OPINION
Premium

Washington Post Fact-Check Clears Politician in the Absence of Facts

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Jul 14, 2021
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

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.

07.14.21 (Update)

Body Checking The Fact Checkers – WASHINGTON POST

  • Who needs evidence when you look into the heart of a politician?

Glenn Kessler struggles mightily at times with the conflict between remaining true to his fealty to the Democrats and doing his job. One of the ways the fact-checkers are exposed is how they do not specifically cover most of what Joe Biden says but will diligently go after critics from the Right and put them in line whenever possible.

A case of the latter example comes from Kessler's desire to fact-check this tweet from the Republican National Committee, where it showed Democratic Rep. James Clyburn contradicting himself on the position of voter ID.

Recommended

The Republican Party Has Two New High Profile Members Katie Pavlich
Here's What Kamala Harris Had to Say to the Teamsters. It's Pretty Funny. Matt Vespa

There was a slight problem, but not one that halted Kessler in his reflexive defense of Clyburn. Says Kessler, "This is a snippet of what he said but Clyburn's comments are pretty confusing and contradictory." Well, yes, Glenn, they were contradictory. That was the entire basis of the RNC message; Clyburn was contradicting himself on the issue.

But Kessler kept on, and he ended up defending Clyburn's position in the absence of facts, which is the very basis of Kessler's stated profession.

Reporting On The Mirror – CNBC

It was less than two years ago when Shep Smith surprised many when he resigned from Fox News on the air after a quarter of a century with the network. Many in the press used his departure as a way of indicating how dysfunctional the environment was at Fox, and for a straight news man to up and quit shows the bias of the outlet. CNN gained an exclusive to bolster this narrative.

Now, less than a year after he debuted on CNBC, there is no longer burnishing coverage. The Daily Beast offers a scorching take on problems with the show, though it is heavily reliant on anonymous sources telling of behind-the-scenes dysfunction. One thing is pretty clear, however – the ratings are just not there.

On his debut last fall, Smith drew just over 300,000 viewers, and in the nine months since, he has lost one-third of that audience. Shep is not just doing poorly among the cable news competition, he is lagging on his own network.

- "The show is currently the seventh-highest rated program on CNBC and 11th in the key demographic of viewers between the ages of 25 and 54 years old."

Pulitzer Prize Nomination – WASHINGTON POST

It has become a regular practice in the press to go after Tucker Carlson from the standpoint of his racial stances on his show, in particular his battle against Critical Race Theory. In so doing, it has not been uncommon to see profiles where items from Tucker's past are mined as a means of displaying his alleged pathological racism.

The article, "How Tucker Carlson became the voice of White grievance," is right in line with the practice, beginning as it does with an anecdote from two decades ago. This is hardly the best of this piece. Michael Kranish reaches back to when Tucker was 7-years-old. He cites passages from Tucker's book mentioning how his 1st Grade teacher was an emotional hippie, less interested in teaching basics as she was bemoaning societal strife.

Kranish gets to the source in order to expose Carlson. In speaking to the retired educator, she is dismayed at her portrayal. 

- "'Oh my God,' she said, when informed of Carlson's attack against her. 'That is the most embellished, crazy thing I ever heard.'"

There you have it; Kranish has rebutted Tucker by unearthing a 45-year-old lie. What this passage about the white host commenting on his white elementary school teacher has to do with his views on CRT today is not entirely clear.

Presentation Paradox – NBC NEWS

In order to underline the discord within the company and to push forward a desired agenda, NBC News reports energetically on a growing number of employees rebelling against Amazon. There is a book the company is offering for sale that has some of its workers upset, leading to a petition being issued within the employee structure and even leading to resignations.

What NBC fails to realize is the scale of this uprising. 

The conflict is over the fact the company is selling a book that is critical of transgenderism. An internal petition was created on an internal message board and has led to hundreds of signees. The lack of action by the company sparked the resignations. Now, on to the data.

Amazon has, according to NBC, 1.3 million employees. The petition was started back in April, and after three months, it has garnered less than 500 signatures. The amount of people who quit – has been two. NBC thinks this is a noteworthy response, enough to highlight how a fraction of a percentage of the Amazon workforce is in favor of book burning.

DNC PR Firm – REASON

The folks at Reason really stuck it to the GOP over the voting rights issue – according to the folks at Reason. They try to paint Republicans with only one of two brushes on the issue; they are either racist, or they are blindly party allegiant. Interesting when the writers at the outlet abandon reasoning, as they turn emotional in a barely-researched piece.

Polls show strong support across the country for most voter ID laws, in the range of 75%. The numbers among minority voters are mostly in line with this.

So, a question for the folks at Reason: When looking at the 70% of Black voters who support voter ID, are they being partisan or racist?

07.14.21 (Original)

Artisanal-Crafted Narratives – CNN

There is a flood of Trump-based books, and Michael Wolff, among them, had "Landslide" just released. He was on CNN's "New Day," and the question came up about the controversy of Fox News calling the state of Arizona for Biden and Wolff's contention in his book that Rupert Murdoch made that decision. Fox News has disputed Wolff's account vehemently. 

Not only is Murdoch no longer with the network, having left as leader last summer, but it was long reported why Fox analyst Arnon Mishkin made the call, along with the Associated Press, who Fox partnered with that night on election metrics. Wolff, however, stands by his claim that Rupert Murdoch was the force behind the decision, and he accuses Fox of manipulating the facts as the network disputes this claim.

- "They just lie. I'm Rupert Murdoch's biographer. So, I've spent more time with Murdoch than any other journalist, not in his employ. At this point in my life and career, I know what Rupert thinks before he thinks it. There's no question here. I don't suggest this – I know for a fact this is what happened."

Mind reading: now held up at CNN as a verified source of corroborative fact-finding.


Gilded Reframe – CNN

  • Sure, those books by Fox News are selling better, but they do not count! 

As these books are released, Brian Stelter had to address an uncomfortable reality. After pushing Wolff's book on their network and also supporting another anti-Trump release, Michael Bender's "Frankly, We Did Win This Election," Stelter grudgingly acknowledges that, while they were performing well at Amazon, a couple of other titles were performing better. Mark Levin and Jesse Waters have books out as well, and they were positioned above those favored titles. 

This uncomfortable reality was framed by Stelter in typical fashion; those books from the Fox personalities just do not qualify as real best-sellers...we have to guess?

- "In a display of our fractured state of the union, two Fox hosts are even higher on the chart: Mark Levin is at #1, and Jesse Watters is at #2. The difference, of course, is that Levin and Watters don't do any reporting. They just bitch and moan about others' reporting. There are markets for both, with very little overlap..."

Reporting On The Mirror – THE ATLANTIC

Dylan Byers reports at NBC News that Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic is nervous about the fortunes of his outlet. Byers reports that Goldberg is looking at the financials of the magazine and is concerned over the prospects ahead. The reason – even though they experienced a pandemic-fueled rise in subscribers last year, it did not lead to profitability. In fact, it led to the opposite.

- "Even with last year's substantial surge, the magazine had lost more than $20 million and was on track to lose another $10 million this year, according to slides of the presentation shared with NBC News."

Looking ahead, Goldberg sees cause to be concerned.

- "'We did four years of business last year,' Jeffrey Goldberg said in an interview. 'One of the core challenges is, how do we keep all those new subscribers?'"

Pulitzer Prize Nomination – POLITICO

In trying to grapple with our current political climate and the divisiveness on display, Politico's Elana Schor reverts to the practice of using shorthand to divide everyone into one of only a pair of categories. This is the old practice usually beginning with, "There are two types of people –." It is a reductive and simplistic practice, setting up a prefab framework with which to write a lengthy think-piece that is usually empty-minded.

To analyze our national angst, Schor dredges up an old Slate column (never a wise idea) that employs this tactic in the most inane fashion.

- "Muppet Theory, a little-known, poorly understood philosophy that holds that every living human can be classified according to one simple metric: Every one of us is either a Chaos Muppet or an Order Muppet."

This is the foundation for Schor's intellectual analysis. "It's a useful taxonomy that also explains a lot about today's Republican Party."

Anti-Social Media – MSNBC

This serves as your regular reminder that MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace is a conservative. That is how she is billed, that is why she is turned to for comment on GOP policies, and that is why she is featured as a show of diversity of thought on the network. I need to remind you of her stature because Wallace manages to avoid delivering anything that approaches a conservative perspective on her program. 

For her latest, Wallace fretted over the anxiety Democratic voters feel that Biden is in power as we witness "the greatest rollback of access to the right to vote in modern history." As another reminder, we feel the need to let Wallace know that she is referencing the many states altering their voting standards, many of which are still not installing laws that are as restrictive as the current voting laws in Biden's home state of Delaware.

Pounce Of Prevention – CNN

  • The big concern for Democratic Party problems – getting the GOP to stop noticing.

On "New Day," Hakeem Jeffries came on to discuss the challenge of his party possibly becoming too woke. 

John Berman did his share of work on behalf of Jeffries' party, pointing out how those dastardly Republicans are using Democratic policies against them!

- "The way that some of this stuff is being used against Democrats could be harmful to Democratic aspiration. So how concerned do you have to be about how certain things are being used against Democrats, whether it was defund the police, which was last year, and most Democrats said they don't want to defund the police anyway?"