There need be no doubt anymore: America's mainstream news media hypes fake news — and that's a fact.
This past week was disastrous for the press. A slew of fake stories rained down, pushed by anxious anchormen placed in powerful posts. And we want to note before we go on, that ALL of this happened in a single week.
On Friday December 1, ABC News reported that former national security advisor Michael Flynn was ready to testify that Donald Trump, while still a candidate for president, directed him to contact Russian officials. That would've been a big no-no. But it wasn't true. The network waited most of the day to issue a "clarification" that said president-elect Trump directed Flynn to reach out to the Russians — a huge difference, as incoming administrations routinely begin communications with foreign leaders.
The stock market plunged on the "news," dropping 350 points. A day later, the reporter responsible for the story, Brian Ross, was suspended for four weeks and the network said he would no longer cover President Trump.
On Monday, CNN's Jim Acosta, who is trying to become a star by berating Trump at every turn (and not by, say, being a **** good reporter), said, "When journalists are attacked, journalists have to resist." That rings of the Democratic Party's mantra to "resist" (and we'll note that that's not at all what good journalism is about). To Acosta and others who regularly cover the White House, this is what "journalism" is today.
On Tuesday, Reuters and Bloomberg, two left-leaning wire services that have bashed Trump from the outset, reported that special counsel Robert Mueller had subpoenaed Deutsche Bank for records on Trump and his family members. But that wasn't true, either. The Wall Street Journal later reported that the subpoenas actually didn't target Trump and his family, but rather "people or entities close to Mr. Trump." Big difference (or as Trump would say, "yuuuuuge").
Then on Friday, CNN reported that Donald Trump Jr. and senior Trump campaign officials — possibly even Trump himself — received an email on September 4, 2016, directing them to what CNN said were unreleased WikiLeaks documents that may have been hacked from the Democratic National Committee. That, too, would have been a giant story, but it was all wrong — again.
The date was wrong — and the date was the whole story. Turns out the email was sent on September 14. See, WikiLeaks dumped a trove of documents on September 13, so someone sending Trump Jr. an email on the 14th — the day after the dump — means that someone was simply alerting him to the fact that there were documents out there, publicly available.
BONUS: On Saturday, a Washington Post reporter tweeted out a photo of a rally Trump was holding in Florida, which showed a half-empty Pensacola Bay Center. But the photo was taken long before the president spoke — when the entire arena was packed to the gills.
But let's stick with Friday and the CNN story. At 11 a.m., "The Most Trusted Name In News" did a 13-minute report on the WikiLeaks email, with reporters and anchors breathlessly detailing the ramifications. Under a blaring chiron of "BREAKING NEWS," anchor Kate Bouldwin opened the segment with this declaration: "More emails, more problems for Donald Trump Jr."
The network cut to reporters in the field, showed elaborate flow charts, and had two bald-headed "experts" explain what it all meant.
But let's stick with Friday and the CNN story. At 11 a.m., "The Most Trusted Name In News" did a 13-minute report on the WikiLeaks email, with reporters and anchors breathlessly detailing the ramifications. Under a blaring chiron of "BREAKING NEWS," anchor Kate Bouldwin opened the segment with this declaration: "More emails, more problems for Donald Trump Jr."
The network cut to reporters in the field, showed elaborate flow charts, and had two bald-headed "experts" explain what it all meant. See for yourself (it really is amazing how far CNN went to hype a false story):