Report: Fringe anti-Israel news site editor paid by Iran, leaked documents show (2024)

A damming new report from the Washington Post reveals the managing editor of a contentious online news site's simultaneous financial ties with both Russian and Iranian government media outlets, underscoring the increasing complexities of identifying and tracing modern sources of disinformation.

According to the Washington Post's investigation, a series of hacked emails and leaked documents from the Iranian government-funded Press TV show payments of thousands of dollars made to Wyatt Reed, a writer who is now a Washington-based editor for the online publication Grayzone. Reed also worked extensively for Russian news agency Sputnik during overlapping years.

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The files, the majority of which are written in Persian, were originally released on Telegram in 2022 by a group of hackers called Black Reward but were only recently converted into a searchable format and provided to The Washington Post by activist disinformation researcher Neal Rauhauser.

Reed's current employer, Grayzone, is an American fringe news site with a large social media following that is known for, among other things, its criticism of American foreign policy and a sympathetic voice when it comes to writing about authoritarian regimes.

Grayzone has routinely been accused of publishing pieces that "mix falsehoods and misleading insinuation with truth," as Joseph Menn the author of the report described. In late October, Grayzone founder Max Blumenthal wrote a controversial piece for the outlet about the October 7 attacks, which became the basis for a widespread conspiracy theory denying that Hamas murdered hundreds of Israeli civilians.

The Washington Post also reported that Blumenthal regularly appears on Russian television and once accepted a trip to Moscow for a celebration of Russian state-controlled video network RT that featured Vladimir Putin. Other Grayzone contributors, including London journalist Mohamed Elmaazi and freelancer Jeremy Loffredo, have also been linked to Sputnik and RT, respectively.

According to Menn's report, Reed's PressTV payments, which went through a third party as revealed by the hacked emails, were made prior to U.S. sanctions imposed on the Iranian outlet last year, sanctions that went beyond the 1995 general ban on imports from and exports to Iran, but after a 2013 sanction of Press TV's parent, state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, which attorneys said automatically barred transactions with subsidiaries without special permission.

The Press TV website identifies Reed as "its correspondent in the U.S." with contributions that include a commentary on Donald Trump's false claims of major election fraud in December 2020, an interview with a Press TV anchor about protests against police brutality in April 2021, and a two-minute video segment about past U.S. support for the Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e-Khalq in July 2021.

In terms of the work Reed submitted for Sputnik, which includes hundreds of articles, he theoretically might be covered by the Foreign Agent Registration Act, which generally requires anyone working as the "agent" of a "foreign principal" to register with the Justice Department if they intend to influence officials or "the American public regarding U.S. domestic or foreign policy or the political or public interests of a foreign government or foreign political party." However, as Menn points out it is not clear whether FARA applies to journalists, with few examples of enforcement.

According to the Washington Post, no one from Graystone responded to the newspaper's request for comment, but Blumenthal has been prolifically tweeting about the story since it was published.

On the social media platform X, Bluementhal called the investigation, "a slimy, spook-inspired WaPo hit piece," denying its central allegation and saying that "the contents of his article do not substantiate that claim."

In the same post, Blumenthal went on to say,"The article only says Wyatt Reed reported for Sputnik and Press TV before he worked for The Grayzone, and deploys sleazy innuendo to imply a connection between us and Iran that does not exist."

However, at one point in the Washington Post report, Menn writes, "The files appear to show that the Iranian broadcaster paid Reed for occasional contributions to its programming in 2020 and 2021 while he was working as a correspondent for Russia's Sputnik news outlet. Reed had nine bylines in Grayzone in 2019 and 2020, followed by a gap of 2.5 years. He has had 24 more Grayzone bylines since mid-2023, when he was identified as managing editor."

Blumenthal also went on the attack against anyone with considerable social media followings who shared the article. When Brianna Wu, a well-known pro-Israel commentator reposted the piece, Blumenthal took to X to call her "a white Zionist lady who tacitly impersonates an Asian" (Readers were quick to clarify that Wu is married to Asian-American Frank Wu, whose last name she took when they got married).

"[She] is lying about us," Blumenthal continued, "and is the one engaged in actual information warfare. Iran is not funding leftist news in the US - at least not The Grayzone. And no one needs Iran's help to see the evil in her beloved Israel."

While the legal ramifications for Reed, Blumenthal, and Graystone remain unclear, the Washington Post investigation highlights the challenges of fighting the disinformation war on a new battlefield, one made up of widening geopolitical alliances. There may not be any evidence that Iran and Russia discussed their payments to Reed or others, but the combination makes it harder to say which country is pushing for or rewarding any particular narrative.