The Post Millennial is a conservative Canadianonline news magazine started in 2017. It publishes national and local news and has a large amount of opinion content. It grew rapidly since 2018, and has been criticized for releasing misinformation and articles written by fake personas, for past employment of an editor with ties to white supremacist-platforming and pro-Kremlin media outlets, and for opaque funding and political connections.
Content
The Post Millennial provides both national and regional news. It runs stories on politics and culture. Its opinion section is a significant portion of its content, and conservative figures such as Barbara Kay have written opinions for the outlet. Most news content provided by The Post Millennial is reused from other media outlets with no additional reporting.
History
The Post Millennial was started in 2017 by Matthew Azrieli and Ali Taghva. The site's Facebook presence expanded rapidly between June 2018 and May 2019, with page interactions growing from 36,000 to 194,000 per month. Meanwhile, a new office was sited in Montreal, and the organization planned for another expansion into Toronto in 2020. In May 2019, Jeff Ballingall, a former political campaigner for Ontario Premier Doug Ford, was hired as chief executive. The Post Millennial is backed by private investors, but their identities have not been made public. Other funding sources remain unclear, with proceeds from advertising or subscriptions undefined.
Reception
Staffing choices
The Post Millennial has been questioned for its hiring of editor Cosmin Dzsurdzsa. Dzurdzsa started his career in 2015 at Russia Insider, a pro-Kremlin propaganda outlet. Dzurdzsa worked from December 2017 through 2018 at Free Bird Media, a blog which interviewed white supremacists including Richard Spencer and Kevin Johnston both before and while Dzurdzsa worked there. When asked by the National Observer, representatives of the media outlet made no comment on background checks or considerations of past employment in hiring. Dzsurdzsa no longer works at The Post Millennial.
The website Bellingcat described an article The Post Millennial published during the 2019 Australia fires as "disinformation". The Englishconspiracy theoristPaul Joseph Watson released a false story alleging that the wildfires resulted in large part from arson. The Post Millennial used Watson's story as a basis for their own reporting, alleging that "legal action" had been taken against 183 people during the bushfires. Bellingcat argued that their presentation "did not botch the basic facts" but was misleading.
UAE fake articles network
In July 2020 The Daily Beast exposed an online network pushing United Arab Emirates propaganda against Qatar, Turkey and Iran, using op-eds placed in news outlets using fictitious authors. The Post Millennial published one of these articles, but after being contacted by the Beast, it took the article down without comment.
Undeclared ties
The Post Millennial has been described as an advocacy organization for the Conservative Party operating through opaque personal connections and undeclared social media ties. Yaakov Pollak, a former provincial Conservative Party candidate, joined the media group in July 2019. Pollak ran a variety of Conservative Party-affiliated Facebook groups, including the Liberty Now and the Elect Conservatives groups. Pollak did not declare his connection to these pages, and until he was contacted by interested media groups, the majority of content on those pages was sourced from The Post Millennial.
