"Riffed from the Headlines" is Townhall's daily VIP feature with coverage on the deeply flawed aspects of journalism in the nation. We'll look to bring accountability to the mishaps, malaprops, misdeeds, manipulations, malpractice, and manufactured narratives in mainstream media.
10.28.21
Anti-Social Media – MSNBC
- Scarborough and O'Donnell delivering your trenchant political analysis.
Because not enough people ignore them on television, MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Lawrence O'Donnell sat to talk on "The Joe Scarborough Podcast" about the prospects of a Donald Trump presidential run in 2024. To say the reasoning is founded in a respectable level of empirical thought would be...well, it would be a lie.
Says O'Donnell:
- "I do know he's going to be 78 years old. I do know he eats too many cheeseburgers. Sooo, he's going to do a certain amount of physical damage to himself between now and then."
Great talk with @lawrence on JFK, the 1968 campaign, and why felonies and cheeseburgers will keep Donald Trump out of the White House. https://t.co/tQXYPr1EnX pic.twitter.com/JqOCKLiaIo
— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) October 27, 2021
Body Checking the Fact Checkers – ASSOCIATED PRESS
In a rather inflammatory piece – complete with a flaming header photo – Amanda Seitz of the Associated Press details how things last year turned into a powder keg of violence and upheaval, and she cites the cause of all this social aggression.
- "The reports of hateful and violent posts on Facebook started pouring in on the night of May 28 last year, soon after then-President Donald Trump sent a warning on social media that looters in Minneapolis would be shot. But it wasn't until after Trump posted about Floyd's death that the reports of violence and hate speech increased 'rapidly' on Facebook across the country."
Well, that just sounds terribly irresponsible and not at all presidential. It also sounds like a lot of journalistic garbage. Not only were there riots and other forms of violence taking place before her claim, she even has the date of Trump's comment incorrect, when it actually took place a day later.
This is rather verifiable. All Seitz had to do was check the date on the tweet from Trump – that was embedded in her article.
Is it too much to ask of a fact-checker to get facts -- I don't know -- ACCURATE ?
— Brad Slager - Gourd Of Thunder (@MartiniShark) October 28, 2021
As @AmandaSeitz claims Donald Trump's tweet on May 28 caused riots, not only they had been raging for days, but the tweet she embeds in her article is actually a day later.https://t.co/tYKgMMgC1k pic.twitter.com/hmDedY3KEX
Both Kinds of Standards – THE DAILY BEAST
- Once again, the press ranks terrorists higher than Donald Trump.
If you felt a disturbance yesterday in the news force, it was due to the fact that The Wall Street Journal dared to allow Donald Trump to write an editorial. The amount of shrieking heard from those not required to read his entry was amazing, made more so by the fact that these same people who desperately want to silence the man cannot stop commenting about him in recidivist fashion daily.
The rather telling detail in all of this is that we did not see near this same level of caterwauling from journalists when The New York Times gave op-ed inches to a Taliban leader, allowing them to spread their agitprop.
Newspapers don’t exist so that powerful people can publish whatever lies they want.
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) October 27, 2021
In fact, that may be one of the very opposite reasons newspapers exist.
Pulitzer Prize Nomination – New York Post
Celebrating and giving exposure to the fruitcakes of the world is just an accepted aspect of the news industry anymore. Case in point – a woman is bragging about how she kept her placenta attached to her child for nearly a week. She even named it...I think unless that was her child she referred to, in which case she was calling her newborn an "it."
It was too hard to focus on the details, as I was way too distracted imagining the aroma in her home as she was traipsing around with a festering piece of afterbirth still clinging to the two of them.
I kept my baby attached to my placenta for 5 days and named it Alice https://t.co/ijdMAnqqIp pic.twitter.com/613FsUpBdd
— New York Post (@nypost) October 27, 2021
Body Checking the Fact Checkers – POLITIFACT
Seriously, when it comes down to this level of nitpicking of statistical data because you saw a GOP member who you do not like only displays your desperation. Ron DeSantis gave a presser where he touted the jobs created in Florida last month and juxtaposed it with the national jobs figure to show how vibrant the economy is in his state.
Well, now you just wait a minute there, governor! The media does not like you, so you are not permitted to have good news going your way! The brains at PolitiFact had to play "Well-yea-but…" in a reaction. They hedged that state numbers fluctuate, the national figure is actually a net total while the gross was bigger, and therefore, even though DeSantis was accurate, they rate him as being HALF TRUE because he is Ron DeSantis, after all.
You can also note that there is never this level of numbers-crunching when it comes to Joe Biden's claim that a $3.5 TRILLION spending package will not cost a single penny.
Recently, Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis said, “The nation reported adding 194,000 jobs in September, and Florida accounted for 84,500.” Florida had a great month for jobs, but his comparison of state and federal figures is more complicated than he lets on. https://t.co/PGawkNcfnK pic.twitter.com/ZXaKA4S1BK
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) October 28, 2021
Pulitzer Prize Nomination – THE RINGER
- A deep exploration into NFL players who the movie 'The Dark Knight.'
Do not expect much in the way of a deep thought experiment here. A whole bunch of players love the movie, and quite a few even have tattoos! That so many have a desire to emulate "The Joker," while admitting the character is actually a terrorist, does not lead to much in the way of introspection.
Now, factor in that so many in the woke NFL have an affinity for a movie that is a metaphor for George Bush's Patriot Act, and it becomes more amusing.
The NFL has nearly two thousand players in their 20s and 30s, and in any group of men that age, you’re going to find a lot who are obsessed with ‘The Dark Knight.’ But the movie seems to resonate with football players on a deeper level.@Danny_Heifetz: https://t.co/vbahmODD5k
— The Ringer (@ringer) October 27, 2021
