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ABC News Has Decades-Old 'Scoop' on DeSantis

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Nov 15, 2023
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

11.14.23

Artisanally-Crafted Narratives – ABC NEWS

  • A yard sign represents a lifetime of political fealty.

First, some backstory. Apparently, there has been a tepid war of words between Utah Senator Mitt Romney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Romney had been moderately insulting, leading to DeSantis becoming moderately dismissive, suggesting that Romney has done very little for people and that he barely knows Romney personally.

UNTIL…!!!

The crowd at ABC News found some disqualifying information! In what they are calling a "scoop," a trio of reporters (that's correct – three) found a yearbook photo of DeSantis holding a sign supporting Romney.

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As he was running for governor of Massachusetts.

Twenty-one years ago. What exactly this is supposed to reveal is not entirely clear.

Gilded Reframe – BBC

  • You keep using that word "standards," but we are not quite sure that you know what that means.

While the press industry has had a deplorable month or so in covering the Israel-Hamas conflict, the BBC has been one of the consistently horrid sources. In just the latest example of media malpractice, we have this apology issued by the network. Initially, in covering the episode playing out at the main hospital inside Gaza (where Hamas has staged a headquarters and was revealed to have stored an arsenal), the Brits made a completely egregious report of things.

Initially, the claim was that "medical teams and Arab speakers were being targeted" by the Israelis. The actual facts? For the move into the hospital – where IDF has been taking steps to either protect or evacuate those in the hospital – the Israeli forces had "medical teams and Arab speakers included" with their personnel.

This anchorette states that the report "fell below our usual editorial standards," but as we have been made well aware, this IS the usual editorial standard at the BBC.

News Avoidance Syndrome – MSNBC

  • This could quite possibly be an admission that Andrea has refused to look at the intelligence.

On the subject of that Gaza hospital – and on the subject of the consistently oblivious news sources – Andrea Mitchell made a rather daft claim regarding the presence of Hamas terrorists staging themselves inside the hospital. This has been standard practice by Hamas for years and has been widely reported. Despite this, in the face of more proof that they were on-site at this hospital, Andrea did all but cover her eyes and ears regarding the latest revelation.

This is a woman who declares herself to be a journalist who wants to openly deny the video evidence, the reports by other news outlets, and even confirmation from our own State Department and intelligence services that Hamas has a command center inside the al-Shifa hospital.

Apparently, Ms. Mitchell is not content with those sources and is awaiting confirmation from Hamas on the matter.

Legalized Press-titution – THE NEW YORK TIMES

  • It turns out, if you ignore one half of the equation, making sense of things becomes twice as easy!

In a thinly veiled attempt to make the case for Hamas – or to display anti-Israel sentiment posturing as intelligent thought – Democratic Party operative and contributor Elizabeth Spiers tries to sound rational by making a wartime comparison to the US. Note the use of the word "tries," because she is not at all rational here.

She might have had a point there, except in her attempt to impugn Israel, she has to do a number of things. First, she sells the canard that Israel is wantonly killing anything that moves in Gaza, leading to rampant civilian deaths. Second, she needs to completely ignore that Hamas is not just a target but has been consistently attacking Israel all this time. The terror group has been launching rockets into Israel ever since October 7 – and then there is the small matter of the numerous hostages they are still holding.

But in her NYC comparison, Lizzy needs to also ignore that Hamas is sending those rockets from civilian locations, staging operations inside of soft targets (such as hospitals), and, therefore, effectively using the populace as human shields. 

If the US were doing any or all of those things in NYC, then it stands to reason we would be expected to be attacked in NYC.

DNC PR Firm – PBS NEWS HOUR

  • That thing, that no one would admit as a possibility, is happening, and it is a complete mystery as to why it is happening.

There is no doubt the press complex in this country was extremely bothered when the Supreme Court decided that Roe v. Wade should not be a federal standard and instead would be sent down to the states, in proper federalism manner. PBS looked into a side effect of this decision and made a curious discovery.

It turns out that in some states (Missouri, in this case) where they decided to go with rather tough abortion laws, there has been an outbreak of men getting vasectomies. In a complete surprise to these journalists, it turns out that when a greater sense of responsibility falls on the public, they become motivated to actually take on more responsible action. It is almost as if those who were saying the solution to this abortion "problem" would be to maybe work on avoiding getting pregnant were actually onto something…

"Riffed from the Headlines" is Townhall's daily VIP feature with coverage of the deeply flawed aspects of journalism in the nation, where Brad Slager looks to bring accountability to the mishaps, malaprops, misdeeds, manipulations, malpractice, and manufactured narratives in mainstream media.