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The Guardian Journalist Who Targeted the Free Speech Union is a “Senior Tarbell Fellow”. What Does That Mean?

The Guardian journalist who targeted the Free Speech Union with a story stuffed with misinformation, Aisha Down, is a "Senior Tarbell Fellow". Charlotte Gill investigates what that means.

3 min read

As many Daily Sceptic readers will know, the Free Speech Union was recently a victim of misinformation at the hands of the Guardian. In a piece published last Friday, the paper claimed that the Trump administration was to grant $12 million to “groups founded by UK conservatives Jacob Rees-Mogg and Toby Young”.

Ahead of its publication, Toby refuted the claims to be made in the piece, put to him in an email by a journalist called Aisha Down. It’s worth reading this piece to get all the details.

I was curious to see Down sign off in her emails as a “Senior Tarbell Fellow”. What on earth is that, I wondered. Although it’s not the main takeaway of the story, it’s certainly an interesting rabbit hole – showing how many players there are now in journalism.

Down’s fellowship is with something called “The Tarbell Center for AI Journalism”, as you can see from her Guardian profile here...

…as well as the Tarbell Centre’s own website:

The Tarbell Centre is named in honour of Ida Tarbell, “best known for writing The History of the Standard Oil Company”:

However, The Tarbell Center for AI Journalism (unsurprisingly) focuses on AI, and says it “supports journalism that helps navigate the emergence of advanced AI”.

Accordingly, its fellowship is a “one-year programme for journalists interested in covering artificial intelligence”, something Aisha Down didn’t touch upon in her piece about Toby and Jacob Rees-Mogg, incidentally. The Tarbell Centre is still keen to show the

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21 Comments
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Hound of Heaven
Hound of Heaven
5 days ago

Surely, nothing written by a journalist funded by and beholden to shadowy globalists will be objective or worth reading. Great research Charlotte Gill.

Gezza England
Gezza England
4 days ago

And certainly not when published in the Guardian. And note her Far Left Bluesky account link.

DiscoveredJoys
DiscoveredJoys
5 days ago

Perhaps we should launch a new phrase to earmark such activities – misjournalism.

Similar articles don’t write themselves, but I wouldn’t compromise my ideals by censoring them. I would just dismissively brand them as false with the one word, misjournalism. We used to assume that journalists could be mistaken, but now it appears that a degree of idealistic intention is creeping in.

transmissionofflame
5 days ago

Surely the FSU article was disinformation (or lying as it used to be called) not misinformation, as the “journalist” ignored what TY wrote and went ahead with the article knowing it was false.

NickR
5 days ago

This is the odd thing. The FSU use the courts to seek redress for its members. They win almost all of their cases, demonstrating that their client was treated illegally.
It seems odd, that attempting to uphold the law is regarded as ‘hateful’.

transmissionofflame
5 days ago
Reply to  NickR

Socialists and wokesters hate free speech. It threatens them.

Hound of Heaven
Hound of Heaven
5 days ago

They have an aversion to the truth.

WillP
5 days ago

As newspapers loose readers and revenue, creep houses like this see an advantage. I’m guessing they found the placement.

one of the most shocking careers is that of raving antisemite and Muslim Brother hood fan boy, Mahdi Hussane. PPE at Oxford, (obvs) then ITV, BBC, C4, AlJazeera, Guardian, Huff Post… a check list of Brit loathing political activism employers. I’m sure the fact he was Muslim gave him no employment advantage with this lot. He even has an award from ‘Friends of Europe’

JeremyP99
5 days ago
Reply to  WillP

Lose NOT Loose. Loose means release.

Alec in France
Alec in France
4 days ago
Reply to  JeremyP99

Or slack.

Howard Arnaud
Howard Arnaud
5 days ago

All a bit bizarre.

There’s nothing in the Guardian article about AI, so it looks like she’s gone off piste here.

If that’s what working for the Guardian does to its journalists, just think what it does to its readers.

stewart
5 days ago
Reply to  Howard Arnaud

In case anyone is wondering why mad, progressive narratives never go away despite their being at odds with observable reality:

Screenshot-2026-07-25-at-11.08.43
Tonka Rigger
5 days ago

They don’t bite the hand that feeds them, and will churn out endless ideologically-driven tripe as long as the cash comes in. More fool those that pay for it.

Cotfordtags
5 days ago

The deceitful socialists that are found feeding off the largesse of all of these donors have a new expression now. While knowingly peddling their lies, they know that many, such as those of us here, are actually telling the truth and they cannot refute the truth. They are now talking about malinformation, that is inconvenient truth that they would rather is not shared amongst the public. Only their version of the world is allowed.

Matt Dalby
5 days ago

She sounds like a Senior Tarbell end Fellow.

Willsywoo44
Willsywoo44
4 days ago
Reply to  Matt Dalby

👏👏👏

Mrs.Croc
Mrs.Croc
4 days ago
Reply to  Matt Dalby

🤣🤣🤣🤣😘🤣🤣🤣🤣
congratulations, we knew it was going to come!

marebobowl
marebobowl
4 days ago

Preparation of the next generation of msm stooges. Avoid. Turn off all msm media, do not read, listen to or watch msm. It continues to spew misinformation to the sheep.

Corky Ringspot
4 days ago

KUTGW, Charlotte. (Keep up the good etc)

JohnCaldigate
JohnCaldigate
4 days ago

Down’s syndrome?

Mrs.Croc
Mrs.Croc
4 days ago

Why are all these so called journalists young women of a certain type?