Posted on 01/27/2019 6:39:02 AM PST by Kaslin
WASHINGTON -- First, Buzzfeed News ran a story Jan. 16 that asserted President Donald Trump told his long-time private attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about talks with Russia about a Trump Tower in Moscow. The sources? Two anonymous federal law enforcement officials.
By Friday of that week, a thin gruel of a story had put cable news in a ferocious feeding frenzy as pundits breathlessly pronounced that, "if true," Trump should be impeached. Yes, they jumped on an anonymously sourced story that they wanted to be true, then cagily waved the "if true" disclaimer just in case reality intruded.
They would have continued to say "if true" for days, even as no other news organization could verify the Buzzfeed piece, had not Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office ended their glee by issuing a statement roundly debunking it.
To recap, the story was wrong and the only reason to give it credibility was runaway bias. While many journalists hung back and waited to learn more, the public saw an endless spool of anti-Trump pundits who were rewarded for their poor judgment with on-air time and knowing nods.
The next day, another epic media fail was born.
A brief video clip of a white male high school student in a Make America Great Again hat staring silently as a Native American activist stood before him beating a drum and chanting was unleashed on Twitter. A rush to ill-informed judgment followed.
The left dusted off every stereotype in its vault. Twitter users described the moment as a confrontation between smug privileged white teens and a besieged Vietnam veteran proud of his Native American heritage.
CNN contributor Reza Aslan tweeted, "Honest question: Have you ever seen a more punchable face than this kid's?"
In a classic case of confirmation bias, mainstream news outlets went with that narrative that placed the blame on teens in MAGA hats. The Washington Post reported that the high schooler was wearing a "relentless smirk." The story reported the assertion of Nathan Phillips, the Native American drummer, that the kids were shouting, "Build that wall," even though, the story noted, there was no video of the students chanting about a wall. Standards?
The Post story also framed Phillips as he wanted to be framed, the hapless "man in the middle" who was forced into unwanted confrontation.
Later, conservatives posted a video that showed that Phillips, rather than being surrounded by students as he had claimed, actually had approached the students.
The paper also ran a correction on its reporting that Phillips served in Vietnam. He did not.
Nick Sandmann, the MAGA-hat wearing teen, released a statement in which he denied smirking and maintained that he chose to remain silent and expressionless because he didn't want to inflame a tense situation.
Many who posted nasty tweets about the students from Kentucky's Covington Catholic High School deleted them. Some even apologized.
Alas, others argued that white Catholic teens were not entitled to the benefit of the doubt. When White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said she'd never seen people "so happy to destroy a kid's life," an unrepentant Aslan tweeted, "She means a white kid. Brown kids? Well, they belong in cages."
Actress Alyssa Milano refused to walk back the tweet she had posted on the standoff by the Lincoln Memorial: "The red MAGA hat is the new white hood."
Noting that the students were on the Washington Mall waiting for a bus after participating in the anti-abortion March for Life, Milano argued, "Let's not forget -- the entire event happened because a group of boys went on a school-sanctioned trip to protest against a woman's right to her own body and reproductive healthcare."
Translation: Conservatives are fair game.
Conservatives are fair game for virtue-signaling conservatives. Twitter has turned into a forum in which people prove their goodness by berating others as unworthy, and conservatives also trash-talked the students from Kentucky's Covington Catholic High School.
In the heat of the pile-on, the National Review's Nicholas Frankovich tweeted, "As for the putatively Catholic students from Covington, they might as well have just spit on the cross and got it over with." Frankovich later apologized, rightly copped to being "preachy and rhetorically excessive," and deleted the tweet.
When Trump first entered the White House, there was a concerted move to keep him off Twitter because even his own staff was concerned that his often combative bursts on Twitter were, well, unpresidential. Like Aslan today, he would make assertions of questionable accuracy, but stand by them anyway. Two years later, we are all unpresidential and social media in reality is anti-social.
Nice boob Alysa Milano was already having major financial problems —something about an extremely ambitiou$ home improvement project coming at the same time her marketability is waning and her hubby’s career is facing headwind$.
What will happen to her NOW...?
I hope she gets her amazing boobs sued right off.
Chants, cheers and the question of insensitivity: The culture of CovCath
This happens because we refuse to fight back. Alinksy rules dictate that we be held to higher standards and then have those standards used against us. Trump is the only one fighting back and he needs 60 million plus voters to support him.
I questioned the claim he was a Vietnam vet. Phillips would have turned 18 some time in 1973. The war ended in January of 1973. That was cutting it mighty close.
Phillips is a liar. He never once corrected anyone who interviewed him and referred to him as a Vietnam vet.
By the way, when did “baby killing” Vietnam vets become honorable to the left?
Lifestyles, fortunes and futures of individuals AND companies needs to be sacrificed for the gleeful hate the guilty parties inflicted. The future damage to these kids is unknowably enormous.
The media has no shame. They believe in their cause, no matter what.
The ends justify the means.
The consumers of mainstream media are so dumbed down, they don’t even notice.
“By the way, when did “baby killing” Vietnam vets become honorable to the left?”
When he is a Native American that can serve their narrative.
Same with Russia, since when did Democrats hate Russia?
Saw a clip of the children's lawyer, he says the family gave everyone 48 hours to retract and the ones who did not are getting sued." Maggie Haberman at the NYT, The Washington Post, not Kathy Griffith, she apologized within the time fame allotted. He also said libel is hard to prove, but not when your a minor the bar is much, much lower. " He added. "if they didn't retract, then for sure they have malicious intent to do harm."
That standard of having to prove “malicious intent” in order to demonstrate libel is, IMO, used to advance malicious intent. The very fact that the media and some celebrities ran with this story (that advanced a favorite leftist narrative) without fact checking is prima facie evidence that the intent was malicious. Journalists and celebrities who do not have malicious intent would do a little fact-checking before running with a narrative that they are fully aware can cause grave harm to the subject(s) of the narrative.
I wish the whole “malicious intent” standard of proof would be dropped, since it is obvious that it is actually used to shield journalists from any consequence of what is clearly malicious intent.
“if true” reminds me of the cop-out on the Ancient Aliens program: “Is it possible that” aliens came to planet earth to pick up chicks or whatever.
LOL , the tickets for the Grifter Tour started out at several hundred dollars per seat. At one venue they dropped prices to $7.00 per seat and they still barely sold any seats.
LMAO!!
I don’T think it’s pure coincidence that there have recently been two major documentaries on Bill the Rapist’s impeachment and what led up to it.
A whole new generation is being educated about the Clinton scandals and crimes while Ole Bill was POTUS. Now why would the Rat media be bringing this stuff up now?
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