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Media Meltdown of the Week
It’s no secret to many (all?) of us here that the mainstream media has an inherent left-wing bias. Instead of reporting objectively as they claim to do, reporters from ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and countless newspapers consistently inject liberal bias.
Never before has this been more clear than during the Kavanaugh saga when reporters repeatedly threw journalistic standards into the trash just for the opportunity to peddle unsubstantiated rumors about the judge’s childhood and college years. Who needs standards when there’s a larger mission at stake to destroy a good man’s reputation? With this sign that media bias is worsening rather than improving, it is useful to document the media’s most egregious moments.
Let’s begin this week with NBC’s shameless misrepresentation of a point President Trump made at a rally in Lebanon, OH.
As he often does, the president went off on a tangent during his speech. But unlike most of his tangents, the president constructively engaged with some United States history — and factually, too!
He recounted the lengthy list of generals President Lincoln went through in the Civil War before he came to the effective Ulysses S. Grant. Of course, the reason Lincoln went through so many leaders of the Army of the Potomac was because Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was so skilled. One might even say he was “great,” as President Trump did at the rally.
Cue the bias. NBC News was quick to tweet the following: “WATCH: President Trump says ‘Robert E. Lee was a great general’ during Ohio rally, calling the Confederate leader ‘incredible.'”
As one can see, the tweet deliberately misleads the millions of Americans who rely on NBC as a news source. On top of that, the tweet states that Trump called Lee “incredible” when in fact he used that word to describe Grant.
We should be thankful that after a prolonged backlash — and input from President Trump himself — NBC News finally issued a correction. It only took them two days to get around to doing it.
By that time, Politico had already published an article entitled “Trump praises Robert E. Lee during Ohio rally,” while The Washington Post went with the headline “Trump calls on blacks to ‘honor’ Republicans with votes, then praises Confederate general Robert E. Lee.”
If you relied on the mainstream media — as millions of Americans do — you would have come away believing the president had just uttered racist blather while idolizing Robert E. Lee. Who knows how many national reporters retweeted the nonsense without bothering to offer the correction or even just honest context.
Of course, there were plenty of other embarrassing moments for the media this week. How about Washington Post reporter Paul Kane tweeting, “2010 right-wing anger/mobs played a role in dehumanizing Congress, helping lead to Giffords shooting in 2011?” Or how about CNN hosts’ strange dedication to not allowing their token conservative guests to label left-wing mobs as “mobs?”
Rest assured, there will be plenty of media bias to cover moving forward!
Published in General
You don’t have to go to the MSM. Fred Cole put it on Facebook.
We’ll never run out. Too bad we can’t burn it in our automobiles.
Few say Rommel wasn’t a great general, even though the cause he fought for was odious. Why Lee?
Of course Lee was an incredible general. He won battle after battle outmanned and outgunned. Lincoln offered him command of the Army of the Potomac at the start of the war. He went through multiple commanders trying to find someone who could match Lee.
One more thing, at the end of the war Lee was asked to continue the fight , try a guerrilla war. Instead he instructed his men to surrender, go home and be good Americans.
Shame on the Left for their demonization of Lee. He was an honorable, decent man who fought for what he considered his home. It’s a crime to judge him by current standards.
Do the fools on the Left not realize that someday someone may judge them by standards they can’t even imagine in the future?
That’s despicable. And just what I would expect from @fredcole . Seeing him officially associated with Ricochet makes me question my membership here.
But you know what? I’m not gonna let myself be driven off. Bring it.
Was @fredcole posting #fakenews again?
Why is it so hard for so many people to understand that a person can admire the capabilities and skills of an opponent even if you don’t agree with the cause for which he he is fighting?
As a lawyer, I can appreciate the capabilities of opposing counsel. In fact, I’d rather have a good lawyer on “the other side” because bad opposing lawyers force me to spend time and energy on irrelevant or stupid elements of the matter.
NBC had to run a correction on its Trump praises Gen. Lee coverage. This article has a link to the video of Trump speaking.
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2018/10/14/nbc-belatedly-corrects-fake-news-story-on-trump-and-robert-e-lee/
Trump set up Lee as a great General in order to praise Gen. Grant for beating him. He was celebration victory over Gen. Lee.
It’s downright shameful behavior on behalf of these media organizations. Every time they do something like this they make the country objectively worse. Whomever wrote that initial headline should be fired and the same goes for those who wrote the articles spreading the lie.
President Trump was 100% in the right on this and is owed an apology.
I’m glad to see fellow members using this opportunity to rally the Ricochetti around something 99.99% of us agree on, rather than to snipe at the one person who disagrees (and who posted that disagreement off Ricochet).
I think it’s time for a National Conversation™ about the lying mainstream media.
I beg to differ. He’s a representative of Ricochet, as a contributor, a place for “center right conversation”. And his facebook post was on the Ricochet facebook group. That reflects directly on the site.
This story is as fake as it gets.
The post is not from “the Ricochet Facebook group.” It’s on a closed FB group created by members that is not directly affiliated with Ricochet.
@alfrench‘s using the post’s first — first! –comment to attack someone for comments made off Ricochet has likely made the post unpromotable (not that I have any direct say in the matter). It’s a shame, as it’s a good post.
But I guess it’s more important to kick the pariah than to defend the president from unfair accusations.
[Addendum: Al offers a classy apology below.]
Just so everyone knows, here is Ricochet’s official FaceBook page:
https://www.facebook.com/Ricochetdotcom/
It is different from the Rico 2.0 closed FaceBook group, which isn’t affiliated with Ricochet.
I’ve been pretty vociferous in defending the President and Lee on this. It’s embarrassing at this point that Ricochet has an official relationship with Mr Cole. Make him a common member (bound by the COC like the rest of us) and I don’t have a problem, I’m more than ready to debate his positions.
I’m not sure if you can properly call someone with Contributor status a “pariah.”
But I actually don’t wish to silence Fred. I invite him to expand his comment to an entire post. And put it on the Main Feed, please.
This discussion seems to have strayed far from the subject proposed for discussion in the OP. In order to be fair to the author of this thread, could those commenting please return to it? Thanks.
I’ve said my piece.
I agree. Pretty much everyone on the right can get behind the sentiment of this post. Once again we are treated to the spectacle of the MSM making up controversy out of thin air.
Contributors are bound by the code of conduct. If you see a contributor violating the code of conduct on Ricochet then flag that contributor like anyone else. We do not control what contributors do off of Ricochet.
Ok. I thought from prior kerfuffles on Rico that contributors were not bound by the COC.
Well, now you know.
You are right, Tom. I shouldn’t have posted that. I apologize for derailing the thread. I’d redact the comment, but it is probably too late.
Apology accepted, @alfrench.
The apology is to @swampymillenial as well.
The funniest thing is that the tweet aggregation site Twitchy predicted it would happen.
Good on ya.
Too bad others are incapable of learning from your example.
On October 12th the media starts telling the lie and almost immediately gets slapped down. But two days later the lie is still being spread. At some point you have to wonder where being misinformed stops and deliberately lying begins.
I’m willing to hand-wave a lot of it away as “People assume the worst and don’t do their due diligence.”
But sometimes — this being a prime example — the evidence is so clear that you have to assume bad motives in some of the people spreading it.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.