Accuracy in Media (AIM) is an American non-profit right-wing news media watchdog founded in 1969 by economist Reed Irvine.

AIM supported the Vietnam War and blamed media bias for the U.S. loss in the war. During the Reagan administration, AIM criticized reporting about the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador. During the Clinton administration, AIM pushed Vince Foster conspiracy theories. During the George W. Bush administration, AIM accused the media of bias against the Iraq War, defended the Bush administration's use of torture, and campaigned to stop the United States from signing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It described 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama as "the most radical candidate ever to stand at the precipice of acquiring his party's presidential nomination. It is apparent that he is a member of an international socialist movement." It also criticized the media's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

AIM, which opposes the scientific consensus on climate change, has criticized media reporting on climate change. The organization gives out the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award. Past recipients include Marc Morano (who runs the climate change denial website ClimateDepot), Tucker Carlson (who co-founded America's most untrustworthy news outlet, Daily Caller), and Jim Hoft (founder of another highly dubious news outlet, The Gateway Pundit).

Funding

AIM's income in 1971 was $5,000. By the early 1980s, it was $1.5 million. In 2009, AIM received $500,000 in contributions.

At least eight separate oil companies are known to have been contributors in the early 80s. Only three donors are given by name: the Allied Educational Foundation (founded and chaired by George Barasch), Shelby Cullom Davis, and billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. Scaife gave $2.2 million to Accuracy in Media between 1977 and 1998. AIM has been funded by Exxon.

Vince Foster conspiracy theory

AIM received a substantial amount of funding from Richard Mellon Scaife who paid Christopher W. Ruddy to investigate allegations that President Bill Clinton was connected to the suicide of Vince Foster. AIM contended that "Foster was murdered", which is contrary to three independent reports including one by Kenneth Starr. AIM faulted the media for not picking up on the conspiracy, and applied itself for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) disclosure of Foster's death-scene photographs. Its suit to compel disclosure was denied by the District Court of Columbia in a summary judgment, unanimously affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

AIM credited much of its reporting on the Foster case to Ruddy. Yet, his work was called a "hoax" and "discredited" by conservatives such as Ann Coulter, it was also disputed by the American Spectator, which caused Scaife to end his funding of the Arkansas Project with the publisher. As CNN explained on February 28, 1997, "The [Starr] report refutes claims by conservative political organizations that Foster was the victim of a murder plot and coverup", but "despite those findings, right-wing political groups have continued to allege that there was more to the death and that the president and First Lady tried to cover it up."

Doxxing campaign against students calling for a ceasefire in protest to Israel's genocide of Palestinians

In October 2023, following the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, AIM initiated a controversial campaign in which they displayed the names and images of college students who had expressed support for Palestine on trucks. This event sparked significant debate and controversy around issues of free speech, privacy, and online harassment.

On Nov. 16, 2023, such a "doxxing truck" sponsored by AIM, with a three-sided digital billboard, drove through Yale's campus displaying photos and names of at least 6 Yale students, 5 of which are graduate students of color, under a banner reading "Yale's Leading Antisemites." A website address printed on the side of the truck directed to a page with AIM's logo, which requested people petition Connecticut government officials and Yale to take action against those students. In late January 2024, AIM had a doxxing truck at CU Boulder in Colorado; one professor moved class online as a consequence.

Government Connections

 Several of AIM’s board members have intelligence backgrounds. During WWII Reed Irvine worked in Marine Intelligence; John McLean was employed by the CIA; and Abraham Kalish taught communications at the Defense Intelligence School. Bernard Yoh also has a history of intelligence and military work. He is/was a professor of psychological warfare at the Air Force University in Montgomery, Alabama. He was a hitman for the Shanghai police during the Sino-Japanese war and organized the South Vietnamese counterinsurgency forces during the Vietnam War. In the 1964 Brazilian coup, Yoh advised the Brazilian generals. 

Elbridge Dubrow was a former ambassador to Vietnam. David Lichtenstein was a senior attorney with the Federal Communications Commission. 

Adm. Thomas H. Moorer was the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under president Richard Nixon. In that position he had Naval Intelligence agents tap Henry Kissinger’s phone and remove documents from Nixon’s desk.  He was also on the national advisory board of the now-defunct Western Goals Foundation, a private domestic intelligence agency founded by former Congressman Larry MacDonald in 1979.  Moorer is the vice president of the American Security Council.

Clare Booth Luce was a former ambassador to Switzerland and former member of Congress.  She was also a member of Ronald Reagan’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. 

Private Connections

The Council for the Defense of Freedom (CDF) has intimate ties with AIM. They share several board members. Reed Irvine, Murray Baron, Wilson C. Lucom, and Bernard Yoh, for instance, are all on the Board of Directors of CDF. Donald Irvine (Reed Irvine’s son) is the treasurer for CDF. Marx Lewis, chair of CDF, is on the National Advisory Board of AIM. CDF operates out of AIM’s offices as well. The CDF publishes a right-wing weekly called The Washington Inquirer. Irvine’s column appears in it weekly.

Historic Principal Officers

Reed Irvine, chair; Murray Baron, pres; Wilson C. Lucom, vice-pres; Donald Irvine, exec sect; Jon Basil Utley, tres; Milton Mitchell, gen counsel; John R. Van Evera, John K. McLean, Bernard Yoh, communications dir;. Natl Advisory Board includes: Hon. Karl R. Bendetsen, Hon. Shelby Cullom Davis (former ambassador), Hon. Elbridge Dubrow (former ambassador), Ellen Garwood, Marx Lewis, Hon. Clare Boothe Luce, Eugene Lyons (Reader’s Digest), Adm. Thomas H. Moorer (ret, former chair, Joint Chiefs of Staff), Hon. William E. Simon, Dr. Edward Teller, Dr. Eugene Wigner, Frank Fusco, David Lichtenstein, David Martin, Charles A. Moser, Abraham Kalish, Dr. Frederick Seitz, Adm. William C. Mott, Gen. Lewis W. Walt, J. L. Robertson, Midge Decter.

More Connections of Interest

AIM has also supported the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). In 1984, syndicated columnist Jack Anderson wrote articles that exposed the death squad affiliations of the Latin American Anti-Communist Confederation (CAL), a member of WACL. In response, the chairman of WACL, retired U.S. Major General John K. Singlaub, enlisted the help of Reed Irvine. In a letter dated January 30, 1984, to Irvine, Singlaub said that: "Any help that you can give us in obtaining a retraction from Jack Anderson for that part of his articles which link WACL with the death squad activity (in El Salvador) will be greatly appreciated. If a retraction is not possible, I would appreciate your assistance in neutralizing the negative impact of these articles." No retraction was made according to the author of this source.

AIM has been a prominent supporter of the Chilean Lobby in the past. The Chilean Lobby supported the military government under Augusto Pinochet that came into power through a coup in 1973.

Bernard Yoh contributes regularly to the Unification Church publication Rising Tide and is a strong supporter of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and the South Korean government.

Murray Baron is a member of the American Chilean Council and was a member of the Committee of One Million Against the Admission of Red China to the U. N. He was also the past president of Peace With Freedom Foundation, a former CIA front involved in African labor affairs.

Elbridge Dubrow is/was co-chair of the American Security Council’s National Strategy Committee.

Eugene Lyons is the retired editor of Reader’s Digest. He is or was also a member of American Friends of Katangan Freedom Fighters, American Chilean Council, Committee of One Million, Young Americans for Freedom, and the American Jewish League Against Communism.

Ellen Garwood, heir to the Clayton Anderson fortune, donated much of the amount needed to buy a helicopter for the Nicaraguan contras. She has also donated a large amount of money to their cause.

Midge Decter is exec dir of Committee for the Free World.

This group holds conferences and exchanges for "anticommunist intellectuals around the world." Former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams is her son-in-law and Norman Podhoretz, editor of the right-wing journal Commentary is her husband. Decter was also on the Board of Directors of the now defunct Nicaraguan Freedom Fund. Decter is a Heritage Foundation trustee, an Ethics and Public Policy Center trustee, a Hudson Institute fellow, and an advisory board member of The National Interest.

Clare Booth Luce was a Dame of the Knights of Malta. She was a director of the Nicaraguan Freedom Fund, a fundraising group set up in 1985 by the Washington Times, a paper owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, to provide funds to the contras. Luce was on the Board of the Washington Times. She also served with the Coalition for Peace Through Strength (CPTS) and the Committee on the Present Danger. 

William Simon is on the advisory committee of AmeriCares and was on the national council of the Friends of the Democratic Center in Central America (PRODEMCA). Simon was also the chair of the Nicaraguan Freedom Fund and is a member of the Knights of Malta. 

Dr. Edward Teller was a member of the Committee on the Present Danger as of 1983. The Committee is an anticommunist organization which has advocated strict containment policies towards the Soviet Union. Teller also created the H Bomb. Teller was also on the advisory board of the Western Goals Foundation and served with the CPTS. 

Eugene Wigner and General Lewis Walt were both formerly on the advisory board of the Western Goals Foundation. Wigner, a physicist, received a $200,000 "Founders Award" from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Wigner also served with the American Security Council’s Coalition for Peace Through Strength and on the board of trustees of Freedom House. 

Shelby Cullom Davis is a trustee of the Heritage Foundation.

Misc: AIM claims to be "Your Watchdog of News Media." Among the shows they monitor, however, are entertainment programs which have a political twist. For instance, they often attack television shows such as Miami Vice and television movies such as The Day After (a show on the possible outcomes of nuclear war in the U.S. ). 

Accuracy In Academia (AIA) was created by AIM. Irvine was the head of AIA, but it is run by Les Csorba. AIA is also a right-wing group that "monitors" what teachers teach on college campuses. It is relatively weak and primarily attacks teachers that do not teach AIA’s view of reality. Midge Decter has called AIA "wrong headed and harmful." In 1984, on a trip to El Salvador, Csorba praised Roberto D’Aubuisson–said to have death squad links–and posed with government soldiers. 

Reed Irvine (September 29, 1922 – November 16, 2004) was an American economist and activist who founded the conservative media watchdog organization Accuracy in Media, and remained its head for 35 years.

Reed John Irvine was born in Salt Lake City on Sept. 29, 1922, the son of William J. and Edna May Irvine. He graduated from the University of Utah in 1942, and served as a Japanese interpreter-translator on Saipan, Tinian, and Okinawa, with a commission in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II. After the war he received a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Oxford, where he earned another bachelor's degree in economics.

During the El Salvador Civil War, he criticized reporter Raymond Bonner with particular regard to his reporting in the New York Times of the El Mozote massacre. He devoted an entire edition of the AIM Report to Bonner, reporting that "Mr. Bonner had been worth a division to the communists in Central America." In 1992, as part of the peace settlement established by the Chapultepec Peace Accords, the United Nations-sanctioned Truth Commission for El Salvador investigating human rights abuses committed during the war supervised the exhumations of the El Mozote remains by an Argentinian team of forensic specialists. The Commission stated in its final report: "There is full proof that on 11 December 1981, in the village of El Mozote, units of the Atlácatl Battalion deliberately and systematically killed a group of more than 200 men, women and children, constituting the entire civilian population that they had found there the previous day and had since been holding prisoner" and "More than 500 identified victims perished at El Mozote and in the other villages. Many other victims have not been identified."

In 1987 Irvine received an Ethics in Journalism award from the World Media Association, a group founded in 1978 by Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church. In 1994, Irvine said about the conservative Washington Times, founded by Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon: "The Washington Times is one of the few newspapers in the country that provides some balance."

Cliff Kincaid is a "right-wing writer and activist who has been a longtime critic of the United Nations and other multinational organizations. He is also a writer and editor at Accuracy in Media (AIM), a right-wing media 'watchdog' organization," Media Matters for America reported December 8, 2005. Kincaid "served as aide to former White House National Security Council staffer Oliver North."

Kincaid is also the founder and Director of Citizens United's American Sovereignty Action Project, a member of the Advisory Council of Sovereignty International, and President of the National Committee Against the U.N. Takeover.

Kincaid "has received significant support for his work from foundations controlled by right-wing financier Richard Mellon Scaife, who has funded AIM as as well as Kincaid's own organization, America's Survival, Inc. [which] is dedicated to 'educat[ing] the American people and to expos[ing] the influence of global institutions, including an International Criminal Court, on their lives'," Media Matters wrote.

Although Media Matters wrote in December 2005 that Kincaid's "organization appears to be run from Kincaid's personal residence," Watch Unto Prayer wrote in 1997 that Kincaid's organization was "housed" at Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation.

Opposition to the UN

On January 6, 1997, the National Center for Public Policy Research reported that Cliff Kincaid of the American Sovereignty Action Project "delivered a presentation opposing a U.S. bailout of the United Nations and challenging the allegation that the U.S. owes the UN $1.5 billion

In March 1998, the National Center for Public Policy Research reported that Cliff Kincaid of the American Sovereignty Action Project of Citizens United "discussed the United Nations' request for more funds from the U.S. The U.N., he said, has failed to reimburse $6-8 billion in U.S. peacekeeping expenses incurred by the U.N. Said Kincaid: 'The Clinton Administration looted from Pentagon military readiness accounts." Additionally, Kincaid said, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich "has endorsed repaying the phony $1 billion repayment" to the United Nations but, "[f]ortunately, leading Republicans", including Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, disagreed with Gingrich.

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In 1998, Kincaid authored the 'Washington Watch' column for The American Legion Magazine.

In November 2005, Kincaid criticized Fox News for broadcasting a program The Heat is On, which reported that global warming represents a serious problem (the program was broadcast with a disclaimer). Kincaid argued the piece was one-sided and stated that this "scandal" amounted to a "hostile takeover of Fox News." In 2006, Kincaid criticized Fox for "tilting to the left" on the issue of climate change.

Kincaid was previously a member of the Council for National Policy.

Larry Elliot Klayman (born July 20, 1951) is an American attorney, right-wing activist, and former U.S. Justice Department prosecutor. He founded both Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch.

Klayman started out politically left of center. As a student at Emory Law School in 1976, he volunteered for Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign, “thinking that this seemingly honest peanut farmer and former Georgia governor would be right for the nation after the cesspool of the Nixon years.” He also worked for Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-Wash.), a hawk with a record of supporting civil rights legislation.

In addition to his numerous lawsuits against the Clinton administration, which led him to be called a "Clinton nemesis," Klayman has filed a number of lawsuits against political figures and governmental agencies. Klayman's goal in initiating the lawsuits is often to obtain information through the discovery process, rather than to win the lawsuit. Most cases brought by either Judicial Watch or Klayman himself have failed.

Larry Klayman is a pathologically litigious attorney and professional gadfly notorious for suing everyone from Iran’s Supreme Leader to his own mother. He has spent years denouncing Barack Obama as a crypto-Communist Muslim, convening meaningless “citizens grand juries,” and railing against an endless list of enemies.

“I am more than embarrassed and appalled as a Jew to see my own people at the forefront of a number of scandals now perpetrated by the Muslim-in-Chief, Barack Hussein Obama, and his leftist Jewish government comrades and partners in crime.”

—2013 column for WorldNetDaily entitled “Ethical Decline of Liberal Jewish Intelligentsia”

To be clear, Barack Obama isn't nor has ever been a Muslim.

“This country belongs to us, not you. This land is our land! And, we will fight you will [sic] all legal means, including exercising our legitimate Second Amendment rights of self-defense, to end your tyranny and restore freedom to our shores!”

—2014 column for WorldNetDaily, “Mounting Government Tyranny Furthers Revolution,” in which Klayman encouraged armed militiamen to take on “government goons” and oppose “modern-day despotism”

“No other Muslim has done as much, particularly given his power as president of the United States, to further Allah’s goal of a Christian and Jew-free world.”

—2015 column for WorldNetDaily, “Muslim of the Year,” in which Klayman again claims President Obama is secretly a Muslim and not a natural born U.S. citizen. Klayman also perpetuating the myth that followers of Christianity and Judaism are victims of persecution in the United States. A narrative that WND has popularized.

“[T]he Islamic religion and Muslim culture is [sic] simply not compatible with a nation founded on Judeo-Christian values and roots. To the extent they can be kept out of this country, this must be done. We are at war with Islam.”

—2016 column for WorldNetDaily, “America’s Sheriff Goes Before Supremes on Amnesty,” in which Klayman discusses legal proceedings he’s begun with Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Klayman's name has appeared on past Council for National Policy membership lists.

Klayman was also a director of Accuracy In Media.

Stephen Ernest Stockman (born November 14, 1956) is an American politician who is a member of the Republican Party and a convicted felon. He served as the U.S. representative for Texas's 9th congressional district from 1995 to 1997 and for Texas's 36th congressional district from 2013 to 2015. Stockman ran in the Republican primary for the United States Senate in the 2014 election but lost to incumbent Senator John Cornyn.

In 2018, Stockman was convicted on 23 felony counts related to money laundering and misuse of campaign contributions. He was sentenced to serve ten years in prison, and was ordered to pay $1 million in restitution.

On December 22, 2020, President Donald Trump commuted Stockman's prison term. According to the White House, he will remain subject to a period of supervised release and an order requiring that he pay more than $1,000,000 in restitution.

Stockman is a born again Christian, returning to his faith after hearing Reverend John Bisagno of the First Baptist Church of Houston delivering a sermon.

Stockman is a former member of the Council for National Policy (1996, 1998)

Stockman is a longtime member of the National Rifle Association. In 1995 during his first congressional tenure, Stockman wrote an article for Guns & Ammo claiming that the Waco siege had been orchestrated by the Clinton administration in order "to prove the need for a ban on so-called 'assault weapons.'" He wrote further that "[h]ad Bill Clinton really been unhappy with what Attorney General Janet Reno ordered, he would not only have fired her, he would have had Reno indicted for premeditated murder."

In 1995 and 1996, Stockman was proud to have played a role in the federal government's shutdown. A 2010 Congressional Research Service report summarized other details of the 1995–1996 government shutdowns, indicating the shutdown impacted all sectors of the economy. Health and welfare services for military veterans were curtailed; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped disease surveillance; new clinical research patients were not accepted at the National Institutes of Health; and toxic waste cleanup at 609 sites was halted. Other impacts included: the closure of 368 National Park sites resulted in the loss of some seven million visitors; 200,000 applications for passports were not processed; and 20,000-30,000 applications by foreigners for visas went unprocessed each day; U.S. tourism and airline industries incurred millions of dollars in losses; more than 20% of federal contracts, representing $3.7 billion in spending, were affected adversely. The first of the two shutdowns caused the furlough of about 800,000 workers, while the second caused about 284,000 workers to be furloughed. They were said to have cost Stockman his reelection in 1996, and the Republican loss of seven seats in the House.

Stockman became the laughing stock of his own party and dubbed 'Congressman Clueless'.

Between 2005 and 2007, Stockman worked with the conservative Leadership Institute as director of its Campus Leadership Program.

In 2006, he attempted to run as an Independent candidate for Texas's 22nd congressional district, Tom DeLay's former seat, and even though he had enough signatures to qualify for ballot access, the Texas Secretary of State invalidated enough signatures to make him ineligible. Stockman registered for the special election to fill out the remainder of DeLay's term; he was one of five candidates. He finished third, with 10.75% of the vote.

Second Congressional Tenure

Stockman opposes the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In 2013, Stockman supported a government shutdown caused by Republican members of Congress who sought to block a continuing resolution that includes funding for the Affordable Care Act. Stockman's last-minute decision to challenge Cornyn in the Republican primary for Senate was "sparked in part by Cornyn's role in helping end" the federal shutdown.

In January 2013, Stockman introduced the "Safe Schools Act," a bill that would repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. Stockman introduced the bill following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. He asserted that "By disarming qualified citizens and officials in schools we have created a dangerous situation for our children."

In February 2013, Stockman voted against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, objecting to provisions in the bill that expanded protections for transgender victims of domestic violence. Stockman said, "This is helping the liberals, this is horrible. Unbelievable. What really bothers—it's called a women's act, but then they have men dressed up as women, they count that. Change-gender, or whatever. How is that—how is that a woman?" That same month, Stockman also invited Ted Nugent, noted for his violent criticisms of Obama and other Democratic figures, to the 2013 State of the Union Address.

Stockman was a member of Accuracy in Media. During his failed 2014 reelection effort, Stockman launched an anti-mainstream media campaign in an effort to raise donations. In an email to potential donors, one of Stockman's staffer complained of media bias and alleged that he had been misrepresented by a reporter that was looking to do a story that would give the campaign publicity to potential voters. Stockman blew off the reporter and cried victim when the situation was accurately reported on.

Jon Basil Utley,was born in Moscow in 1934. His British-born mother, Freda, had gone there as a pro-communist intellectual and writer. But after his father was spirited away to one of Stalin’s gulags (where he was executed in 1938). After this traumatic period his family fled the Soviet Union. This experience inspired Utley's lifelong opponent of communism.

Utley was the Associate Publisher of the American Conservative. He was a Robert A. Taft Fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Utley studied history under Professor Carroll Quigley (originator of the historical term "World Empire" as the final stage before decay and collapse of a civilization) at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, followed by language studies in Germany, France and Cuba. 

He attended many events at the Cato Institute, as well as Grover Norquist’s Wednesday meetings at Americans for Tax Reform (tax breaks for the wealthy). He supported Reason magazine and the Reason Foundation, and many other libertarian causes. 

Ignoring the obvious corporate greed in a period of record productivity and the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, Basil blamed government spending and medical costs for stagnant standard of living of the average US worker.

Utley's advice for people struggling paying their student loan debt was to file for bankruptcy.

Utley was the chairman of Americans Against World Empire. Utley portrayed an anti-war stance yet was silent on his role on the Council for Inter-America Security and his Christian Right friends and their roles in supporting brutal regimes and death squads.

He has served on the Board of Directors or Advisory Councils of many leading conservative and libertarian organizations including:-- Accuracy in Media, Conservative Caucus, Council for Inter-American Security, Ethics & Public Policy Center, Reason Foundation, Solidarity America." Utley was also Accuracy In Media's treasurer. He was also a member of the Council for National Policy.

He died of COVID-19 during the 2020 epidemic.