"INDEPENDENT" NEWS OUTLET THE GRAYZONE BUSTED AS SHILL SITE FOR IRAN AND RUSSIA

Another day, another worthless Kremlin shill site exposed, spreading fake news and shit takes to scramble the minds of the herd of dumb animals drinking from the poisoned watering holes of the internet.

This time its, ahem, self-described "Independent news and investigative journalism" site The Grayzone. More like the "Gayzone" (as in "gay ops") amirite?

The shillery exposed this time revealed that several key figures working for the Grayzone were on Kremlin and Iranian payrolls. Of course, you could kind of guess that from their shitty content, but it's nice to have a smoking gun of actual Kremlin cash-lines, also involving Iranian money in this case. 

As reported by the Washington Post:

"Recently unearthed documents reveal that leaders of an online news site aimed at Americans have received money from both Russian and Iranian government media outlets, showing how widening geopolitical alliances are making it harder to identify and trace foreign influence operations.

Hacked emails and other documents from the Iranian government-funded Press TV show payments of thousands of dollars to a writer who is now Washington-based editor for Grayzone, whose founder regularly appears on Russian television and once accepted a trip to Moscow for a celebration of Russian state-controlled video network RT that featured Vladimir Putin.

Misinformation experts say the overlap in funding underscores concern that the spread of falsehoods and propaganda online is entering a more complicated stage as the November election draws closer."

The info came from files hacked in 2022 by a self-proclaimed hacktivist group called Black Reward, but had recently been converted into a searchable format, allowing the info to be unearthed. 

"The files appear to show that the Iranian broadcaster paid a Washington-based reporter for occasional contributions to its programming in 2020 and 2021 while he was working as a correspondent for Russia’s Sputnik news outlet. That reporter, Wyatt Reed, had nine bylines in the online publication Grayzone in 2019 and 2020, followed by a gap of 2½ years. He has had 24 more Grayzone bylines since mid-2023, when he was identified as managing editor."

Reed is not the only paid shill at the Grayzone. The site's founder Max Blumenthal regularly makes paid appearances on Russia Today, while London-baed Grayzone contributor Mohamed Elmaazi wrote full-time for the Kremlin's Sputnik site between 2019 and 2021, and Grayzone freelancer Jeremy Loffredo was full-time at RT in the same years, according to their own LinkedIn profiles. More like "KremlinkedIn"!

Typical tweet from Reed

Despite producing crappy shill content that mixes falsehoods and misleading insinuation with a few facts, the influence of the Grayzone should not be underestimated. It appeals to idiots in the Dissident Right and also on the Left. 

"Little-known among most segments of the population, it has hundreds of thousands of followers on both YouTube and X, and its stories sometimes ricochet among both the far left and far right. X owner Elon Musk has helped that, corresponding on his platform last year with Grayzone personality Aaron Maté..."