A University of Chicago student, Christopher Phillips, criticized the “disinformation” conference his school held last week.
The Atlantic magazine and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics co-hosted a conference called “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy”. Many high-profile journalists and politicians were present to discuss purposefully false information that is shared in the media.
Phillips told Fox News Digital, “It was a huge indoctrination session”.
“It was essentially a conference initiated to spread propaganda. And it was all from one perspective, there was no perspective from the other side, which is that we need to actually preserve freedom of the press,” he explained.
Phillips, a freshman who writes for the student-run newspaper The Chicago Thinker, went viral after he questioned CNN’s Brian Stelter during the conference.
“So this conference, I believe the true purpose of it was to spread an agenda, to spread political beliefs that the media have been trying to, to inject in the public arena for a long time, which is that we’re not going to pretend to tolerate other viewpoints anymore,” he said.
“We’re gonna weaponize Big Tech and weaponize various other mediums or media to take away the other perspectives from journalism and make sure that we are the only people who could speak out about certain issues,” Phillips continued.
Phillips told Fox News Digital that the “number one criterion” of The Chicago Thinker is bravery. “You have to be brave to speak your mind and not to conform to the mob,” he said.
“We get a lot of criticism for our views and for saying what we say, so you have to be brave to join The Chicago Thinker,” he continued.
“Our mission is essentially to promote news and combat campus craziness and to do so from a conservative perspective, which are values that are not really shared often on campus,” Phillips explained.