The ''Denver Guardian'' was a

fake news website Fake news websites (also referred to as hoax news websites) are websites on the Internet that deliberately publish fake news— hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation purporting to be real news—often using social media to drive web traffic and ...

, known for a popular untrue story about Hillary Clinton posted on the site on November 5, 2016, three days before the

2016 U.S. presidential election The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial United States presidential election, presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican Party (United States), Republican ticket of businessman Donald ...

, which Clinton lost. The story, entitled "FBI Agent Suspected In Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide", alleged that an FBI agent investigating Clinton had been found dead in a Maryland house fire. The story was shared on

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

(a news source for "44 percent of U.S. adults") more than half a million times and earned more than 15.5 million impressions. According to a ''

Denver Post ''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in Denver, Colorado. As of June 2022, it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 13 ...

'' newspaper story on the ''Denver Guardian'' and the Clinton article, *While "The Guardian" claimed to be Denver's "oldest" news source, the site's domain was first registered only a few months before in July 2016; *The story on Clinton appeared to be the only article on the website (it was "the only story showing up under the "News" section and all other sections are turning up errors"); *While the story quoted a "Walkerville Police Chief Pat Frederick",

Walkersville, Maryland Walkersville is a town in Frederick County, Maryland, United States. The population was 5,800 at the 2010 census. History Crum Road Bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The Woodsboro and Frederick Turnpike Comp ...

, does not have a police department; but has Five Resident State Police officers And the address the site listed for "The Guardian" newsroom was actually a parking lot. The site was registered anonymously and built using

WordPress WordPress (WP or WordPress.org) is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in hypertext preprocessor language and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database with supported HTTPS. Features include a plugin architecture ...

, but an investigator employed by

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

found the site was operated by Jestin Coler, the founder, and CEO of Disinfomedia and owner of several other

fake news Fake news is false or misleading information presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue.Schlesinger, Robert (April 14, 2017)"Fake news in reality ...

sites. As of March 27, 2017, the site still existed but had no news or any other content. As of January 28, 2018, the site does not exist anymore. When typing the address into a browser, it redirects to "jestincoler.com", a website owned by Coler himself, containing information about himself, his work, his 'achievements', and how to contact him. He openly admits to doing morally questionable, but legal things, such as writing and publishing fake news articles for payment. Jestin Coler, as of April 2022, is running for the Indiana House of Representatives.

References

Fake news websites Internet properties established in 2016 {{Website-stub

See also

References