Washington Post Reporter Scrambles When Subject of Hit Piece Preemptively Strikes, Turns the Tables in Real Time
Everybody wants to get on the cancel-culture bandwagon — even food critics.
Dave Portnoy is no stranger to attacks by vengeful critics, and he’s not one to take them lying down.
Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, is renowned for creating One Bite Pizza Reviews, a platform where he samples a slice of pizza and rates it on a scale of one to 10.
Portnoy is hosting an all-you-can-eat pizza festival called One Bite Pizza Festival at Maimonides Park in Coney Island on Saturday, promoted as the largest pizza and music festival of its kind.
Although he is no stranger to controversy, it was a little much when Portnoy found out that a reporter whose job it is to cover national food news and trends was “proactively reaching out to the sponsors of my Pizzafest,” trying to shame them for being associated with him, according to the Bar Stool blog.
In a video on social media, Portnoy directly confronted Washington Post reporter Emily Heil, asking her why she was sending emails to those associated with Pizzafest that said, in effect, “Dave’s a misogynistic racist, do you want to defend yourselves [for] advertising at this event?”
When cornered, Heil first flat-out denied saying anything like that and then reversed course faster than chief Martin Brody in a paddleboat after Portnoy read her an email she had sent to one of the participants of Pizzafest, which requested comment regarding Portnoy’s “history of misogynistic comments and other problematic behavior.”
Heil then admitted that she had sent the email out, but claimed that she had just used that language to get them to respond.
“I really did want them to respond and I was hoping to get something from them,” Heil said.
“Do you think that’s fair?” Portnoy asked.
“That is pretty pointed,” Portnoy said when the reporter continued to argue. “You said you didn’t do it, and then I have the exact evidence of you doing it,” he added, refusing to let the clearly uncomfortable reporter off the hook.
“To me, it’s kind of like [tortious] interference,” Portnoy said. “We’re doing an event; everyone’s happy about the event; I’ve raised $50 million for small business, I’ve helped pizza … none of that … it’s, ‘Dave’s [misogynistic] and problematic.'”
The entire conversation lasted over 11 minutes.
DISGRACE TO JOURNALISM: Just like when they assassinated my character and made me deeply dislike them, @washingtonpost reporter Emily Heil (@emilyaheil)
was caught trying to do a malicious hit piece on Dave Portnoy. What followed is shocking. WATCHpic.twitter.com/088CpesS6I pic.twitter.com/czkPLxCmNA— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) September 22, 2023
I am shocked that #emilyheil at the @washingtonpost would use such a ‘journalistic tactic’ where she included libelous language in an email just so the recipient would engage in a conversation. And people wonder why there is a distrust in journalists and journalistic integrity.
— Shane Demarco (@ShaneDema) September 21, 2023
Not a Portnoy /Barstool fan (at all), but #WaPo and #EmilyHeil have some questions to answer. You are supposed to be better than this. https://t.co/xCDpIcBYwq
— The Shadow Knows (@laurie_s1) September 21, 2023
The entire episode goes to show that leftists are typical bullies. When confronted one-on-one, they usually do not have the gumption to stand up for their values.
Portnoy was never disrespectful, and yet he displayed media bias for what it is.
At one point in the interview, Heil showed her cards when she told Portnoy she hadn’t called him directly because she wanted to make sure she had everything that she wanted to talk to him about before she talked to him.
In other words, she wanted to collect a bunch of negative comments about him before she attacked him with them.
“This is kind of standard, journalistic stuff,” Heil added.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Portnoy replied.
“It’s sort of a reporting tactic,” Heil reiterated later in the conversation. “When you want someone to respond, you kind of have to indicate that there might be something negative, and then you get them to engage. That’s all I was trying to do. I really wanted them to engage with me,” she said.
“That is a sad state of journalism, if that’s a tactic that you have to, what I would say is, make up something about somebody,” Portnoy responded.
He hit the nail on the head.
Unfortunately, this is the state of “mainstream” journalism today.
Fortunately, like Portnoy, Americans don’t have to just accept it.
At the end of the interview, Portnoy set up a 10 a.m. interview the next day with Heil, which was what she said she wanted.
According to Portnoy, she canceled it.
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