Tony Ortega and The Underground Bunker

Tony Ortega is a former employee of the Village Voice—a publication which found itself in hot water when it was revealed they’d been advertising the services of known sex-traffickers in their seedy ‘Backpage’ section.

Ortega now runs the Underground Bunker blog. Billing itself as the go-to zone for (eye-rolling sensationalized, bigoted, anti-religious) rants, it gives away Ortega’s game. How much clearer can it be that this supposedly “legitimate” blog is nothing but a bully pulpit from which Ortega can indulge his intolerance disguised as social outrage and foist off entirely fabricated nonsense as “breaking news”?

Sources in the journalist community consider Tony Ortega a developer of false leads, and let’s be clear Ortega is not a real journalist and here is why. When evaluating information, we are often admonished to “consider the source.” In the case of Tony Ortega, the warning applies not only to the content of his blogs but also to Ortega personally and the “publications” for which he worked.

Alternative papers are free weekly publications that earn revenue most often through the sale of the kind of advertising that reputable newspapers won’t permit – adult bookstores, strip clubs, classifieds with strong sexual content, etc. In between the trash, they slip in tabloid-style articles, promoted as “edgy” or “daring” when, in truth, they are simply fabrications sensationalized by low credibility writers like Ortega. While some of these “papers” make an effort to rise above the rest, most are gutter rags that all too often define “alternative news” as a slanderous substitution of the facts.

Ortega has spent his life practicing this excuse for journalism within the New Times Media and the Village Voice Media franchise of alternative papers. This platform has suited him well, for Ortega wrote for sleazy tabloids like he was born to it, a disposition that was in evidence as far back as high school.

[Header image: John Rickard]

Paul Haggis rewrites history – his own!

In fiction, authors begin by fashioning a sympathetic hero – someone we can care about, or, in the case of an anti-hero, at least feel for – as the entrance point to their story. It’s the trick an author uses to grab and, hopefully, hold the attention of the reader throughout the book.

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Backpage and the Murder of Ashley Benson: Official Court Documents

Readers of this blog will be familiar with the growing number of lawsuits filed in states across the nation against Backpage.com and sex-trafficking syndicate that was running for years, victimizing countless women and underage girls.

Such syndicate was Tony Ortega’s employer and Ortega was a well known Backpage.com apologist.

Today we

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Tony Ortega’s Coming Fall

It’s no coincidence that as state and federal investigations of Backpage continue heating up, the pressure on Tony Ortega is mountings significantly. Case in point – most of his blog posts lately have been shorter than usual and/or written by “guest” authors who help ramp up his cult of personality as the preeminent “Scientology expert”

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Journalism v. Propaganda: The Case Against Tony Ortega

There’s an old adage in the journalism business, “tell the truth, even when the facts are inconvenient to the narrative”.

That’s a bit of professional wisdom lost on the likes of Tony Ortega, if you want to consider for a moment that he is a real journalist. For him it would seem facts are

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Biased Journalism

Debunking “The Apostate” by Kathy Haggis

Below is a letter I wrote to David Remnick, Editor of The New Yorker magazine, in response to their recent profile on Paul Haggis. Although Remnick devoted 28 pages to smearing my religion, he did not have the decency to print the one page I wrote to refute it,

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Wife beater interviews backpage.com apologist

It is no surprise that Ron Miscavige, a wife beater, interviewed the infamous Backpage.com and sex trafficking apologist, Tony Ortega.

Watch Ron Miscavige on national television admitting that he beat his wife.

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Backpage Has a Serial Rape Problem

Recently we reported on the history making case filed against Tony Ortega’s ex-employers earlier this year in which a young girl allegedly suffered multiple rapes through the sex trafficking made possible by James Larkin’s and Michael Lacey’s Backpage platform.

We can now reveal that while that particular case remains groundbreaking, it isn’t the only

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Paul Haggis, the hypocrite

They Shoot Actors, Don’t They? by Kathy Haggis

I don’t use anyone’s name but my own. When I relate an anecdote contributed by someone else, I change their name. People in this industry are, quite understandably, afraid of the repercussions. One works long and hard against remarkable odds to succeed in any branch of the

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What Kind of Man Celebrates Death?: Tony Ortega. That’s Who!

One surefire way to tell the measure of a man is to examine at what he loves the most, what brings him the greatest joy in life.

If Tony Ortega’s blog is any insight into what he truly enjoys, there seems to be a sort of giddy satisfaction whenever a Scientologist dies.

The

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Jane Doe #1 Vs Backpage

Harvey Weinstein’s downfall began when the first of his victims began to speak out. The Paul Haggis rape case began when the women he allegedly raped chose to come forward. The MeToo Movement itself only became a force for change as women found the courage to take a stand against their abusers.

Earlier this year

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