As we flip the calendar, it is customary to look back at the prior year before wadding it up and properly tossing it into the non-recyclables bin (because there is so much we do not want circulating once again). Here at "Riffed From the Headlines," it has been a year of compiling the worst and misbegotten in the media landscape – so much so, that we can deliver the (dis)honors seen in the press in stages, awarding the malpractice with a column-specific honorarium dubbed "The Heckler Awards." (The previous categories can be found Here, and Here.)
For this entry – the third round – we delve into examples of reporter malpractice, pundit dysphoria, news outlet nefariousness, and other general deviations away from journalism ethic collected through the year. So on with the nominations and winners!
STOLEN VALIDITY - Appropriating the work of other outlets
Politico thought it had a scandal where Ron DeSantis was using government vehicles improperly, but the story originated with the Orlando station WKMG, and it explained that his use was, in fact, in line with state law.
On the NBC News show “Dateline” they say they broke a story involving the University of Iowa shooter, where he broke into victims’ homes in order to get them to install his video security systems. Chris Cuomo had already reported that detail on NewsNation a month prior.
Joe Biden claimed credit for a federal suicide assistance phone system that saved 5 million lives. News outlets were not detailing that this was a program developed in 2020 and made law by President Trump.
Matthew Foldi nailed WaPo lifting stories on the regular from The Spectator, including that odd piece about men thinking of the Roman Empire.
WINNER: Claudine Gay
The clear winner by unanimous vote. The press has completely run defense of the disgraced Harvard president to the extent of trying to pin blame for her nearly 50 examples of plagiarism on conservative, racist, sexist, anti-DEI passion.
STEALTH STORY EVOLUTION - Outlets editing content without proper notification
At the LA Times, TV writer Christi Carras performed a hit on Ron DeSantis by basically repeating an entire monologue by HBO’s John Oliver. She claimed the DeSantis office declined to comment, but then they shamed her by showing how they responded to her almost instantly. The piece was quickly edited, without comment.
After Don Lemon made a comment on the CNN morning show about women being past their prime after 30 he was effectively called out by actress Michelle Yeoh when she accepted her Best Actress Oscar. When CNN played the video of her acceptance, it cut out that portion of her speech.
GQ Magazine ran a revealing biography of Warner-Discovery Chief David Zaslav, which then sported edits – and then, hours after publication, it disappeared entirely. This was a decision by the editor-in-chief, who it was revealed has a movie deal in the works with the studio.
After complaints from the Gold Star families about a FoxNews piece stating they were billed for the transport of the fallen soldier back home, there were some revisions. Ultimately the network pulled the piece entirely, without notification.
WINNER: Various Outlets
After the Bidens were shamed into publicly acknowledging that Hunter’s illegitimate daughter counts as the family’s seventh grandchild, a number of news outlets went back and quietly edited past pieces that reported on the Bidens having SIX grandkids. This way, there is less of a record of Biden denying the child previously.
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) August 2, 2023
REPORTING ON THE MIRROR - When journos make themselves the center of a story
Joy Reid made a big statement about despising Donald Trump’s show, “The Apprentice,” as a teenager. The show was on the air years after she had graduated college.
At Atlanta Magazine, half of the editors quit over the corporate decision to do away with woke pronoun usage.
Roy Wood Jr. told Rolling Stone that working on “The Daily Show” is like being in the Marines.
When the New York indictment of Donald Trump was set to be announced, there was all manner of promise that a riot would take place. A mob did arrive on the scene – it was mostly just journalists there to look for a mob.
WINNER: Climate Scientist Patrick Brown
Writing at the Bari Weiss subscription outlet, the climatologist details that getting your paper printed in science outlets such as Nature requires you to edit out any data that would run contrary to the accepted climate change narrative.
RACE TO THE BOTTOM - Inserting race into stories in desperate fashion
The LA Times declared that smog is caused by white people and that POC are breathing in the air pollution.
The Washington Post tried to ruin Christmas with the claim that poinsettia plants need to be renamed due to the complicated racist past of the botanist they were named after.
At Christopher Rufo’s college in Florida, they changed the school mascot to the Mighty Banyans. One local busy body wrote how the cartoonish TREE mascot is racist.
Politico arrived at a very daft conclusion: The Republicans have put forth the most diverse field of candidates, and this is racist, because they do not make a huge deal about it.
WINNER: John Blake - CNN
As a white person, have you ever been on social media and responded to someone using a gif that portrays a person of color? Well John Blake is here to let you know you are a racist. It turns out, if you send one of these truncated video clips, you are practicing “digital blackface.”
PROSE & CONTRADICTION - When outlets disprove their own narrative within a piece
After the Brit Awards made a big deal about removing genders from their categories, The New York Times seemed confused as it complained about the gender results. The nominations were only males.
At Mediaite they were really bothered when Tucker Carlson got ahold of the January 6 security footage. The outlet felt there was no new information on the tapes and that they lead to nothing – stressing how much nothing over nine different pieces in a 24-hour period.
Video game outlet The Gamer took a firm stance against the release of the video game “Hogwarts Legacy,” boycotting it due to J.K. Rowling. It announced it would not provide a review or any player guides. This did not stop the site from mining traffic and covering the game in dozens of articles.
The Globe & Mail looked into the danger of the far-right being fixated on opposing pedophilia, all while never considering actual danger from pedophilia to be a problem.
WINNER: The New York Times
This summer, the press was all in a lather over the Jason Aldean song, “Try That In A Small Town.” The Times claimed it was racist and worse. Yet in a song heard in South Africa – “Kill The Boer” – it calls for actual race-based violence, and The Times tells us to calm down, there are shadings to meanings in the song.
The media clowns. These stories are mere days apart.
— Brad Slager: Flips On The Highbeams In Fog Of War (@MartiniShark) August 4, 2023
Jason Aldean:
Never mentions race = RACIST
Never mentions shooting = WANTS GUN VIOLENCE
Never alludes to lynching - PROMTES LYNCHING
South African Anthem:
Calls to kill whites = "Well, you see, there are nuances..." pic.twitter.com/Ftnqppr54S
PRESENTATION PARADOX - When a source completely misses their own contradiction
In his “Reliable Sources” newsletter, Oliver Darcy declared that Fox would never agree with Joe Biden over his snub of the traditional Super Bowl interview. In the very same newsletter, he announced Biden would be sitting for an interview with FoxSoul.
At the World Economic Forum, they held a panel to discuss the issue of disinformation. The panel was hosted by Brian Stelter.
On CNN their resident climate expert Bill Weir came on to lecture us about the need to curtail our fossil fuel usage. He filed this lecturing report after flying over 6,000 miles to the southern tip of South America. So understand: he doesn’t want YOU to travel.
The gaming website 404 Media discovered people were inserting video game characters into AI image sites to make pictures of them in controversial imagery, such as flying the planes into the Twin Towers. The site called the existence of these pictures extremely dangerous – but it did not stop them from posting the very same pictures.
WINNER: Mike Schneider - Associated Press
After more than a year of micharaterizing the Florida parental rights law, the AP boldly proclaimed that LGBT𝜋 groups were staging an event in Disney World, in apparent defiance of Ron DeSantis. But the fact the event faced no resistence undermined the claims. The organizers – and the AP – also used the label “Gay Days,” proving there is, in fact, no “Don’t Gay Day” law in the state.
POUNCE OF PREVENTION - When the reaction on the right is more important than the negative story on the left
When the Ivy League presidents shamed themselves in Congress by being permissive about antisemitism on campus, The Times feigned shock that conservatives criticized them.
CNN was upset at the way people on the right adapt and contort terms from the left for political gain, calling this “verbal Jiu-jitsu.”
When the Joe Biden documents scandal erupted, the story for CNN was not the president caught in a scandal on par with Trump, it was how the House GOP had this new line of attack “fall into their laps.”
The Hill attempted to set a Republicans-Verbs record regarding the validity of the coronavirus lab leak story dispelling years of media narratives. Instead of the story, The Hill focused on the GOP “seizing, claiming, calling," and “jumping” over the revelation.
WINNER: Chuck Todd, Garrett Haake - NBC News
On a Meet The Press segment, the host and his cohort guest both managed to take two major Biden stories and not only spin them onto the GOP, but in the process announce they were not concerned with digging deeper into the stories. So when the Bidens buckled on the seventh grandchild issue, the GOP “exploited” the story, AND when cocaine was discovered inside the White House, both men agreed it was ugly of the Republicans to focus on this crime.
Pathological Media Amnesia - When the press reports in direct defiance of its own previous reporting
Jennifer Rubin joined the chorus of journos making the lame claim that criticizing George Soros is antisemitic. She has a history of criticizing the man in her columns.
Brian Stelter led a panel at the South By Southwest festival that was looking at the perceived dangers of giving voice to those on the right. He declared the media need to move away from profiting off of hate, all while ignoring the calling of Trump “Hitler and Ron DeSantis a “fascist,” the years of Russian collusion lies, declaring conservatives “Insurrectionists"...
CBS News reported on the shift in the IRS to auditing business tranactions on Venmo as low as $600. There was no noting this defied promises the IRS would not target the middle class...as reported by CBS News.
USA Today declared Ron DeSantis was racist for describing a black athlete as being a “freak of nature.” Not only is it a common term, but USA Today has numerous examples in its archives using that term in regards to other black athletes.
WINNER: Jen Psaki - MSNBC
The newly christened pundit tried to defend Democrats by saying no one supports abortion up until birth, then had to spend days recasting her words when the evidence flowed in showing her to not only be incorrect, but reminding her that, as press secretary, she backed the Democrat bill stripping all restrictions from the procedure.
News Avoidance Syndrome - When the press chooses not to cover uncomfortable news
Considering all of the focus on Russian collusion for years, it was rather stark how few outlets had interest in The Washington Post delivering a report showing Russia had next to zero influence on the 2016 election results.
Recall Ted Cruz being lit up in the press for taking his family to Mexico during a freak Texas snow storm? Gavin Newsom did the exact same thing as California had a snow-induced state of emergency, and the press was not at all concerned.
With grooming all over the news, the case of a politician involved in child porn was relevant. Less newsworthy was that the mayor in Maryland was a Democrat, a hidden detail. For contrast, when previously a case came up of a former congressional staffer and child porn, “GOP” managed to make the headline.
As the trans athlete storyline is hammered on the public repeatedly, a poll coming out showing more people in the public oppose trans atheletes was roundly ignored.
WINNER: Liberal Justice Injustice
While Clarence Thomas was being called to step down from the bench for having rich friends, Justice Sonia Sotomayor was shown to have ruled on cases involving her own book publisher and greater sums of money, but this was not seen as controversial.
LEGALIZED PRESS-TITUTION – Cases of the press working to boost the fortunes of Democrats
When Jennifer Granholm had her disastrous electric vehicle road trip, NPR rode along. It took 10 paragraphs of glowing details about EVs before they got around to detailing the fiasco this trip became.
When the issue of a Biden impeachment came up, Ian Sams from the White House issued the press a 14-page defense paper, and Politico energetically ran it in its entirety, while slamming Republicans.
On “CBS Morning,” Jane Pauly sat with John Fetterman, and she pushed the idea of “President John Fetterman,” despite his accomplishing nothing but leaving a hospital.
ABC News highlights two teen brothers allegedly suing the state of Montana over environmental issues, while barely mentioning their father is a Democrat running for the governor’s mansion.
WINNER: Associated Press
When the news of Virginia state House candidate Susanna Gibson having a porn site account where she performed live for money was first emerging, the AP did not want to report on the details. It did, however, reach out to the Gibson campaign to warn them about the story coming out.
HOAX AND CHANGE – Promoting false stories in the Jussie Smollet vein
Many outlets reported that Prince Hank and his wife had a “near-catastrophic car chase” with the press that lasted two hours. The media appeared to be the only ones to believe this nonsense, and it was soon dispelled by the police.
Brian Stelter is still denying the press buried the Hunter Biden laptop story, claiming they didn't have access or proof. He did however report the intel community letter claiming it was Russian disinformation, despite there being zero evidence at all.
A gay man in California claimed he was the victim of a random attack, and after the press blasted his story and made hate crime claims, a video was released showing him to be the attacker in the incident.
Tara Palmieri, of Puck News, made the claim that Ron DeSantis had run away from her and refused to address her grilling. Then video of the exchange was provided showing her walking along asking inane questions about Disney characters.
WINNER: Justin Baragona - The Daily Beast
When Donald Trump gave an interview with John Slolomon on Real America’s Voice, technical problems led some to speculate it had been either a fake interview or that Solomon had been duped by a hoaxster. Baragona then produced an interview with Real America’s Voice CEO Robert Sigg, who said that they were conducting internal reviews and training over the alleged journalistic error. There was one problem: Baragona was not speaking with Sigg, but a hoaxster. Their report about a fake interview was entirely based on it conducting a fake interview. The poetic result of all of this is too perfect.
For posterity, here is the headline from @TheDailyBeast announcing that a very real interview on @RealAmVoice was fake, taken from the very fake interview it claimed was real.
— Lie-Able Sources (@LieAbleSources) September 5, 2023
While they have taken down the post it has been archived:https://t.co/0CsFZU94Th pic.twitter.com/8rxWmxBWCU