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Riffed from the Headlines: Do We Have a Record for the Fastest Debunked Story Ever?

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Jun 07, 2021
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

This is Townhall's daily VIP feature, where we will focus coverage on the deeply flawed aspects of journalism in the nation. We'll look to bring accountability to the mishaps, misdeeds, manipulations, malpractice, and manufactured narratives in the mainstream media.

06.07.21 (Update)

Pulitzer Prize Nomination – THE WASHINGTON POST

The Washington Post rushed into print a strong hit piece regarding the governor of West Virginia, Jim Justice. It was a juicy article tailor-made for the paper, with a Republican politician passing legislation that would end up enriching them in the end. "GOP governors are cutting unemployment aid. Some have ties to businesses that may benefit," blares the headline.

Except...

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The subheadline explains things further, and you come to a dawning that what they are pointing out is the very reality this same press corps has been trying to deny for months.

- "In West Virginia, the governor announced he was ending extra federal pandemic jobless benefits. Soon after, the resort he owns saw an uptick in job applications."

Ummm...your scandalous hit piece is actually revealing that the story of government benefits holding down job growth is being proven out here. Sometimes the intent behind a report is not as important as the fact that you eventually arrive at the truth. 

Gilded Reframe – CNN

Late last week, we detailed how Don Lemon was on the CNN morning show "New Day," suggesting it was time to begin stepping away from Trump coverage, given he is a mockable figure and that he was not in office any longer. Despite Lemon earning praise from many over this declaration, Brian Stelter promptly ignored the advice on Sunday's "Reliable Sources."

He lent not only full coverage of the speech Trump gave Saturday evening to the North Carolina GOP but also brought on Dan Abrams, the publisher of Mediaite. Stelter uses Abrams to justify retaining coverage ad nauseam of Trump and even managed to explain, unintentionally, why they are reliant on covering the man they also insist is a liar who should not be listened to any longer. 

  • STELTER: "Do these stories about Trump on Mediaite still do a lot of clicks? Do people still pay attention?"
  • ABRAMS: "Oh, Yeah. They still do very well."

Well, that justifies it all, doesn’t it? 

DNC PR Firm – CNN

Now, we do not want to imply that Manu Raju has a particular agenda or that he is working on a particular obsession with Joe Manchin and his position on the filibuster. So we will show it to you instead.

Artisanal-Crafted Narratives – THE MIAMI HERALD

To suggest The Miami Herald is on a particular mission to discredit Governor Ron DeSantis is not an understatement. To say they have failed to do so in an almost uniform fashion is also an accurate assessment. On Friday, the paper insisted on highlighting, yet again, the disgraced whistleblower Rebekah Jones in another effort in their futility. This time the paper came into possession of a trove of emails, focusing on correspondence between Jones and former Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Jared Moskowitz. 

While The Herald insisted these emails showed trouble and trauma within the state department of health, they committed one mistake in basic journalism. The entire article was based on information from Jones, and plenty of her quotes, with nothing to be heard from Moskowitz himself. This was a grave error, given that Moskowitz had some perspective to lend on the matter. 

Moskowitz explained to Politico, in another Friday posting, that he developed a line of communication in order to feel her out to glean details on who was feeding her intel and disputed many of the quotes she claims he made, noting they are nowhere to be found in the emails.

"Everything she did was disinformation."

The Tiger Beat – USA TODAY

White House beat reporter Courtney Subramanian was aboard Air Force 2, en route to Central America, when Vice President Kamala Harris came to the press pool and passed out cookies. They were in her own likeness.

This alone would be cause for some concern, and as others noted, there were other reasons as well.

DNC PR Firm – THE NEW YORK TIMES

In another press piece lambasting – yes, again – the inability to end the filibuster, Jonathan Weisman goes full pro-administration at The Times. Just read over these two opening paragraphs, and be ready for a follow-up query.

- "Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia said on Sunday in no uncertain terms that he would not vote for the Democrats' far-reaching bill to combat voter suppression, nor would he ever end the legislative filibuster, a written promise that imperils much of President Biden’s agenda."

- "The bill, which all the other Senate Democrats had supported and the party had portrayed as an urgent effort to preserve American democracy, would roll back dozens of laws being passed by Republican state legislatures to limit early and mail-in voting and empower partisan poll watchers. The measure, known as the For the People Act, would also restore many of the ethical controls on the presidency that Donald J. Trump shattered."

Now, ask yourself this – If that had been written by a PR representative for the Democratic Party, would it sound different, in any fashion at all?

06.07.21 (Original)

DNC PR Firm – THE INDEPENDENT

In her usual fashion, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez created a social media hysteria, this time in attempting to politicize the conditions experienced at her grandmother's home in Puerto Rico. During her visit, she noted her grandmother's residence still had hurricane damage, to the tune of $500 in needed repairs. AOC cited Donald Trump as the cause for her lack of remedy, and many noted that the congresswoman, with two residences and driving a high-end Tesla vehicle, could probably have helped out her relative. 

In an admittedly provocative move (Was it trolling? Was it a stunt? Was it charitable? Was it proving a point? Was it trying to solve a problem? Was it a sincere attempt to raise money for a cause? Was it mean? Was it nice? Was it hilarious? Yes.) Matt Walsh from The Daily Wire began a GoFundMe account to raise money. The Independent described the collection of funds on behalf of the grandmother as an attack.

The fundraiser crossed more than  $100,000 before it was announced that it was shut down by GoFundMe, at the request of the family. The money would have been given out to address the very issues AOC was citing in her original posting, but the funds are denied, all out of political spite, and Walsh will be labeled as an aggressor for a fundraising effort.

Reporting On The Mirror – AL JAZEERA

On Saturday, an international incident was reported when Israeli police arrested a number of protestors, including in the mix Givara Budeiri, a reporter from Al Jazeera. Budeiri claimed that this was an intentional detention, stating that the police knew her and were addressing her by name, and then also in the course of the arrest, she had her hand broken. Much outrage and concern were heard over the mistreatment.

But hours later, on Sunday, Budeiri was released, with cameras capturing her return to freedom. Curiously she not only emerged with no cast on her arm, but she was able to hug and lift small children without any pain or hindrance to be seen. 

Matching Media Memorandum – NUMEROUS OUTLETS

  • The need to build up January 6 into a major event is building up.

In not-so-curious fashion, there is a growing list of journos who feel the need to declare the Capitol riot in ahistorical terms. The president has been leading the charge that the riot was the greatest assault since the Civil War. In seal-like fashion, many journos have been doing their part to bark and clap in unison, making their own declarative historical statements. 

Of course, the shifting needs to take place when uncomfortable historical facts are introduced; 9/11 was an international incident and not domestic, the Oklahoma bombing was not a direct attack on Washington, D.C., the presidential assassinations were political but were not attacks on the government body, the Republicans shot at the softball game were not in the Capitol, the Capitol shootings in 1954 where five congressmen were wounded was not as bad as January 6 because of convenience... 

Pre-Written Field Reports – MEDIA MATTERS

Though written back in May, the keen minds at Media Matters for America chose Saturday night to send out a tweet on their piece stating Lara Trump was going to declare her run for the Senate. This was meant to coincide with Donald Trump's speech to the state Republicans of North Carolina, and MMFA had this timed perfectly – that just had an imperfect story – or, more accurately, that had it entirely wrong. 

As they posted this boast, Lara Trump took the stage to announce that she was not running for the Senate seat, and Donald Trump came out to back Ted Budd for the election. It took less than four minutes to completely blow up the posting. 

Prose And Con-tradictions – CNN

There was a fair amount of media praise for CNN's Jake Tapper after an interview he gave to The New York Times promoting his new book release. During the discussion, he brought up the current state of D.C. politics when Jake began to then mention a variety of GOP politicians he would no longer invite onto his program.

- "I don't think any of them, Scalise or McCarthy or Stefanik, have faced a tough interview at all about it. So I might be willing to interview one of them to talk about this, to talk about their election lies and what they're doing. But I’m not asking for the interview and they’re not eager to do it, no."

Upon this news nugget, Elise Stefanik came back rather strongly with some interesting contradictory evidence. It turns out Tapper's office had been very eager to see the representative make an appearance. 

Once caught, Jake made an attempt to save face, trying to turn this into some kind of self-own by Stefanik. 

The only problem: Tapper had specifically named her; she was not inadvertently admitting to something. But it is a classy move for the CNN celebrity to toss his booking staff under the bus to retain his dignity in the matter. 

GILDED REFRAME – DAILY BEAST

In a curious thread, Justin Baragona of The Daily Beast laid out some of the ratings they have been encountering at Newsmax of late. He gives the overall numbers and mentions how badly certain shows have been tanking, and it does look bad. You cannot argue with the data. 

But this does seem to undercut the primary objection with the network, according to those in the media. They love to point to Newsmax as an incubator of Qanon conspiracy theories and the source for this country's widespread disinformation. We are just confused by the complaints; either they are deeply influential or a complete failure of an outlet not watched by anyone.