OPINION

Celebrating Media Mayhem With the Heckler Awards - Part 3: The Individual Categories

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To recognize the breadth of this journalism implosion that we cover daily in the “Riffed From the Headlines” column we are awarding an honorarium dubbed "The Heckler Awards." The flood of media malpractice was so extensive we can deliver the (dis)honors seen in the press in four stages: Industry-wide issues, independent examples of notoriety, and then the final two parts covering the categories seen in the column. 

In this, the third installment we start digging into the categories involving the outlets or named journalists. In each category we have the nominees, with the winner highlighted. Let’s get to handing out the trophies to the degraded news sources or news makers from the past last year. 


Heckler Awards Pt. 1 - Media Trends

Heckler Awards Pt. 2 -- Individual Special (dis)Honors



STEALTH STORY EVOLUTION - Outlets that altered content on the sly

  • After publishing an editorial by Matthew Walther where he explained at length why he does not participate in voting during elections it was exposed that he had an active voting record. The headline was casually altered as a result.

  • Considering how much editorial oversight is supposedly employed with book publishers, it was amazing to see Jen Psaki called out for falsely claiming in her memoir that Joe Biden never checked his watch during the military body transfer for the fallen Afghanistan soldiers. The fraud was spotted as soon as the book hit store shelves and the publisher expunged that entire passage in digital copies and secondary printings.

  • Fox 26 News in Houston spiked a historically stunted report that declared Donald Trump would become the first president to serve a second non-consecutive term.

  • In the wake of Joe Biden pardoning his son, Esquire columnist Charles Pierce tried to normalize the act by stipulating that previously George Bush pardoned his son Neil in similar fashion. The magazine issued a correction, then spiked the column entirely, given that Bush never did anything of the sort.

WINNER - “60 MINUTES”

The vaunted TV news magazine ran into a buzzsaw of controversy when it ran a Sunday morning promo for its upcoming interview with presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The nonsensical meandering answer from Harris was so roundly mocked that day that by the time it was broadcast many noticed her onscreen answer was altered, along with numerous other notable edits and jump cuts in her responses. The network explained this was due to time constraints, but what made no sense was why an answer that fit into a 90 second teaser clip could not be included in the full primetime broadcast.


REPORTING ON THE MIRROR - When the newsmakers are the news story

  • After MSNBC severed the new contract when pundits literally threw a fit over the network hiring former GOP party head Rona McDaniel, other NBC News reporters fretted this would affect them getting sources inside the GOP.

  • When a story broke that reporter Olivia Nuzzi had some type of sordid relationship with Robert Kenndy Jr. it was speculated this was leaked by her recently separated fiance’ Ryan Lizza. In the end both lost jobs as a result of the melodrama.

  • When Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos dictated that the paper would take a neutral position and not endorse any candidate for president it caused a revolt at the paper leading to a number of resignations.

  • At Axios the founders, upset with the shifting landscape of news media, drew up a list of sources that 12 categories of news consumers turn to. They labeled any conservatives negatively (e.g. “MAGA Mind-melders”), while any on the left were far more favorable, such as “Liberal Warriors”, or Axios readers being called “Elite Power-consumers”.

WINNER - POLITICO

In a grand investigative piece, the outlet found that reporters who fly with the presidential contingent have been looting Air Force 1 of anything that is not bolted down, leading the the White House Correspondents Association issuing a warning to its members. In one example: “Several colleagues of one former White House correspondent for a major newspaper described them hosting a dinner party where all the food was served on gold-rimmed Air Force One plates, evidently taken bit by bit over the course of some time.” 


RACE TO THE BOTTOM - The most pathetic attempts at injecting race into a story

WINNER (in a close contest) - Joy Reid, MSNBC

With the controversy swirling over the potential removal of Joe Biden from the party ticket, Ms. Reid decided it was a racist move by rich whites in the party. She decided it was somehow racist to push out the white guy in favor of the POC female candidate.


PROSE AND CONTRADICTION - When reports manage to disprove within themselves

  • After a couple of shootings taking place on the same weekend the Today Show felt the need to include a recent gun ruling in its report. “The weekend shootings come just days after the Supreme Court struck down a Trump-era ban on bump stocks.” Then we are also told how this connection had absolutely no reason to be in the report. “The shootings from over the weekend did not involve bump stocks to our knowledge, but experts say if they did, they could have been so much worse.”

  • After Joe Biden’s brain melt was exposed, Olivia Nuzzi explained that she had long known this was the case, but stories of that nature sometimes take months to compile. Yet, she was reporting on the current state of things a couple of days following Joe’s debate debacle.

  • Stephan Colbert was interviewing CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and in the course of a serious discussion he mentioned the CNN was truly an objective network. At the mention of this serious line the audience erupted in knowing laughter.

  • Chuck Todd tried to insist that Michelle Obama is one of the best non-political speakers – after she gave a political speech at the political convention for the upcoming political election.

WINNER - Laura Strickler, NBC NEWS

In a deeply trenchant report that was debunking claims that illegals are able to vote the explanation is that they do not actually vote because it is illegal to do so. (People here illegally will not vote illegally, goes that logic.) Then towards the end of the report she not only lists municipalities allowing illegals to vote but confirms that in Texas alone thousands were found to have voted why they should not have done so.


PRE-WRITTEN FIELD REPORTS - Examples of reports completed before committing journalism

  • On Saturday Night Live they mocked Donald Trump over the use of the term “De-banking”, as if it were a made-up term, and the ignorant audience also thought it was an uproarious error on his part.

  • Newsweek printed a piece on Mick Jagger insulting Ron DeSantis, and the governor’s office was contacted for a comment only after it was published.

  • Garrett Haake declared that J.D. Vance suggesting the Democrats did not choose Josh Shapiro for the Vice Presidency because he was Jewish was an anti-semitic comment. Haake’s own network had previously reported on that very same detail.

  • In a discussion with a seismologist about recent offshore earthquakes, Jake Tapper had to ask if they were being triggered by climate change.

WINNER - PROPUBLICA

Coming up with its own hit piece on Pete Hegseth, ProPublica spent days in contact with West Point regarding the possible acceptance of him at the academy. The outlet spoke with a number of representatives and then had its piece ready before contacting Hegseth’s people with a 60-minute window to respond before publishing. They ended up killing the story when they finally learned he had an acceptance letter to disprove the entire premise.


PRESENTATION PARADOX - Reports that defy the accepted media narratives

  • NBC News dispelled the claims of Haiti having cannibals by pointing out that Republicans are focusing on the gangs that are eating people, including one dubbed “The Cannibal Army”.

  • In order to counter the developing news of Joe Biden’s mental condition being exposed the NY Times declared that the real problem is that this reality will be feeding directly into the conservative conspiracies about his mental condition.

  • After Donald Trump’s work at a McDonald’s, Brian Stelter said two days later the only reason it was still a story was due to conservatives making it an issue. He had to be shown all of the news outlets still reporting on it, including CNN.

  • After the election the masterminds at The Bulwark were so concerned with Trump ruining the nation by becoming authoritarian. The solution, according to these wizards, was for Biden to make authoritarian moves to prevent Trump authoritarianism. 

WINNER - Linda Qiu, NEW YORK TIMES

In an effort to disprove a Fox News report that there were tens of thousands of missing immigrant minors the paper declared this was entirely misleading. They went on to explain these kids are not missing, they are simply unaccounted for. “These children were not “lost,” though the report chided immigration officials by noting that without an ability to monitor the location of the children, they were more susceptible to “trafficking, exploitation or forced labor.”


POUNCE OF PREVENTION - When reactions by conservatives are more serious than the news item

WINNER - Laura Kelly, THE HILL

While at the same time the press was insisting that Kamala Harris was the last person in the room for all major administration decisions, whenever the Afghanistan withdrawal was mentioned suddenly, she was no longer in the zip code, and somehow Trump became the responsible party.


Pathological Media Amnesia - When reports are made defying prior reports on the same issue

  • The Washington Post had a surprising report on bee populations reaching record numbers. We say “surprising”, because we prior had been told bee populations were collapsing – from WaPo. 

  • The Associated Press had to join in claiming Trump was racist for saying Kamala Harris was Indian American - just like the AP had reported 8 years before.

  • At Axios Emily Peck told us not to call the Kamala Harris place for grocery inflation “price controls”. A year earlier we were told in Axios the U.K. implementing this policy was called “price controls”...by Emily Peck.

  • Amazingly the New York Times within 10 days declared global warming could decrease snowfall, AND lead to more snow.

WINNER - Mika Brzezinski, MSNBC

When the crew at “Morning Joe” wanted to address the violence seen on college campuses, hostess Mika said, “What are these universities doing? Why aren't they doing something? And I'll echo the horror that this does look like January 6th.” Sometime after this Al Sharpton was on another episode and invoked that same date to refer to the violence, and he was rebuked. “Good Lord! Don’t make a parallel to January 6!” 

This came from Mika Brzezinski. She said it just…two - days - later.


NEWS AVOIDANCE SYNDROME - The press showing bias in what stories it will not cover

WINNER - Various Outlets

For the bulk of the Biden administration, we have been told crime rates were plummeting (despite no definite Biden policy credited, curiously enough.) We previously covered how the brand-new FBI data collection was deeply flawed, leading to lower numbers. Once the FBI got around to updating their data and showing an actual increase in crimes no news outlets were interested.


MATCHING MEDIA MEMORANDUM - When the same message is shared across the media landscape

  • Following the State Of The Union speech, since Biden did not fall asleep or drool for half of the delivery, across the news spectrum they declared that this had been a “Fiery” speech from Biden.

  • When a new law was passed in Florida to correct misconceptions for schools regarding the parental Rights In Education Law, despite no changes in the legislation outlets declared that this rescinded the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

  • After lobbying for Joe Biden to be removed, many of the same press members said this was a selfless act, with many declaring this placed Biden on par with George Washington.

  • Despite an IG report showing more than two dozen FBI informants had been present on January 6 – with half entering restricted areas - the press lit up to say it proved there were no “undercover AGENTS” on site that day.

WINNER - VARIOUS OUTLETS

Just ahead of Biden’s debate meltdown there was a flurry of news clips emerging showing Biden in various forms of problematic conditions and speaking erratically. The White House fell back on a novel description for these accurate portrayals, and suddenly every news outlet was declaring accurate depictions of the president to be “Cheap Fake Videos”.


LOW OCTANE GAS LIGHTING - Noting completely fabricated news items

WINNER - Jeffrey Goldberg, THE ATLANTIC

The Executive Editor of the outlet published a completely debunked report, based on anonymous sources, claiming Trump vulgarly insulted a fallen soldier in racist fashion to refuse paying for funeral costs. People named at that meeting came forward to deny any of it was accurate, as well as the family of the soldier, and their lawyer. When called out for this, Goldberg called those in attendance liars, and dismissed the words of the Gold Star family in rude fashion.


LEGALIZED PRESS-TITUTION - Blatant support for Democrats from press members

WINNER - Al Sharpton, MSNBC

After the election disaster, and the financials of the Kamala Harris campaign was made public, it was discovered that the campaign had shelled out $500,000 to Al Sharpton to get a favorable interview in October. The network has been shamed and remained mostly silent about this blatantly unethical discovery.