IS EXAMINER.COM THE INSIDER SOURCE FOR LOCAL FASCISTS?

Yeah, yeah. They have their freedom of speech. But so do we, and if boneheads are going to use their statuses as contributors to Examiner.com to push their propaganda, we consider it our civic duty to let you know, especially if they really don’t want you to!

One People’s Project

The Denver-based news website Examiner.com is best known for being a network of locally-oriented websites that invite professional and amateur contributors to write on their interests related to their local area. According to Wikipedia it operates in 238 markets in the US and Canada and has over 55,000 contributors known as “Examiners”.

It is not hard to become an Examiner. All you need to do, according to the website, is contribute one or two articles per week, making sure your articles are timely and accurate, and be credible, knowledgeable and passionate. That lends itself to a lot of room for error, and indeed Examiner.com has been criticized for its lack of verification and fact-checking, as well as accused of plagiarism.

And then there is another issue. The opportunity to write to a huge readership has been particularly inviting to some that come from the political fringe. That has ran the gamut across the left-right divide of the political spectrum, but that has meant some rather curious articles. Conspiracy theorists and islamophobes as well as writers from white supremacist circles have been contributing as Examiners, and With the lax policing on Examiner.com’s part, they have been using the website to advance their positions on a number of issues, regardless of how outlandish their “reporting” may be.

Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) board member Kyle Rogers has been among the most prominent of the white supremacists. As often is the case with those from those circles in the mainstream. Rogers attempts to downplay that facet of his life. His bio states that he is “a Conservative activist in South Carolina” that among other things “co-organized the 2006 Greenville, SC rally against the Lindsey Graham/Ted Kennedy sponsored amnesty bill” that it says “helped launch the (South Carolina) Tea Party movement.” He started getting attention after he began writing for Examiner.com in June 2011, his first column being a report on a then-recent CCC conference. Most if not all of his subsequent articles have focused on racial matters, and has often pushed the same line Rogers has touted as webmaster of the CCC website.

One of his most recent articles was a response to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) latest issue noting him as one of 30 hatemongers to watch. “The SPLC says that I’m knowledgeable about Norse Mythology and that means I’m a ‘white supremacist,’” he wrote. “I’m trying to get a hold of my Scandinavian Mythology 101 professor from OSU to explain to her that she is turning out legions of ‘white supremacists.’”

In the article, that Rogers choose not to link to, the SPLC was referring in particular to his most infamous stunt. “Rogers, who like many white supremacists is much taken with ancient Norse gods, last year began pushing his ‘Boycott Thor Campaign,’” the article notes, “attacking Marvel Studios for casting a ‘sub-Saharan black man’ as the Norse god Heimdallr. Saying Marvel is known for ‘leftwing ideologies,’ Rogers complained that Heimdallr is actually the progenitor of Europeans and referred to as ‘The Whitest of Gods.’’” The article also notes that Rogers “still urges CCC members to remind the (Republican) party that it should be ‘standing up for whites.’”

Examiner Susan Hillman is not as obvious. Her Examiner.com bio states she “was a state correctional officer for over 10 years and is currently married to a federal inmate”. Indeed, much of her articles would focus on prison-related issues, often focused on calling on reform and relatively benign. On June 16 however, she published an article where she defends National Alliance member Michael Carothers, who is near the end of a one-year prison sentence for attacking a black man with pepper spray in Columbia, GA – with an order that he is not allowed within the banished from the Chattahoochee Judicial District once released. In the article, she champions the story that Carothers was simply defending himself, when In truth Carothers, in his guilty plea, admitted to actually driving alongside the victim, pulling over and getting out of his vehicle to pepper spray him before going back in his car and driving off. “But one cannot help but see or believe that Mr. Carothers charges went from a  misdemeanor to a felony because Columbus, Georgia did not like Mr. Carothers for his beliefs,” Hillman wrote. “The last time I checked, a person still had the freedom to believe the way he or she wanted to and the freedom to express their opinions, but apparently the justice system does not see it this way!”

“Susan Hillman” is better known however by a more notorious name, the one she uses on her Facebook profile – Susan M. Yarbrough. Just as it is noted in “Susan Hillman’s” bio on Examiner.com, she served as a corrections officer for ten years, and she is indeed married to a federal inmate. That inmate is Gary Yarbrough, who as a member of the neo-Nazi terrorist group the Order engaged in a crime spree in the 1980s that included robbery, bombings and the murder of Denver radio host Alan Berg. In 1985, Yarbrough was convicted sentenced to a 60 year term. After his conviction, Yarbrough said that he “plans to spend his years in federal prison telling his beliefs about the white race about the white race to anyone who will listen.” Yardbrough has indeed maintained his white maintained his beliefs and activism while
in prison, and currently he and his wife are fighting a recent decision by the parole board to not approve his parole until 2025 when they determined he was still maintaining an affiliation with white supremacist advocates through websites like Stormfront. Yardbrough, who was originally approved for a parole date of 2014, has denied such affiliations, and Susan has set up a website and has appeared on internet radio programs to defend him. To date, “Susan Hillman” has not posted anything regarding the Yardbrough case on Examiner.com.

Given Yardbrough’s history, it is curious how among the comments on the Carothers story, one person named Ken Ward submits a suggestion regarding the officer that arrested him: “Someone should go after that cops family.”

Clarity Media Group, which owns Examiner.com, did not respond to calls concerning this issue, however in its Terms of Service it states the following:

Since Examiner.com does not control the User Content posted on the Site, it does not guarantee the truthfulness, integrity, suitability, or quality of that User Content, and it does not endorse such User Content. You also agree and understand that by accessing the Site, you may encounter Content that you may consider to be objectionable. Examiner.com has no responsibility for any User Content, including without limitation any errors or omissions therein.

Regardless, the TOS also states that those contributing to this site will not have any content, that aside from violating any laws or regulations, “is defamatory, libelous, hateful, contains any disparaging statements or opinions regarding racial, gender or ethnic background, or is otherwise objectionable(.)”