From a fake Internet hoax about patients in Oklahoma crippling hospitals by overdosing on ivermectin to an error-riddled "fact check" providing false cover for Joe Biden after he habitually checked his watch at the dignified transfer of remains of the fallen servicemen and women, the media has had a banner week of lies, damn lies and complete omissions of the truth.
The New York Post has a thorough breakdown of these stories, and I suggest you give their editorial a thorough read. The Post Editorial Board's summation is spot-on:
We’ve listened to media writers bemoan that they cannot control the flow of information anymore. Why are people turning to those dark corners of the interwebs? Well, when you ignore a major presidential scandal broken by a well-respected wire service, exaggerate and obfuscate, then use “fact checks” to try to dismiss the truth, what credibility do you think you’re due?
Damn right.
Rolling Stone's fake media narrative surrounding ivermectin is a case study of the media ignoring all the "valuable lessons" they claimed to have learned after the Covington High School "Smirking MAGA kid" Internet hoax from several years ago.
Remember how every major media outlet ran with the exact same false story about the smart-ass kid with his obnoxious grin who represented all that was racist and evil in the conservative MAGA movement? When the truth about the video finally came out, and they all acknowledged that maybe they lept to some false conclusions because the story fit their pre-conceived narrative, we heard media observers exclaiming they'd "learned a lesson" and wouldn't allow the speed and momentum of social media take control of a story's timeline again.
They promised they'd follow the rules and verify information instead of just repeating a single-sourced story that just happened to fit the world view of the Upper West Side, Chardonnay ANTIFA readers, and viewers that need constant affirmation of their virtue by digesting tall tales about their political opponents.
Along comes Rolling Stone delivering a single-sourced narrative about gunshot victims in Oklahoma (cuz all them there Okies are shootin' each other up, doncha know?) who can't get into a hospital for emergency care because the stupid MAGAts in the Sooner State have all been overdosing on horse de-wormer instead of getting vaccinated.
We have come to expect absolutely nothing from Rolling Stone after the despicable University of Virginia Fraternity Rape Hoax story. What's noteworthy is how the networks and cable news and major print outlets all did exactly what they claimed they'd been taught not to do after Covington.
They all fell for the story, and they repeated it for days without ever bothering to ask the hospital if the story was true.
Oh, by the way, as if it matters, the story wasn't true.
Read the great breakdown by Robby Soave in Reason for more gory details.
But the most egregious error of this past week has to be USA Today's handling of their "fact check" about Biden checking his watch. After finally realizing that their entire thesis was wrong and that Biden had, in fact, checked his watch, thus rendering their entire "fact check" meaningless, they issued the following correction:
Corrections & Clarifications: This story was updated Sept. 2 to note that Biden checked his watch multiple times at the dignified transfer event, including during the ceremony itself. The rating on this claim has been changed from partly false to missing context.
Missing context.
Well, I have some missing context for USA Today.
Let's be clear, the first-hand eyewitnesses to Biden's habitual time checks were the grieving families of the fallen heroes who were sent to their early grave by Biden. They saw him disrespecting their sons and daughters. They saw it, and they spoke out about it and told the world what they had seen the president do.
By attempting to "fact check" the Gold Star families, USA Today was calling these grieving parents and siblings liars.
And nowhere in their "correction & clarification" is there even the hint of an apology. Sometimes publications will throw out a passive-aggressive "We regret the error," which comes too close to sounding like an apology. But without the words "we are sorry," it usually reads more like, "Damn, you caught us."