Mark Potok of the SPLC

Summary (posts follow):

Mark Potok is the director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Intelligence Project". In that role he issues McCarthyite declarations that some organization are "hate groups" and acts as a quote source for an endless series of MSM articles. The SPLC is indirectly linked to the Mexican government, and much of their recent work consists not of fighting the Klan but instead of fighting those who want to - unlike the SPLC - enforce our immigration laws.

If you trust his judgment, read about how he misled about hate crime statistics.

Last modified Feb 17, 2009

Discussed in (click each link for the full post):

LULAC, Mark Potok of SPLC, NCLR, America's Voice, MMFA cheer & smear over Dobbs leaving - 11/12/2009

There's a round-up of reaction from far-left groups to Lou Dobbs' announcement that he's leaving CNN here. The biases of the article's author (Victor Manuel Ramos of the Orlando Sentinel) are discussed in this separate post. The quotes below were offered at a press conference organized by Media Matters for America:

SPLC smears Steve Levy in quest to support illegal activity (Suffolk County, Long Island; CAP) - 9/02/2009

... SPLC's report is attributed to Mark Potok, they also include this: Special thanks to the Hagedorn Foundation for its generous support of this project. Thanks also to the Center for American Progress. Hagedorn was started by the founder of Miracle Gro, but more importantly it would be interestiing to know what role the Obama administration-linked CAP played in the report.

Obama, ADL, SPLC, Phil Gordon, Catherine Herridge, Shep Smith, Joan Walsh, Chris Matthews, others try to exploit shooting at Holocaust Museum - 6/11/2009

... Southern Poverty Law Center's Mark Potok: "I think this latest round of killing once again shows how ridiculous the criticism from the right of the Department of Homeland Security report was. That whole brouhaha was absurd... Rush Limbaugh and John Boehner can go on until the end of time about how [the report] was an attack on conservatives, but in reality it was a perfectly sober asses...

SPLC: DHS rightwing extremist report mentions them and "tracks" theirs "fairly closely" (Harry Smith; +two errors) - 4/16/2009

... "almost" because of this: Mark Potok, director of the [SPLC's] intelligence project, said... he was generally pleased with the report... "Basically, the report tracks fairly closely with what we have been saying for some time now. They mention us a couple of times, though not by name," he said. Anyone who wants to do something effective about the report should stress that...

SPLC names "hate group" based on something they didn't promote - 4/10/2009

... groups. When asked about this, Mark Potok and Heidi Beirich of the SPLC gave conflicting answers and brought up other things that Cameron may or may not have said but that were not re-published by the IFI. Simply publishing one article by a forbidden author was enough. Details on that here and here; looking into the details is left as an exercise.

Carrie Johnson /WaPo smears opponents of Obama, immigration (rise in "hate", SPLC) - 1/11/2009

... combined to worry analysts, said Mark Potok, chief of the law center's Intelligence Project. In addition to the economic downturn, he cited rising immigration, demographic changes that predict whites will not be a majority within a few decades, and what some might see as "the final insult -- a black man in the White House." What Carrie Jonson forgot to mention is that the SPLC'...

Jesse Washington/AP's supposed "outbreak of racial anger" after Obama win - 11/16/2008

... election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes. Washington later points out that Potok is white, which isn't really material. What is material is that Potok and friends are far-left grievance mongers who in effect make their money from hate: without "hate" - whether real, mischarac...

Judy Bachrach/Vanity Fair smears Lou Dobbs - 8/08/2008

... the SPLC. Then, after allowing Mark Potok to mislead about their goals, she says that according to him Dobbs did an about face and his "polemics on illegal immigration actually appeared to harden". That section is entirely based on Potok's representations. 10. She takes Joe Baca's word for what went on when Dobbs met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; she says the air was...

SPLC's "The Year in Hate" misled about FBI hate crime statistics - 3/31/2008

... on 12/5/07, Amy Goodman hosted Mark Potok of the SPLC (link). Apparently based on preparation he'd given her, she made the now-familiar claim: "New FBI statistics suggest anti-Latino hate crimes have risen by almost 35% since 2003.". Potok also noted that, "Well, basically, it's an anecdotal report. The FBI statistics, like all hate crimes statistics, are extremely shaky....

Center for American Progress' indirect Mexican government link (Henry Fernandez, Kica Matos) - 10/13/2007

... October 18 [1]. The panelists are Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center (a group indirectly linked to the Mexican government) and Devin Burghart from the Center for New Community. Luckily, I scrolled down to the bottom of the page and I saw this: Fernandez lives with his wife Kica Matos and their son in New Haven, Connecticut. Matos is the former head of Junta for Progressive Action, a gr...

Brad Knickerbocker of the CSM: Can you trust his reporting? - 1/22/2006

... for the Study of Religion. - Mark Potok of Southern Poverty Law Center Please write CSM senior editor Richard Bergenheim and let him know the CSM has lost several credibility points because of this article.

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