COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE | JULY 12, 2024

Mercury News Shockingly Supports Child Sex Trafficking Via Discredited Source

When you champion a sex trafficking enabler, you are championing sex trafficking as well.

If the sex trafficking involved Backpage—the most notorious site for the sexual exploitation of children in United States history—to validate and use as a source the individual who kept them in business is one of the most egregious things you could do.

But to take such a person on as a source on matters of religion is so wanton and reckless it’s hard to even contemplate the utter lack of ethics.

That is why it is shocking that Mercury News Editor Frank Pine continues to offer Tony Ortega as a source in articles on a subject Ortega knows nothing about—in spite of the fact that Ortega is a known bigot, infamous for championing Backpage and defending its business model while children were raped and young women murdered through its pages.

The Mercury News states it is “committed to the highest ethical standards. Fairness and accuracy are among our core values. But nothing stands above the need to maintain our integrity. The public’s trust—our most important asset—depends on it.”

Nevertheless, Pine’s publication joins a small handful of tabloid trash rags like Daily Mail, The Sun and In Touch in their willingness to use a sex trafficking champion as a source.

And they do so without qualification or explanation. No disclaimer. No concern for the families of children that were sex trafficked because of Tony Ortega.

For further information on Tony Ortega, read this: www.standleague.org/hate-monitor/exposed/tony-ortega.html

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