Fake News: Media bias or simply ineptitude?

Fake News: Media bias or simply ineptitude?

Fake News: Media bias or simply ineptitude?

One of the many fronts liberals have attempted to attack President Trump has been his claim that mainstream media publishes “fake news”. Hillary Clinton pounded him on it during the campaign and liberal politicians, pundits and the media itself continued to do so after the election. Recently, however, the same media that has claimed the President is trying to limit freedom of the press has given credence to his claims. Is it media bias or simply ineptitude? Either way, it does nothing to win over readers and subscribers.

One of the latest instances of either bias or ineptitude began with CNN. In a tweet that almost instantly went viral, it reported Donald Trump, Jr., tweeted about Clinton and Wikilinks on the same day he and others in his father’s camp received an email offering them information from hacked documents.

The problem? CNN got the dates wrong. Trump Jr’s tweet went out on September 4th. The email CNN was linking it to was dated September 14th. Those 10 days make all the difference in the world and it should make all of us pause and ask if this was simply a mistake by CNN, its reporters and editors or if it was a calculated attempt by one or more within their organization to cast mud on Trump, Jr., and the Trump camp.

(The correction begins around the 3:30 mark.)

The only good thing CNN did was issue a correction to the story several hours after it broke. However, CBS continued to run with it, especially on social media, for much longer. When it did respond, it initially issued a “Clarification”. Later, only after being called on their failure to correct the story, did they do just that. Again, is this a case of ineptitude or media bias? One mistake is reasonable. Two is coincidence. Does a third make a conspiracy?

Of course, CNN couldn’t leave well enough alone and simply apologize for making a mistake. It had to try to explain why what the actions of its reporters did not rise to the level of Brian Ross. Ross, if you remember, is the ABC newsman recently suspended for falsely reporting that President Trump ordered General Flynn to contact the Russians during the campaign. CNN, instead of making their reporters face the consequences of their actions, made excuses.

Think about that for a moment. If the reporters followed “followed the editorial standards process”, does that mean they didn’t read the documents provided by these “multiple sources”. Or does it mean they didn’t bother checking the documents against the claims of the sources? Either possibility doesn’t speak well of CNN or its editorial standards process. Remember, this was a 10 day gap between when Trump, Jr.’s tweet about Clinton went out and when he, and others received the email. Also, taking into account that 10 day discrepancy, it puts the lie to the claim Trump, Jr., used the hacked documents — or even referred to them. Again, you have to ask: media bias or incompetency?

At least some members of the media are calling on their fellow reporters to straighten up their acts.

At a time when the media, like Hollywood, is reeling under allegations of sexual misconduct, the last thing it needs are these kinds of “mistakes”. More than that, when their readership and viewership is on a steady decline, the media should be focusing on building trust with its customers instead of doing everything it can to tear that trust down. Is it any wonder people are starting to believe media bias is to blame and not simple incompetence or laziness?

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18 Comments
  • parker says:

    The MSM is not about ‘news’ and ‘journalists’ are not journalists. They are the propaganda machine of the Left. But of course, you know that.

    • Amanda Green says:

      Not only that but they no longer see their role as reporting the news. Instead, they want to make the news. Of course, they refer to it as “framing” the news, but they aren’t fooling anyone.

  • Brian Swisher says:

    Ready? All together, now: “Embrace the healing power of ‘and’.”

  • Freddie Sykes says:

    CNN should withdraw its promise of anonymity to these “sources” and publish their names less they lie to other news outlets in the future. CNN has no obligation to protect liars.

    • Amanda Green says:

      The would mean CNN would have to show integrity, as would their reporters. That’s not going to happen any more than we’re going to see other media outlets putting their reporters on notice about not pushing their own political agendas over reporting the real news. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have had the situation with the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel tweeting a blatantly misleading — read false — image and caption from one of Trump’s most recent appearances.

  • Rdm says:

    There is a precisely zero percent chance bias is not at the heart of it – were it simply incompetence the ‘mistakes’ would cut both ways instead of pointing universally one direction.

  • Emma Morrow says:

    God works in hilarious ways.

  • MarkJ says:

    The decline of the MSM began the first time a J-school student breathlessly announced, “I want to help change the world”…and his professor agreed.

  • Blackwing1 says:

    May I offer the following clarification:

    “Once is happenstance.
    Twice is coincidence.
    Third time is ENEMY ACTION.”

    As noted above the lame-stream media is now so rabidly partisan that they can claim to be neither blind nor innocent. I used to use the phrase, “Never attribute to conspiracy what can be accounted for by stupidity”, but the media has so consistently offered purely fictional crises that I no longer believe that they are simply stupid.

    They’ve graduated to just plain evil.

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  • JohnTyler says:

    The media reports “news” the same way Pravda and Izvestia reported the “news” when FDR’s good pal, Uncle Joe Stalin, was ruling over the Bolshevik USSR.
    The difference is that everybody knew that Pravda and Izvestia were government owned and operated by the Bolsheviks, whereas the USA mainstream media can still claim they are not legally owned by the democratic / socialist party. In this respect, the mainstream media is actually more duplicitous and insidious than were Stalin’s propaganda organs.

    There is a slight possibility that some of the media’s on-air propagandists are so stupid and ignorant they actually believe that everything they report is actually unbiased and truthful.
    After all, there are folks who believe the earth is flat or that the holocaust never happened.

  • Steve Sherman says:

    If it were ineptitude it would go both ways but to misquote Ann Coulter ‘Their mistakes always go the same way’

  • Strelnikov says:

    “Mistakes” should, as a natural occurrence, run both ways. These always and ever run one way only. There is no question that this is bias, including, perhaps especially, the “sources” who “misread” the e-mail to the CNN hack who, it being too good to check, ran with it. The sources are almost certainly Dem committee members and/or their staff.

  • GTB says:

    No one is that stupid.

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