"We've established what you are, now we're just haggling over the price."

Oh, *sigh* ... a number of people have dropped me a note, mentioning one Ezra Levant's latest plaintive Rebel News beg-a-thon, asking whether I'd write something about it. Well ... yes and no. If Ezra constantly needs to plead for money because he simply can't attract any advertisers due to Rebel's embarrassing toxicity, that's a situation of his own making, but I want to point out the howling hypocrisy contained in one paragraph of that begathon:

This is a position Ezra has mentioned many, many, many times, the obvious implication being that he and his boutique media outlet are so stunningly, extraordinarily impartial and have such integrity that they would never consider selling out for money in exchange for giving anyone pandering, sycophantic media coverage.

If only that were the case.

In fact, it appears that Rebel News is more than happy to sell itself (and its internal mailing list for political solicitation), as long as you have the dosh and the right ideological bent. Here, let me provide an example or two.

(Amusingly, I am on Rebel News' mailing list, so I am informed whenever Rebel issues a blast of "sponsored content" to members of that list -- "sponsored content" being, one assumes, advertising or positive press coverage in exchange for handing over actual cash for use of the mailing list. In other words, while nobly insisting it will take no money from evil libtards like Justin Trudeau in exchange for glowing coverage, Rebel News is more than happy to do exactly that from conservatives. Oh, right, the examples.)

From back in February, here's Ezra interviewing Conservative leadership long shot Dr. Leslyn Lewis:

OK, that's fine, perfectly respectable ... you want the opinions of a leadership contender. But, weirdly, only a few months later, I received the following mailing list blast:

wherein one reads, a bit further down:

The implication seems fairly clear: Lewis had paid money to rent Rebel News' mailing list for the purpose of political solicitation in preparation for the leadership contest. This is followed the very next day by another mailing list blast:

Note how this subsequent blast is not listed as sponsored content; it's just a regular "Rebel Buzz" dump, suggesting that, having taken on Lewis as a paying "sponsor", they're now giving her free and positive press coverage as if she's a regular news item. How convenient for both sides.

The capper here is that, after the leadership race went to Erin O'Toole, rather than cover that as the actual story, we have (surprise! surprise!) Rebel's Sheila Gunn Reid still gushing over (Rebel News sponsor) Lewis as a "rising star":

Money well spent, it would seem.

As another shorter example, here's an Aug 14, 2020 Rebel News piece slobbering all over Ontario's new, loony right wing party "New Blue":

followed only days later by (you guessed it) sponsored content from the very same folks:

Understand one thing -- if Rebel News wants to exchange positive political coverage in exchange for cold, hard cash, that is entirely their right. But it's more than a wee bit hypocritical to yammer on and on and tediously on about how one refuses to compromise one's journalistic standards (Ed. -- let's drop the sarcasm here) with respect to Justin Trudeau, when you're more than happy to whore yourself out elsewhere.

That's just ... tacky.