winning American journalist Chris Hedges – features an interview with Canadian journalist Aaron Mate. A fierce critic of the Trump-Russia collusion theory promoted by mainstream media, Mate recently received an Izzy Award for his contrarian reporting on Russiagate.

While Maddow was apparently horrified by the thought of impressionable Americans watching a video of two acclaimed journalists discussing current events, others were more perturbed by the MSNBC host’s melodramatic tweeting.

“This YouTube is so much better than the war mongering conspiracy lunacy that comes from you. You should be ashamed to smear good people & good content in such a base & McCarthyite way,” replied one disappointed Twitter user.

Others took issue with Maddow’s bizarre suggestion that YouTube’s algorithm could somehow bring about “death.”

“’Death?’ No one’s lives were threatened by a conversation between two award winning journalists about the massive disinformation campaign you’re waged on the minds of suggestible Democrats. But they are endangered by the Cold War you’ve helped to stir up,” Max Blumenthal, editor of the Grayzone Project, noted.

Mate himself joined the chorus of criticism directed at Maddow.

“I was interviewed on RT by the Pulitzer-winning journalist Chris Hedges about Russiagate. YouTube recommended it. How fitting then that the leading Russiagate conspiracy theorist calls this ‘death by algorithm’ – to a propagandist, dissent from orthodoxy is ‘death’ indeed,” he wrote.

Actually, the entire premise of Maddow’s outrage is highly suspect. The Washington Post report quietly notes that the RT video in question has accumulated “only about 55,000 views,” and that the interview was by far from the most recommended Mueller-related video. “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” was recommended more than five million times, WaPo reported, while other channels, such as Fox and PBS NewsHour, received hundreds of thousands of recommendations for their Russiagate videos.

To make matters even less scary, YouTube disputed the article’s core claims, which were originally made by media watchdog group AlgoTransparency. YouTube said it could not reproduce the group’s data allegedly showing that the RT video had been recommended hundreds of thousands of times by the site’s algorithm.

In fact, the Washington Post story was so shaky that it had to issue a clickbait-deflating correction: An earlier version of their report had erroneously claimed that YouTube had recommended RT’s take on the Mueller report more often than other networks’ programming.

As Blumenthal observed, the WaPo story appears to be yet another tired attempt to shame anyone who doesn’t regurgitate narratives promoted by US corporate media.

If you like this story, share it with a friend!