MAGA propagandists are brilliant at inventing “controversies” and pretending the public is having a major “debate” over them.
Sometimes a story starts in a dodgy outlet like Gateway Pundit or Breitbart, then gets rewritten by other news websites, spread by podcasts, and widely posted on social media. The issue then assumes an appearance of credibility based merely on volume, and sometimes even legitimate news outlets think they must report on it simply because it’s “out there.”
Even the stupidest of lies can gain currency with enough MAGA enthusiasm behind it.
The claim that Haitian immigrants were eating the dogs and cats of Springfield, Ohio, was traced to a woman’s Facebook post passing on something she heard from her neighbor, who heard it from her daughter, who heard it from her friend. A cat whose disappearance may have started the rumor was later found in a basement, uneaten.
But Republicans went big with the pet-eating claim, unconcerned that it put the safety of innocent immigrants at risk. Donald Trump repeated the lie during a presidential debate, and JD Vance even defended the lie, saying it was proper to “create stories” to call attention to real issues. The news media generally tried to knock down the hoax, but a headline calling it the “Ohio pet-eating controversy” didn’t help. There was no real controversy about the facts.
Sometimes there’s a small amount of real news but it gets blown out of proportion. For example, the Republican-fueled “growing controversy” over New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani attending the city’s main 9/11 remembrance event. Some family members of the victims noted that Mamdani’s chief legal counsel once served as a lawyer for a convicted al-Qaeda member whose brother-in-law was a Sept. 11 hijacker. But it’s obvious that the main objection was simply that Mamdani is Muslim.
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani tried to lead the charge, and the media gave him more credibility than he deserved. In the same interview in which Giuliani said he would be offended if Mamdani showed up, he accused the current mayor of being part of a Muslim plot aimed at “taking over certain parts of America and certain parts of Europe.”
ABC reported that ”the debate intensified” because of Giuliani’s comments, but it failed to note his history of political mischief. Giuliani was pardoned by Trump in the plot to overturn the 2020 election, was successfully sued after he falsely accused two former Georgia election workers of election fraud, and was disbarred in both Washington, D.C., and New York. The New York Times, which led its story with Giuliani’s complaints, mentioned his pardon and his smearing of the election workers but not the disbarments.
I’m not saying there was no story there – just not much of one, and Giuliani was the wrong person to hang it on.
I am indeed saying there is nothing to another “controversy” – the Fox News-promoted idea that the WNBA has a “mounting transgender eligibility controversy” amid a “transgender eligibility debate.” There are no trans players in the WNBA, nor any in line to join the league. The whole thing is an attempt to distract people from other issues, including skyrocketing gas prices and an illegal war, by playing the trans card once again.
It’s easier than ever to create the appearance that a topic is “hot.” In the past, a reporter would have to get out of the office and find real people with real grievances. Now, people post things on social media and “journalists” sitting in their basements mine those posts as proof of a “growing controversy.”
Then outlets like Fox News cite the fact that it’s “viral” or that the internet is “going wild” as justification for publishing lame stories. That’s how you get “Starbucks barista did not want to write Charlie Kirk’s name on coffee cup in viral video” and “Social media goes wild over former first lady Michelle Obama’s $4K designer boots.”
Because Republicans hold key positions in government, they have made dishonest conspiracy theories newsworthy – something the media cannot simply ignore. And in many cases, journalists do a good job of reminding the public that mail-in voting is safe, noncitizen voting is so rare as to be meaningless, and vaccines do not cause autism.
But the media need to be sharper. Instead of “FACT FOCUS: Examining RFK Jr.’s claims about measles, autism and diet as head of HHS,” the Associated Press’ headline should read: “FACT FOCUS: RFK Jr. spreads falsehoods about measles, autism and diet as head of HHS.”
An even worse problem than generic fact-check headlines is the click-hungry media’s “just asking questions” gimmick:
Newsweek: “Did Kamala Harris Pay Beyoncé $11M for Endorsement? What Records Show”
WRAL.com in North Carolina: “Fact-check: Are COVID vaccines linked to higher miscarriage rates?”
And this US News & World Report classic from 2016: “Was Antonin Scalia murdered?”
The answers to those three headlines are no, no, and no.
The Scalia conspiracy theory was fueled by a Trump comment: “They say they found a pillow on his face, which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow.” (Fact check: They didn’t find a pillow on his face. Scalia’s family asked people to move on.)
Good journalists ignore fake “controversies” if they can. But when a lie becomes prominent enough to demand fact-checking, they must do so without giving scanning readers the impression that the lie might be true. It’s the duty of news outlets not to metastasize misinformation.
This week’s media atrocity
Last Thursday, Trump led his cult members in a pledge to “cheat like hell” in the midterms. That’s a direct quote. But major media downplayed it, apparently thinking it was just Trump’s rhetorical playfulness. If legacy news outlets haven’t learned by now, they never will. We’ll have to defeat the fascists in spite of them.
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What can Democrats do to shame news media into being more responsible? Republicans spent decades working on mainstream media and building right-wing media. Surely Democrats can pull reporting back toward truth-telling if they pursued a strategy of their own. What would it be?
Media just eagerly jumps in with both feet IMO. And they know all of this stuff is heinous BS...they have to know they are assisting a bunch of greedy psychopaths in wrecking this country. I guess they all sold their souls.