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What A Weekend for Media Accuracy
On Friday, the news exploded with the news of what would have been the end of the Trump presidency, a BuzzFeed story about how Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen was instructed to lie to Congress. For the individuals giddy at the prospect, the news spread like wildfire. For the rest of us, alarm bells went off immediately.
And then, came this equally large bomb:
UPDATE: A spokesperson for the special counsel is disputing BuzzFeed News’ report. https://t.co/BEoMKiDypn pic.twitter.com/GWWfGtyhaE
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) January 19, 2019
Later reporting further sunk BuzzFeed’s boat:
After BuzzFeed published its story “the special counsel’s office reviewed evidence to determine if there were any documents or witness interviews like those described, reaching out to those they thought might have a stake in the case. They found none.” https://t.co/GZFdzHwPVK
— Tim O'Brien (@TimOBrien) January 20, 2019
One would think media consumers would’ve learned their lesson about immediately believing narratives involving Trump. You would be wrong.
Later in the weekend, we saw this:
Video shows a crowd of teenagers wearing ‘Make America Great Again’ hats taunting a Native American elder after Friday’s Indigenous Peoples March at the Lincoln Memorial https://t.co/Llu2d3bn3g pic.twitter.com/UZg4Qraqt8
— CNN (@CNN) January 20, 2019
For journalists who spent just a few minutes doing some research before trying to destroy the lives of high school kids and their school, the story fell apart.
https://twitter.com/robbysoave/status/1087088839447977984
Nobody burst Oliver Darcy’s bubble.
This is itself a false statement. News organizations don’t “invent” the news, like you claim. That said, when they get things wrong, they correct the mistakes. Sometimes, people even get fired and lose their jobs. The idea there isn’t any accountability is preposterous. https://t.co/eowzuygaUS
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) January 20, 2019
Published in Journalism
Fake News truly is the enemy of the people.
Don’t forget this article that was removed from National Review Online:
https://archive.li/tlwIV
Here’s Frankovich’s final line: As for the putatively Catholic students from Covington, they might as well have just spit on the cross and got it over with.
In NRO’s defense, they did put it down the memory hole: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/nathan-phillips-covington-catholic-high-school-march-for-life-mocking-students-spit-cross/
Two more current posts from National Review Online, both of which condemn the press for jumping on the Covington Catholic story, and neither of which acknowledge that NRO itself did so too.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/nathan-phillips-lied-the-media-bought-it/
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/when-the-press-sees-red/
Shouldn’t a mea culpa be in order, or am I missing it?
I’m not sure that’s a defense. If you’re going to take on a 17-yo kid you’ve never met and call him “evil” it should be hung around your neck. This calls for more than “Oooops.”
Donald Trump is right. As usual.
There should be serious repercussions for those pundits and celebrities who called for the students to be doxxed or attacked.
They, or at least Lowry, did.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-lincoln-memorial-hoax/
That’s good to see. However, my takeaway is that conservatives (especially Trump supporters) can never absolutely-positively-when-it-has-to-be-there-overnight rely on support from other conservatives.
I agree. And it is not as if NRO made this retraction all that easy to see.
The media will only get worse as “deep fakes” become more prevalent. They won’t even have to keep the pretense of being responsible.
And yes, the media are not held to account. What would help is to bring back the sting of libel laws. Sue National Review into bankruptcy.
Neither Kyle Smith nor MBD are editors who are in a position to offer a mea culpa on behalf of National Review. That responsibility falls to Rich Lowry and he did just that.
I would eliminate the middle three words of the OP title.
<sarcasm off>
<cynicism always on >
This is way bigger than the two latest stories. It began in the Obama administration and accelerated with the election of Trump. What we have with the confluence of the “non-partisan” media with social media is deliberate “flooding the zone”. Keep the stories coming, regardless of accuracy. When one is debunked never acknowledge, just roll out the next story, as long as it is consistent with your overall theme. Force the enemy (non-Progressives) to constantly defend themselves and waste time trying to disprove stories. Provide comforting pablum to progressives, constantly reaffirming their faith, and for those not particularly political create an atmosphere conducive to them believing “where there is smoke, there is fire”.
The words “We are sorry” or “We apologize” or any similar expression appear nowhere. There was no mea culpa.
No, he didn’t.
This is the closest he gets:
Not a word for the student(s) who were slandered by the media and who faced expulsion from their schools due to media lies — lies NRO spread.
When fact checking consists of nothing more than “A guy on Twitter said it’s true” then why even have journalists?
FWIW, mea culpa is an acknowledgement of error, not an apology.
He admitted error and corrected the record. That is more than sufficient.
98% of the commenters at NRO disagree with you.
And?
This is how bad it has gotten. NRO could have put the retraction on the “front page” and not in the corner.
The offending posts were in The Corner.
Should give you pause.
So?
Why, isn’t argumentum ad populum a logical fallacy for a reason?
It is, therefore, an appropriate place for the retraction.
The anger here directed at National Review is senseless. NR made a mistake, acknowledged the mistake, and retracted the mistaken posts. I do not understand why anyone believes anything else is necessary.
I don’t agree simply because of the threats being directed toward the students. NRO was not the only outlet making the error, but could possibly have helped the situation by making the retraction more visible. It would have been the correct thing to do.
Bill Kristol’s new “The Bulwark” is still treating the Buzzfeed story as legit.
Because of course they are.
The student at the center of the story has issued a statement.
Well, they’d be pretty far down on the list. But yes, it would be nice to see some lawsuits directed at media outlets who are endangering kids’ lives.
The Black Hebrew Israelites were at the Chinatown Metro stop in D.C. when I happened to be there on a Friday a couple of years ago. They were preaching hatred of white people in general (with nasty signs). They were also at the Lincoln Memorial when the unpleasantness occurred.