What specific examples of failed fact checks have been documented against Rebel News articles?
Executive summary
Rebel News has been repeatedly flagged by third‑party evaluators and courts for publishing content that failed basic factual standards: Media Bias/Fact Check documents "failed fact checks" against the outlet [1], a Federal Court judgment upheld a Canada Revenue Agency review finding hundreds of Rebel items “not based on facts” [2] [3], and judicial scrutiny singled out Ezra Levant's writings for doing "little or no fact‑checking" [4]. Rebel disputes the characterizations and frames many external fact‑checks as partisan critique [5] [6].
1. The institutional tally: CRA review and the Federal Court ruling
A concrete, court‑endorsed example of systemic factual failure is the Canada Revenue Agency’s review of 423 Rebel News pieces, which a Federal Court judge summarized when upholding the CRA’s decision: only 10 items met standards for original journalism, 283 items were “not based on facts,” and many others were categorized as rewrites or curated material — a factual finding accepted by the court [2] [3].
2. Judicial critique of individual reporting and of Ezra Levant
The court record and related reporting single out individual responsibility: Justice Ann Marie McDonald and other judicial commentary criticized specific blog posts and commentary for lacking fact‑checking, with an explicit finding that Ezra Levant "did little or no fact‑checking" on the posts complained of and exhibited "reckless disregard for the truth" in motive and practice [4].
3. Third‑party evaluators: Media Bias/Fact Check, NewsGuard, AllSides and academic studies
Independent evaluators have recorded failed fact checks and low credibility for Rebel: Media Bias/Fact Check’s profile lists “failed fact checks” among the reasons it rates the outlet as Right‑biased and of low credibility [1], NewsGuard’s review prompted pushback from Rebel but identified what it described as substantive fact‑checking concerns that the outlet disputed [5], and academic work studying “fake news” cites Rebel as an example of coverage often qualified as misleading [7]; AllSides and aggregator Ground News likewise flag right‑leaning bias and mixed factuality [8] [9].
4. What counts as a ‘failed fact check’ in the Rebel News context
Available reporting and reviews describe failed fact checks in two overlapping buckets: specific corrections or inaccuracies identified by fact‑checking organizations and regulators, and a systemic determination that many items did not meet basic factual or journalistic standards — the former are instances where claims were fact‑checked and found false or unsupported, while the latter (e.g., the CRA’s audit) treated volume and method as evidence that reporting routinely lacked factual basis or multiple perspectives [1] [2] [3].
5. Rebel’s response and the question of disagreement versus error
Rebel News has consistently rejected the characterization of its output as factual errors, arguing instead that many fact‑checks reflect opinion differences or institutional bias, and it publicly challenged reviews such as NewsGuard’s while asserting it has no uncorrected factual errors [5] [6]. The available record shows both sides: evaluators and a court found pervasive factual shortcomings [2] [3] [1], while Rebel frames such findings as ideological policing of its perspective [5].
6. Limits of the public record and what cannot be asserted
The sources provided document institutional findings, judicial statements, and third‑party assessments that Rebel produced numerous items not based on facts, and they report that evaluators have flagged "failed fact checks" broadly [1] [2] [3], but the supplied material does not enumerate a definitive list of specific Rebel News articles that were individually fact‑checked and ruled false in each case; absent those named items in the reviewed sources, this account cannot inventory article‑level failures beyond the aggregated and judicial findings [2] [3] [5].