Washington Post Tries to Spin Its Treatment of Dave Portnoy

The Washington Post swung for the fences with a biased hit piece on Barstool Sports chief Dave Portnoy, but even the community notes on the paper’s own X post on the story were a brutal reminder that the paper’s unprofessionalism has been noticed.

On Thursday, Sept. 21, Dave Portnoy took the precaution of recording a conversation he had with Washington Post “reporter” Emily Heil, who was sending out emails to advertisers and supporters of Portnoy’s Pizzafest event demanding that they tell her why they would have the gall to support a “misogynistic racist” like Portnoy.

Portnoy was set to hold his Pizzafest event, called the “One Bite Pizza Festival,” in Brooklyn on Sept. 23. The event was held to help the 35 pizza shops participating get their names out to the pizza-eating public and to add to the more than $41 million Portnoy has raised for small businesses.

After he received warnings from his advertisers, he called the Washington Post reporter. He asked why she threatened his associates but had not bothered to call him for any of his comments about her accusations.

At the top of the call, Heil lied and said she never emailed his advertisers attacking Portnoy’s character. But when he read her own words in one such missive right back to her, she suddenly “remembered” that maybe she did call Portnoy a few names in her messages to his advertisers.

But it was all just “standard” journalism,” a “common tactic,” and she insisted she meant only to “get a response” from the advertisers.

Portnoy asked her why her line to his supporters was about his “problematic” behavior instead of how he has helped the pizza industry and small businesses.

The conversation just went downhill from there, of course. But it ended with Heil asking to set up a 10 a.m. slot on the following morning for a more in-depth interview when she was “ready” with her questions. While he was leery, Portnoy agreed to the 10 a.m. interview, and the pair ended the call to reconvene the next morning.

But low and behold, Heil lied again because before that 10 a.m. slot she requested, the “journalist” canceled the interview. Instead, she wanted to talk to Portnoy at 5 p.m. just before the article was supposed to be published, a time so short until publication time that Portnoy knew it meant that nothing he said would make it into the story. So, he told her to pound sand, like he should have.

The Post published its slanted story on Friday.

Portnoy put out an amusingly worded press release on X blasting the Post for sending a writer who repeatedly lies to write an all-out attack on him without giving him a chance to reply, calling their actions “the official death of honest and fair journalism in America.”

But Portnoy was not alone in his efforts to slap down the biased and unfair screed published by the Woke Post because the community notes on X were also there to let readers know that the paper has once again made a mockery of journalism.

For instance, in its lead Post on X about its story, the community notes let social media users know that the “reporter” lied to Portnoy’s advertisers.

“A phone call between Emily Heil and Dave Portney was shared before publication, in which the WaPo journalist admits to intentionally misleading advertisers into speaking negatively of the One Bite Pizza Festival… They agreed to an interview the next day, but Wapo canceled.”

The paper then lied about the interview it set up. Its X post misleadingly stated, “Portnoy agreed to a full-fledged interview, but when The Post asked to reschedule, he declined an alternate time and the offer to answer questions in writing.”

This is mostly BS because the Post offered the interview time, and the Post canceled it, not Portnoy. Portnoy warned at the outset that he would not talk to the paper if they scheduled an interview just before publication of the article. But they tried that bait and switch, anyway.

This incident is just another example of why no one should trust the sold-out, left-wing media to ever just report a story. Instead, we know that all they do is spin to the left, lie, mislead their readers, and offer fake news. The Washington Post was caught red-handed in the process and published its story anyway. This is how arrogant they are.

Cross Posted with iPatriot