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Dennis Prager’s PragerU: Distorting History, Exterminating ‘Woke’ Agenda & Raking In Millions [1]
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Date: 2023-09-07
It’s Not A University; It’s A Right-wing Enterprise Producing Propaganda
In 2019, in response to an email from Dennis Prager, I wrote a piece titled “Veteran Right-Wing Talk-Show Host Dennis Prager Starts a New University to Promote ‘Alternative Facts’”:
It’s not a university that your kids are likely to apply to; it’s never been written up in any of the ‘Best Of…’ colleges and universities handbooks that get published each year; it offers no diplomas or certifications; there’s no campus; no sports teams; I’m not sure whether it has a mascot or not; and, it’s a good bet that neither Felicity Huffman nor Lori Loughlin would have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their children enrolled. Nevertheless, there is such a thing as Prager University.
Now, some four years later, Prager, the veteran right-wing talk show host, must be having the time of his life. Disinformation? He can get it for you wholesale!!
His nonprofit PragerU is in the forefront of spreading disinformation about climate change, U.S. history, economics, race relations and other salient topics, while at the same time collecting millions from right wing donors. According to The Guardian, Prager “has become a fundraising Goliath, raking in close to $200m from 2018 to 2022 with big checks from top conservative donors, tax records reveal.” Prager is savvy enough spend a chunk of his money on marketing. And that marketing is paying off; he has 3 million subscribers to his YouTube channel.
Dennis Prager has not suddenly descended upon the world of right wing fairytale telling. As The Guardian’s Peter Stone recently reported, “Founded in 2009 by the conservative talk show host Dennis Prager, the eponymous Prager University Foundation is not an accredited education organization. But via online media its PragerU Kids division has become a key tool in spreading false claims to young people with short videos aimed at undercutting widely accepted science that climate crisis disasters are accelerating due, largely, to fossil-fuel usage.”
According to Forbes’ Antonio Pequeño IV, PragerU’s “short and often controversial videos promoting conservative viewpoints of different civic topics, had its content approved for use in Oklahoma’s public schools Tuesday [September 5] — about a month after Florida adopted the use of the content in its own classrooms, prompting backlash over its presence in public classrooms” (
https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/09/05/what-is-prageru-controversial-conservative-platform-entering-classrooms-in-florida-and-oklahoma/?sh=5f4b018b2921).
Pequeño IV pointed out that “State Superintendent Ryan Walters announced the PragerU initiative in Oklahoma on Tuesday, which will allow teachers to independently show videos produced by PragerU Kids, a division of the nonprofit that produces ‘pro-American kids shows for every grade’ meant to combat ‘woke agendas,’ according to its website.
“Content on the PragerU Kids YouTube channel, which has received backlash, includes a video depicting a cartoon Christopher Columbus saying slavery wasn’t an issue during his time period because of its widespread use and another describing George Floyd as a ‘Black man who resisted arrest.’”
In late-July, The Miami New Times’ Alex Deluca reported that Florida is "the first state to officially approve PragerU as an educational vendor." A press release from the group states, "This fall, in schools across America, students will be watching PragerU videos in their classrooms as states officially make PragerU an approved educational resource" (
https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/prageru-says-florida-schools-to-adopt-its-conservative-curriculum-17481537).
The Florida Department of Education says it "reviewed PragerU Kids and determined the material aligns to Florida's revised civics and government standards."
According to Media Matters for America’s John Knefel, “PragerU Kids videos are a mix of animated and live-action shorts, broken up into different recurring series. Some are more overtly political than others, but the roughly 350 videos on the outlet’s YouTube channel seem largely intended to push a right-wing agenda to one extent or another. Now, any of them could be shown in public school classrooms throughout Florida.” (Knefel reviews some of the videos @
https://www.mediamatters.org/dennis-prager/lessons-florida-public-school-students-will-learn-prageru-kids).
“The state of Florida just announced that we are now becoming an official vendor,” said PragerU CEO Marissa Streit in a video. She claimed that schools have “been hijacked by the left” and “used by union bosses” to pursue an agenda “not for our children. We are just getting started — additional states are signing up,” Streit added.
As part of a study titled “Searching for Alternative Facts: Analyzing Scriptural Inferences in Conservative News Practices” (
https://datasociety.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Data_Society_Searching-for-Alternative-Facts.pdf)
the sociologist Francesca Tripodi wrote that Prager’s project creates “a dense network of extremist thinkers” that “allows for those who identify as mainline conservatives to gain easy access to white supremacist logic.”
Tripodi pointed out that “PragerU creates content specifically designed to satisfy and exploit the processes of scriptural inference I observed among conservatives. Even though PragerU content and videos do not directly feature Donald Trump or current controversies, they consistently amplify two central arguments that conservatives associate with Trump’s public statements: that the mainstream media are dishonest and driven by emotion rather than intellect, and that “the Left” has become increasingly ‘radical’ and is akin to hate groups like the ‘alt-right.’”
PragerU has come a long way in a very short time.
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