‘Max Blumenthal also received the award, as did Rania Khalek, a Russian state media personality who in 2018 was found to be surreptitiously on the Kremlin payroll.’ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2019/09/30/pro-assad-lobby-group-rewards-bloggers-on-both-the-left-and-the-right/ https://twitter.com/JasminMuj/status/1183155763969187840

'Most recently, so-called independent journalists such as Max Blumenthal and Rania Khalek—both of whom have received funds from Assad regime lobby groups—have even toured government-controlled regions of Syria to whitewash the scale of the atrocities.' https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/11/the-west-owns-syrias-disaster/

‘This trip represents something bigger: the emergence of a new form of junket journalism that serves as a global laundering service for blood-splattered autocrats.’ https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/junket-journalism-shadow-genocide-190914121639788.html