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Benedict Smith is a name you’ve probably never heard of. Yet, this shameless little propaganda peddler managed to drag the Telegraph into one of the most humiliating fake news blunders in recent memory.

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Fake News reporter Benedict Smith

Smith is a reporter at the Telegraph. Back in June, he wrote a Russia-obsessed smear job targeting Darren Beattie, Revolver’s founder and a State Department official, and his family. The piece was so spectacularly false that the Telegraph had to do the unthinkable and delete the piece, issue a formal apology, and basically crawl around on bended knee to save what little shred of credibility they had left.

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The real kicker here is that everything disproving Smith’s shoddy reporting was available in the public record. A quick check of the facts would have saved everyone from this humiliating debacle. Instead, Smith slapped together yet another left-wing piece of lazy Russia fan fiction, the kind the media’s been addicted to since 2016, and dragged Darren Beattie’s family through the mud to sell it.

When the article first came out last June, Darren Beattie didn’t sit quietly. He called out this lazy fan fiction for what it was: a malicious attempt not just to smear him, but to drag his wife and extended family through the Kremlin mud.

Darren Beattie:

For anyone who passionately supports President Trump and fights to advance his agenda for the American people, media hit pieces come with the territory.

A recent piece authored by @bsmithjourno of the @dailytelegraph takes things much further and gratuitously and maliciously names my wife and uncle in law.

I suppose its good to know that Benedict Smith @bsmithjourno of the Daily Telegraph believes attacks on the family are fair game, but what’s unfortunate for him is that his portrayal of my family as Kremlin-linked is demonstrably false.

I understand that not everyone welcomes the free-speech agenda of the Trump Administration, but attacking me and my family in this fashion is not the way to deal with it.

The below statement my wife gave to The Times (UK outlet) only begins to correct the record——-

Kirillova told The Times: “Far from being Kremlin-aligned, Putin publicly denounced my uncle and his ownership stake in Bashkir Soda, whereupon the Putin government stole his company from him. He has lived in exile from Russia for five years. I am deeply disappointed that the Telegraph would omit these material and publicly discoverable facts that completely undermine the suggestion that my uncle or I am Kremlin-linked — the narrative backbone of the entire piece.”

Once again, if Smith had actually done his job as a journalist instead of moonlighting as a progressive propaganda artist, he would have known instantly the story was bogus. Even worse, this trash somehow made it past the Telegraph’s editorial desk. What does that say about their standards? Do they even have any at this point?

Which brings us to the inevitable public apology. Darren took to X to announce the sudden plot twist.

Darren Beattie:

UPDATE: The telegraph not only deleted its malicious and false hit piece on me and my family, it took the extraordinary step of issuing an apology.

I wonder how the putative author @bsmithjourno can remain employable after a screw up like this.

This now disgraced “journalist” still celebrates deleted piece on his timeline!

It’s one thing to attack someone’s family (remember family is fair game for Ben Smith!) but to be so flagrantly false about it…

The Telegraph was forced to admit Smith’s work was indefensible. They deleted his fake news story and waved the white flag.

Telegraph:

An article, “Trump official who shut down counter-Russia agency has links to Kremlin” (3 June), erroneously stated that Mr Sergei Chernikov – and, by association, his niece, Ms Yulia Kirillova – had current ties to the Kremlin and to President Putin personally. This is false. In fact, neither Mr Chernikov nor Ms Kirillova has any association with the Kremlin or Mr Putin. Mr Chernikov has lived away from Russia since 2008 and has not returned since 2020.

It was also incorrect to state that Mr Chernikov once served as Deputy Governor of the Nenets region in Siberia, or that he received a personal note of thanks from Mr Putin for supporting his electoral victory in the 2000 election campaign. The article also omitted certain publicly available relevant facts, including that President Putin publicly condemned the key shareholders of Bashkir Soda Company (in which Mr Chernikov held shares) prior to its expropriation.

Imagine writing something so fake and easily proven wrong that your own outlet deletes it and publicly apologizes. In a sane world, that would be the end of Benedict Smith’s career. But not only does he still have a job, he still proudly shows retweets of his deleted fake news hit piece on his feed, as if it didn’t blow up in his little face.

Big-name “journalists” like Michael Weiss of The Insider and Anne Applebaum of The Atlantic gleefully peddled Smith’s lies too. They shared the fake story with their followers, got all the clicks and outrage they wanted, and then simply moved on when the piece was scrubbed. No corrections. No accountability. Just silence. That’s how the propaganda club protects its own.

Telegraph’s apology doesn’t erase the damage they and Benedict Smith unleashed with their shoddy propaganda. The fake news cycle had already run its course, right? The fraud piece got tens of thousands of retweets, the Russia hoax was reinforced yet again, and another wave of gullible left-wingers was programmed to believe something that was totally false.

Then, right on cue comes the quiet “oops, our bad” after the fact. Wash, rinse, repeat.

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This is why “fake news” is not just a slogan; it’s a fact. They run propaganda, spread it far and wide, and shrug when caught. The only way it stops is with real consequences. A lawsuit would help. Forcing Benedict Smith to pack his bags and join the unemployment line would help even more. Until then, these left-wing activists masquerading as journalists will keep running the same con over and over again. And the public will keep paying the price by being spoon-fed a steady diet of lies, hate, and personal attacks for the crime of holding beliefs outside the progressive religion.

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