Breitbart News is preparing a lawsuit against a "major media company" after it says it was unfairly labeled a "white nationalist website," The Hill reports.
While it is unclear what website specifically Breitbart is taking aim at, many critics of Donald Trump have raised concerns about his naming of former Breitbart executive chairman Stephen Bannon to senior White House counselor and strategist. "Stephen Bannon, head of white nationalist 'alt-right' website Breitbart News, becomes Trump's senior counselor," Media Matters said, while a Washington Post op-ed described the website as "a party organ, a pathetic cog in the Trump-Media Complex and a gathering place for white nationalists." Mother Jones also wrote that "under Bannon's leadership, the site has plunged into the fever swamps of conservatism, cheering white nationalist groups as an 'eclectic mix of renegades,' accusing President Barack Obama of importing 'more hating Muslims,' and waging an incessant war against the purveyors of 'political correctness.'"
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a hate-watch group, has also deemed Breitbart "a white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill," BuzzFeed News reported.
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Breitbart News said in a statement that such charges are "baseless and defamatory," claiming that it "cannot allow such vicious racial lies to go unchallenged, especially by cynical, politically-motivated competitors seeking to diminish its 42 million monthly readers and its number one in the world political Facebook page."
Breitbart added that it aims to have a "colorblind" approach to the news: "Breitbart News rejects racism in all its varied and ugly forms," the statement said. "Always has, always will."
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