Michael Christopher Moynihan (born August 24, 1974) is an American journalist, former National Correspondent for Vice News and co-host of The Fifth Column podcast.
Moynihan was also a resident fellow of the free-market think tank Timbro in Sweden, where he lived and wrote articles about politics in the country, contributing to Swedish-language publications, including Expressen, Aftonbladet, Sveriges Television, Neo and Göteborgs-Tidningen.
"[1] Moynihan attended Concord-Carlisle High School in Concord, MA and graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history.
[5] As editor of the Stockholm Spectator, Moynihan reacted to what he viewed as suppression of freedom of the press, and posted to the blog of the magazine one of the more offensive of the caricatures of Muhammad.
[2] Moynihan was the producer of a 2006 documentary for Modern Times Group of Sweden's TV8, on American conservative radio talk show host Barry Farber.
[17] Moynihan stated he would post his own contributions in addition to submissions from other individuals to the website of Reason on the protest movement's scheduled date of May 20, 2010.
"[19] Moynihan noted, "Any time you cave into terrorism, it emboldens extremists," and posited that the decision of Comedy Central to enact self-censorship of the South Park episode would have the impact of worsening the situation.
[19] In a February 2011 book review for The Wall Street Journal, Moynihan provided evidence that British author Dominic Sandbrook was guilty of "[r]ecycling the phrasing, the descriptive adjectives, the reportorial detail of other historians—in other words, ignoring the codes and courtesies of historical scholarship.
[24] In his column, he maintained that the news network Russia Today (RT) is a propaganda outlet,[25] examined the Polish reaction to President Obama's reference in a speech to World War II "Polish death camps,"[26] accused New York congressional candidate Charles Barron of being anti-Semitic,[27] and reflected on the advice of Israel's ambassador to Denmark that "in certain areas of Copenhagen, it's best to keep your Judaism to yourself.
In his contributions to the Daily Beast, he has criticized Robert Bork's fondness for censorship[35] and Sean Penn's admiration for Hugo Chavez,[36] written about the uncritical media enthusiasm for Julian Assange[37] and the unreliability of Wikipedia,[38] deplored Jane Goodall's plagiarism[39] and the hiring of left-wing radicals with criminal backgrounds as university professors.
"[43] Moynihan criticized the propensity of many media commentators to predict the democratic reform of North Korea, Cuba, and other dictatorships[44] and questioned "the mindless deification of Pete Seeger," who, he claims, "never really did abandon the dream of Communism.
[52] Following Hugo Chavez's death, Moynihan described his regime as "extralegal, vindictive, and interested in the short-term gesture rather than the more difficult, long-term solution,"[53] and said that "Chávez's lesson for future authoritarians" is to "make a mockery of democratic institutions, rewrite the Constitution, and persecute—and prosecute—your political enemies.
[55] He has also appeared on Fox News with John Stossel, discussing his Daily Beast column accusing then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' of support for food rationing and bread lines in the Soviet Union.