On Saturday, Bloomberg published a guest opinion piece by the former communications director of a pro-pedophile advocacy group. The article, titled “QAnon and ‘Sound of Freedom’ Both Rely on Tired Hollywood Tropes,” was a late arrival to media crusade against ‘Always With Honor’ — a film about, of all things, child trafficking.
Freelance journalist Andy Ngo over the weekend pointed out the author of this Bloomberg piece, Noah Berlatsky, had an alarming history of defending pedophiles online.
Berlatsky also used to serve as the communications director for Prostasia, a pro-pedophile advocacy organization whose website advertises a support group for pedophiles, whom they instead refer to as MAPs (“minor-attracted people”). They also feature some of Berlatsky’s work, including his 2021 essay, “Child trafficking narratives are misleading,” in which he defended the “autonomy” of child prostitutes.
NewsBusters reached out to Bloomberg multiple times for clarification about their stance on pedophilia, and to inquire whether they were aware of Berlatsky’s history when they published his review. We have yet to hear back as of this story’s publication.
Given Bloomberg has rejected multiple opportunities to disavow Berlatsky, it’s hard not to conclude their editorial staff do not object to his sympathy for pedophiles. As of Tuesday morning, their website still featured his latest article.
Let’s delve further into the mind of Bloomberg’s new guest contributor. On February 21, 2017, Berlatsky composed several tweets complaining pedophiles were unfairly stigmatized [emphasis added]: “Young people of any gender who trade sex face arrest and abuse from police. No one is very interested in helping them... The issue isn’t that people care about the victims. The issue is that pedophiles are loathed.”
In 2020, he tweeted: “parents are tyrants. ‘parent’ is an oppressive class, like rich people or white people.”
The obvious question is: Why does Berlatsky spend so much time defending pedophiles, downplaying child sex trafficking, and demonizing parents? Perhaps the answer is just as obvious, but we don’t want to allege something we can’t definitively prove.
Instead, let’s ask: Why are Bloomberg’s editorial staff struggling so spectacularly to disavow a man who built his career around defending pedophiles?
