• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Podcast
  • Full Measure
  • Blog
  • Donate

Sharyl Attkisson

Untouchable Subjects. Fearless, Nonpartisan Reporting.

  • US
  • World
  • Business
  • Health
    • Vaccine, Medical links
  • Special Investigations
    • Attkisson v. DOJ
    • Benghazi
    • “Collusion v. Trump” TL
    • Fake News
    • Fast and Furious
    • Media Mistakes on Trump
    • Obama Surveillance TL
    • Obamacare
You are here: Home / astroturf and media manipulation / 99 Media Mistakes in the Trump Era: The Definitive List

99 Media Mistakes in the Trump Era: The Definitive List

January 22, 2019 by Sharyl Attkisson

  • 10K
  • 15K
  • 75
  •  
  •  

Updated Nov. 20, 2019 

Click here to support independent journalism at SharylAttkisson.com

We the media have “fact-checked” President Trump like we have fact-checked no other human being on the planet—and he’s certainly given us plenty to write about. That’s probably why it’s so easy to find lists enumerating and examining his mistakes, missteps and “lies.”
 
But as self-appointed arbiters of truth, we’ve largely excused our own unprecedented string of fact-challenged reporting. The truth is, formerly well-respected, top news organizations are making repeat, unforced errors in numbers that were unheard of just a couple of years ago.
 
Our repeat mistakes involve declaring that Trump’s claims are “lies” when they are matters of opinion, or when the truth between conflicting sources is unknowable; taking Trump’s statements and events out of context; reporting secondhand accounts against Trump without attribution as if they’re established fact; relying on untruthful, conflicted sources; and presenting reporter opinions in news stories—without labeling them as opinions.
 
What’s worse, we defend ourselves by trying to convince the public that our mistakes are actually a virtue because we (sometimes) correct them. Or we blame Trump for why we’re getting so much wrong. It’s a little bit like a police officer taking someone to jail for DUI, then driving home drunk himself: he may be correct to arrest the suspect, but he should certainly know better than to commit the same violation.
 
So since nobody else has compiled an updated, extensive list of this kind, here are:

99 Notable Mistakes and Missteps in Major Media Reporting on Donald Trump

 

1. Aug. 2016-Nov. 2016:

The New York Post published modeling photos of Trump’s wife Melania and reported they were taken in 1995. Various news outlets relied on that date to imply that Melania—an immigrant—had violated her visa status. But the media got the date wrong. Politico was among the news agencies that later issued a photo date correction.
 

2. Oct. 1, 2016:

The New York Times and other media widely suggested or implied that Trump had not paid income taxes for 18 years. Later, tax return pages leaked to MSNBC ultimately showed that Trump actually paid a higher rate than Democrats Bernie Sanders and President Obama. 
 

3. Oct. 18, 2016:

In a Washington Post piece not labelled opinion or analysis, Stuart Rothenberg reported that Trump’s path to an electoral college victory was “nonexistent.”
 

4. Nov. 4, 2016:

USA Today misstated Melania Trump’s “arrival date from Slovenia” amid a flurry of reporting that questioned her immigration status from the mid-1990s.

 
 

5. Nov. 9, 2016: 

Early on election night, the Detroit Free Press called the state of Michigan for Hillary Clinton. Trump actually won Michigan.
 
Nancy Sinatra via Twitter

6. Jan. 20, 2017:

CNN claimed Nancy Sinatra was “not happy” at her father’s song being used at Trump’s inauguration. Sinatra responded, “That’s not true. I never said that. Why do you lie, CNN?…Actually I’m wishing him the best.”
 

 

7. Jan. 20, 2017:

Zeke Miller of TIME reported that President Trump had removed the bust statue of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office. The news went viral. It was false.

8. Jan. 26, 2017: 

Josh Rogin of the Washington Post reported that the State Department’s “entire senior administrative team” had resigned in protest of Trump. A number of media outlets ranging from politically left to right, including liberal-leaning Vox, stated that claim was misleading or wrong.
 

9. Jan. 28, 2017

CNBC’s John Harwood reported the Justice Department “had no input” on Trump’s immigration executive order. After a colleague contradicted Harwood’s report, he amended it to reflect that Justice Department lawyers reportedly had reviewed Trump’s order.
 

10. Jan. 31, 2017:

CNN’s Jeff Zeleny reported the White House set up Twitter accounts for two judges to try to keep Trump’s selection for Supreme Court secret. Zeleny later corrected his report to state that the Twitter accounts had not been set up by the White House.

11. Feb. 2, 2017:

TMZ reported Trump changed the name of “Black History Month” to “African American History Month,” implying the change was untoward or racist. In fact, Presidents Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had all previously called Black History month “African American History” month.
 

12. Feb. 2, 2017:

AP reported that Trump had threatened the president of Mexico with invasion to get rid of “bad hombres.” Numerous publications followed suit. The White House said it wasn’t true and the Washington Post removed the AP info that “could not be independently confirmed.”
 

13. Feb. 4, 2017:

Josh Rogin of the Washington Post reported on “Inside the White House-Cabinet Battle Over Trump’s Immigration Order,” only to have the article updated repeatedly to note that one of the reported meetings had not actually occurred, that a conference call had not happened as described, and that actions attributed to Trump were actually taken by his chief of staff.


14. Feb. 14, 2017:

The New York Times’ Michael S. Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo reported about supposed contacts between Trump campaign staff and “senior Russian intelligence officials.” Comey later testified “In the main, [the article] was not true.”
 

15. Feb. 22, 2017:

ProPublica’s Raymond Bonner reported CIA official Gina Haspel—Trump’s later pick for CIA Director—was in charge of a secret CIA prison where Islamic extremist terrorist Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in one month, and that she mocked the prisoner’s suffering. More than a year later, ProPublica retracted the claim, stating that “Neither of these assertions is correct…Haspel did not take charge of the base until after the interrogation of Zubaydah ended.” 

 

16. April 5, 2017:

An article bylined by the New York Times’ graphic editors Karen Yourish and Troy Griggs referred to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, as Trump’s wife.

17. May 10, 2017:

Multiple outlets including Politico, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, AP, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reported the same leaked information: that Trump fired FBI Director James Comey shortly after Comey requested additional resources to investigate Russian interference in the election.
 
The New York Times’ Matthew Rosenberg and Matt Apuzzo, and CNN’s Sara Murray reported the information in sentences and paragraphs that omitted attribution, as if it were an established fact. The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker, Sari Horwitz and Robert Costa wrote news articles in the style of opinion pieces and from an omniscient viewpoint as if they were somehow in the mind of Trump. For example, they reported, “Every time FBI Director James B. Comey appeared in public, an ever-watchful President Trump grew increasingly agitated that the topic was the one that he was most desperate to avoid: Russia.” (Other reporters —Reuters’ Dustin Volz and Susan Cornwell— did properly attribute the claim.) 
 
The Justice Department, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe said the media reports were untrue and McCabe added that the FBI’s Russia investigation was “adequately resourced.”

18. May 27, 2017:

The BBC’s James Landale, The Guardian and others reported that Trump wasn’t bothering to listen to the translation during a speech in Italian by Italy’s Prime Minister. They drew that conclusion without asking the White House and based on a video that showed other political leaders wearing large headphones. The Guardian even claimed Trump was fake listening (smiling and nodding). After the reports circulated, the White House stated that, as always, Trump was indeed wearing an earpiece in his right ear.

19. June 4, 2017:

NBC News reported in a Tweet that Russian President Vladimir Putin told TV host Megan Kelly that he had compromising information about Trump. Actually, Putin said the opposite: that he did not have compromising information on Trump.
 

20. June 6, 2017:

CNN’s Gloria Borger, Eric Lichtblau, Jake Tapper and Brian Rokus; and ABC’s Justin Fishel and Jonathan Karl reported that Comey was going to refute Donald Trump’s claim that Comey told Trump three times he was not under investigation. Instead, Comey did the opposite and confirmed Trump’s claim.
 

21. June 7, 2017:

In a fact-check story, AP reported erroneously that Trump misread the potential cost to a family with insurance under the Affordable Care Act who wanted care from their existing doctor.  
 
 

22. June 8, 2017:

The New York Times’ Jonathan Weisman reported that Comey testified Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions told Comey not to call the Russia probe “an investigation” but “a matter.” Weisman was mistaken about the attorney general and the probe. Actually, it was Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch (not Sessions) who told Comey to refer to the Hillary Clinton classified email probe (not the Russia probe) as “a matter” instead of “an investigation.”
 

23. June 22, 2017:

CNN’s Thomas Frank reported that Congress was investigating a “Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials.” The report was later retracted. Frank and two other CNN employees resigned in the fallout.
 

24. December 2, 2017: 

ABC News’ Brian Ross reported that former Trump official Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was going to testify that candidate Trump had directed him to contact “the Russians.” Even though such contact would not be in of itself a violation of law, the news was treated as an explosive indictment of Trump in the Russia collusion narrative, and the stock market fell on the news. ABC later corrected the report to reflect that Trump had already been elected when he reportedly asked Flynn to contact the Russians about working together to fight ISIS and other issues. Ross was suspended.
 

25. July 6, 2017:

Newsweek’s Chris Riotta and others reported that Poland’s First Lady had refused to shake Trump’s hand. Newsweek’s later “update” reflected that the First Lady had shaken Trump’s hand after all, as clearly seen on the full video. 
 

26. July 6, 2017:

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, CNN and numerous outlets had long reported, as if fact, the Hillary Clinton claim that a total of 17 American intelligence agencies concluded that Russia orchestrated election year attacks to help get Trump elected. Only three or four agencies, not 17, had officially done so.
 

27. Aug. 31, 2017:

NBC News’ Ken Dilanian and Carol Lee reported that a Trump official’s notes about a meeting with a Russian lawyer included the word “donation,” as if there were discussions about suspicious campaign contributions. NBC later corrected the report to reflect that the word “donation” didn’t appear, but still claimed the word “donor” did. Later, Politico reported that the word “donor” wasn’t in the notes, either. 

 

28. Sept. 5, 2017:

CNN’s Chris Cillizza and other news outlets declared Trump “lied” when he stated that Trump Tower had been wiretapped, although there’s no way any reporter independently knew the truth of the matter—only that what intel officials claimed. It later turned out there were numerous wiretaps involving Trump Tower, including a meeting of Trump officials with a foreign dignitary. At least two Trump associates who had offices in or frequented Trump Tower were also reportedly wiretapped.
 

29. Sept. 7, 2017:

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman reported Democrat leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi called President Trump about an immigration issue. Trump actually made the call to Pelosi.
 

30. Nov. 6, 2017:

CNN’s Daniel Shane edited excerpts from a Trump event to make it seem as though Trump didn’t realize Japan builds cars in the U.S. However, Trump’s entire statement made clear that he does.

31. Nov. 6, 2017:

CNN edited a video that made it appear as though Trump impatiently dumped a box of fish food into the water while feeding fish at Japan’s palace. The New York Daily News, the Guardian and others wrote stories implying Trump was gauche and impetuous. The full video showed that Trump had simply followed the lead of Japan’s Prime Minister. 
 

32. Nov. 29, 2017:

Newsweek’s Chris Riotta claimed Ivanka Trump “plagiarized” one of her own speeches. In fact, plagiarizing one’s own work is impossible since plagiarism is when a writer steals someone else’s work and passes it off as his own. 
 

33. Dec. 4, 2017:

The New York Times’ Michael S. Schmidt and Sharon LaFraniere and other outlets reported that Trump Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland supposedly contradicted herself or lied about another official’s contacts with Russians. The story was heavily, repeatedly amended. CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, New York Daily News and Daily Beast picked up the story about McFarland’s “lies.”


34. Dec. 4, 2017:

ABC News’ Trish Turner and Jack Date reported that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had recently worked with a Russia intelligence-connected “official.” But the Russian wasn’t an “official.” 

35. Dec. 5, 2017:

Bloomberg’s Steven Arons and the Wall Street Journal’s Jenny Strasburg reported the blockbuster that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had subpoenaed Trump’s bank records. It wasn’t true. 
 
 

36. Dec. 8, 2017:

CNN’s Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb reported that Donald Trump Jr. conspired with WikiLeaks in advance of the publication of damaging Democrat party and Clinton campaign emails. Many other publications followed suit. They had the date wrong: WikiLeaks and Trump Junior were in contact after the emails were published. 

37. Jan. 3, 2018:

Talking Point Memo’s Sam Thielman reported that a Russian social media company provided documents to the Senate about communications with a Trump official. The story was later corrected to say the reporter actually had no idea how the Senate received the documents and had no evidence to suggest the Russian company was cooperating with the probe.

38. Jan. 12, 2018:

Mediaite’s Lawrence Bonk, CNN’s Sophie Tatum, the Guardian, BBC, US News and World Report, Reuters and Buzzfeed’s Adolfo Flores reported a “bombshell”— that President Trump had backed down from his famous demand for a wall along the entire Southern border. However, Trump said the very same thing in February 2016 on MSNBC, on Dec. 2, 2015, in the National Journal, in October 2015 during the CNBC Republican Primary debate, and on Aug. 20, 2015, on FOX Business’ Mornings with Maria.

39. Jan. 15, 2018:

AP’s Laurie Kellman and Jonathan Drew reported that a new report showed trust in the media had fallen during the Trump presidency. But the report that AP cited was actually over a year old and was conducted while Obama was president.

40. Feb. 2, 2018:

AP’s Eric Tucker, Mary Clare Jalonick and Chad Day reported that ex-British spy Christopher Steele’s opposition research against Trump was initially funded by a conservative publication: the Washington Free Beacon. AP corrected its story because Steele only came on the project after Democrats began funding it.
 
 

41. March 8, 2018:

The New York Times’ Jan Rosen reported on a hypothetical family whose tax bill would rise nearly $4,000 under Trump’s tax plan. It turns out the calculations were off: the couple’s taxes would go actually go down $43; not up $4,000. 

42. March 13, 2018:

The New York Times’ Adam Goldman, NBC’s Noreen O’Donnell and AP’s Deb Riechmann reported that Trump’s pick for CIA Director, Gina Haspel, had waterboarded a particular Islamic extremist terrorist dozens of time at a secret prison; and that she had mocked his suffering. In fact, Haspel wasn’t assigned to the prison until after the detainee left. ProPublica originally reported the incorrect details in Feb. 2017.

43. March 15, 2018:

AP’s Michael Biesecker, Jake Pearson and Jeff Horwitz reported that a Trump advisory board official had been a Miss America contestant and had killed a black rhino. She actually was a Mrs. America contestant and had shot a nonlethal tranquilizer dart at a white rhino.
 
Watch Sharyl Attkisson’s TEDx Talk: Is Fake News Real?

44. April 1, 2018:

AP’s Nicholas Riccardi reported that the Trump administration had ended a program to admit foreign entrepreneurs. It wasn’t true. 

45. April 30, 2018:

AP reported that the NRA had banned guns during Trump and Pence speeches at the NRA’s annual meeting. AP later corrected the information because the ban had been put in place by Secret Service.

46. May 3, 2018:

NBC’s Tom Winter reported that the government had wiretapped Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen. NBC later corrected the story after three senior U.S. officials said there was no wiretap.
 
 

47. May 7, 2018:

CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger reported that Trump’s personal lawyer, Cohen, paid $1 million in fines related to unauthorized cars in his taxi business, had been barred from managing taxi medallions, had transferred $60 million offshore to avoid paying debts, and is awaiting trial on charges of failing to pay millions in taxes. A later correction stated that none of that was true.

48. May 16, 2018:

The New York Times’ Julie Hirschfeld Davis, AP, CNN’s Oliver Darcy and others excerpted a Trump comment as if he had referred to immigrants or illegal immigrants generally as “animals.” Most outlets corrected their reports later to note that Trump had specifically referred to members of the murderous criminal gang MS-13.

49. May 28, 2018

The New York Times’ Magazine editor-in-chief Jake Silverstein and CNN’s Hadas Gold shared a story with photos of immigrant children in cages as if they were new photos taken under the Trump administration. The article and photos were actually taken in 2014 under the Obama administration.

50. May 29, 2018

The New York Times’ Julie Davis reported the estimated size of a Trump rally to be 1,000 people. There were actually 5,500 people or more in attendance.
 

51. June 1, 2018

In a story about Trump tariffs, AP reported the dollar value of Virginia’s farm and forestry exports to Canada and Mexico was $800. It’s $800 million.

52. June 21, 2018

Time magazine and others used a photo of a crying Honduran child to illustrate a supposed Trump administration policy separating illegal immigrant parents and children. The child’s father later reported that agents had never separated her from her mother; the mother had taken her to the US without his knowledge and separated herself from her other children, whom she left behind.
 

53. June 22, 2018

MSNBC personality mistakenly stated that Trump had “banned” the Red Cross from visiting children separated from illegal immigrant parents. 
 
 

54. June 28, 2018

After a newsroom shooting, a newspaper reporter falsely tweeted that the shooter “dropped his [Trump Make America Great Again] hat on newsroom floor before opening fire.”
 

55. July 10, 2018

NBC reporter Leigh Ann Caldwell reported that outgoing Supreme Court Justice Kennedy only retired after months of negotiations with Trump that concluded with Trump agreeing to replace Kennedy with Judge Kavanaugh.

Support Sharyl Attkisson’s fight against government overreach in Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI for the government computer intrusions. For more info visit: https://www.gofundme.com/sharyl-attkisson-4th-am-litigation

56. July 16, 2018

Washington Post reporter implied Trump doesn’t understand NATO countries. In fact, Trump met with the Finnish President at the NATO summit. Further, Finland is a NATO partner, just not a member.

57. Sept. 14, 2018

The New York Times issues a major correction (below) to an original “unfair” article about U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.

58. Tues. Sept. 18, 2018

The New York Times falsely reported that a man, Mark Judge, testified he remembered an incident more than 30 year ago in which Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is accused of assault. Judge actually said the opposite: he does not remember such an incident, and that the allegations are “absolutely nuts.” The Times corrected its article in an editors’ note.

59. Sept. 23, 2018

Multiple news outlets report that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosentein has resigned or been fired. Neither turns out to be true. Axios and others eventually “update” and “clarify” their erroneous reports.

60. Oct. 14, 2018

NBC News falsely reports that President Trump praised Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Actually, Trump had praised the Union General Ulysses S. Grant.

61. Nov. 14, 2018

CNN’s Jeff Zeleny reports that President Trump has decided to fire a deputy national security adviser upon the First Lady’s demand. The Wall Street Journal reports the adviser has been “escorted out” of the White House. Later, it’s reported that neither case was true. “This did not happen. She is still here at the WH,” a senior official told the press. The adviser was reassigned to another job.

62. Dec. 24, 2018

It’s discovered that nearly everything written by a Der Spiegel reporter, who had been honored by CNN, about a supposedly racist Trump stronghold town was fabricated–like much of his other work.

Consider supporting the landmark Attkisson v. DOJ/FBI computer intrusion lawsuit: Attkisson 4th Amendment Litigation Fund

63. Dec. 26, 2018

NBC reports that Trump was the first President since 2002 not to visit the troops at Christmastime. But he (and First Lady Melania) did. NBC added a note to its story but left the false headline in place.

64. Jan. 1, 2019

CBS News claimed, in June of 2018, that Trump spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders would retire by the end of the year. She didn’t. As of May 2019, she was still on the job and there had been no correction or editor’s note. The same CBS story also quoted sources as saying the departure of White House assistant Raj Shah was also imminent. It wasn’t. Shah continued to serve seven more months.

65. Jan. 9, 2019

The New York Times issues a correction to a report that falsely stated former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort asked for campaign polling to be given to a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, who has ties to Russia President Putin. Instead, the Times now claims, Manafort actually asked his associate Rick Gates to give polling data to Ukrainian oligarchs –not Deripaska.

While working at Politico, one of the New York Times reporters, Ken Vogel, got caught sending drafts of stories to democratic officials. Another co-author, Maggie Haberman, was considered a “friendly” by Clinton campaign officials who turned to her when she worked at Politico.

“We have had her tee up stories for us before and have never been disappointed. We can do the most shaping by going to Maggie,” wrote Clinton officials in emails.

66. Jan. 11, 2019

Fox TV affiliate in Seattle, Washington airs fake, doctored video of President Trump that altered his face and made it appear as though he had stuck his tongue in and out while giving an Oval Office address.

67. Jan. 18, 2019

The Buzzfeed exclusive with anonymous sources implicating Trump in potentially criminal behavior (that Democrats and pundits said would be the nail in Trump’s impeachment coffin) is refuted in a rare rebuke from Special Counsel Mueller’s office. Buzzfeed stands by its reporting.

Fight improper government surveillance. Support Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI over the government computer intrusions of Attkisson’s work while she was a CBS News investigative correspondent. Visit the Attkisson Fourth Amendment Litigation Fund. Click here.

68. Jan. 22, 2019

The New York Times and Washington Post are among the publications that issue corrections after falsely reporting that an anti-Trump activist had served in the Vietnam War.

Additionally, multiple news employees, including a CNN employee, apologize for mischaracterizing as the aggressors Trump-supporting teenagers at a pro-life rally.

69. Jan. 26, 2019

The UK Telegraph apologizes for all the facts it got wrong in a Jan. 19 article criticizing the First Lady.

Fight government overreach and double-standard justice by supporting the Attkisson Fourth Amendment Litigation Fund for Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI for the government computer intrusions. Click here.

70. Feb. 18, 2019

While some media outlets responsibly reported and properly attributed allegations in the racist attack alleged by actor Jussie Smollett, others did not. Some unskeptically furthered the narrative that Smollett, who is black, was attacked by Trump-supporting racists who put a noose around Smollett’s neck, shouted racial slurs, told him it’s “MAGA” (Make America Great Again) country, and poured bleach on him. While details are still emerging as of this date, Chicago police have stated that Smollett is no longer considered a victim of the crimes he alleged. The New York Times receives special mention here for adding a biased non sequitur in its early reporting that treated skepticism of Smollett’s story as if it were unfounded, and fit in a dig at President Trump’s son.


But the lack of progress in the investigation has fueled speculation about whether the report was exaggerated. The president’s son Donald Trump Jr., who is known to disseminate conspiracy theories on his Twitter feed, retweeted an article this week about Smollett declining to turn over his cellphone to the police.

Sopan Deb, New York Times
Actor Jussie Smollett

71. Various dates: Other faked attacks reported by the news as if confirmed

  1. A week before Trump was elected, Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church in Mississippi was torched and the words “Vote Trump” found painted on the outside. The mayor condemned the incident as a hate crime and stated it was “an attack on the black church and the black community.” However, police later arrested a black church member for the arson. They say the man staged the fire to look like an attack by Trump supporters. Even today, some of the corrected news reports retain headlines seeming to blame Trump.
  2. The day after Trump was elected, an incident at Elon University in North Carolina made national news. Hispanic students found a “hateful note” written on a classroom whiteboard reading, “Bye Bye Latinos.” After the story made news, it was learned that the message was written by “a Latino student who was upset about the results of the election.”
  3. Also the day after Trump was elected, a gay man — reportedly a filmmaker — claimed that homophobic Trump supporters smashed his face with a bottle outside a bar in Santa Monica, Calif. A bloody photo was posted on Twitter, and he was said to have been treated at a local hospital. Police investigated the media reports. They said no complaint was ever filed, there was no evidence of a crime, and a check of local hospitals showed no victim in such an incident.
  4. The week after Trump’s election, a Muslim student at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, claimed Trump supporters pulled off her head covering, and assaulted and robbed her. She later admitted fabricatingthe story.
  5. A month after Trump’s election, a Muslim-American woman claimed Trump supporters tried to steal her headwear and harassed her on the New York City subway. She ultimately was arrested after confessing she made up the whole story.

72. Feb. 26, 2019

It’s as good a day as any to point out that The Washington Post and others reported last November that Trump was imminently about to fire DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. The Post confirmed this with five anonymous sources. The firing was said to be likely to happen the following week.

Nielsen remained on the job for five more months before resigning.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen

73. Feb. 27, 2019

Testimony by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen seemed to put the final nail in the coffin of the “dossier” claim reported by many— that Cohen had visited Prague to meet with Russians to help collude on Trump’s behalf. Cohen told Congress he’s never been to Prague or the Czech Republic, for that matter. McClatchy even reported that Cohen’s cell phone had pinged off Prague towers. Where did this apparently false information come from? “Four people spoke with McClatchy on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of information shared by their foreign intelligence connections. Each obtained their information independently from foreign intelligence connections,” reported McClatchy.

Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen

74. March 1, 2019

The Washington Post deleted a tweet containing false reporting about a January 19 incident regarding a standoff between Trump-supporting pro-life Catholic high school students and a pro-choice Native American activist. The Post wrongly stated, without attribution, that the activist had fought in the Vietnam War. The activist also falsely stated that a high school student had blocked him and “wouldn’t allow him to retreat.” These events were later called into question, and the Washington Post is being sued in a multi-million dollar libel suit over its allegedly false reporting and misrepresentations. The Post also posted an “editor’s note” on this date stating that “a more complete assessment” of the incident contradicted or failed to confirm accounts as originally reported, including that a particular student was trying to instigate a conflict.

75. Various dates

Multiple reporters and media outlets have provided false information and/or quoted incorrect anonymous sources as to the timing of the release of Special Counsel Mueller’s report on Trump-Russia collusion. The Washington Post said it would be out in summer of 2018. Bloomberg said it would be shortly after the 2018 Midterm elections. In February 2019, CNN, The Washington Post and NBC reported the report was coming the last week of February. However, it was not announced at that time.

The release of the Mueller report in April 2019 belies countless news stories over more than two years. The report does not find collusion between Trump and Russia President Putin and also concludes there’s no evidence that any American conspired or coordinated with any Russian. The many who claimed there was hard evidence of collusion in hand proved to be wrong, yet there is no record of media apologies and corrections on these points.

Robert Mueller, former FBI Director, Special Counsel investigating
alleged Trump-Russia collusion

76. May 29, 2019

The Wall Street Journal reports the Navy used a “tarp” to cover the name of the U.S.S. John S. McCain so that President Trump wouldn’t see it on his recent visit to Yokosuka, Japan. (The late Sen. John McCain frequently attacked Trump and cast a deciding vote contrary to McCain’s campaign promise to repeal Obamacare. Trump also attacked McCain and derided McCain’s performance as a soldier in Vietnam where McCain was held as a Prisoner of War.)

After the tarp news is reported, reporters quote McCain’s daughter attacking Trump as if he had given the orders to cover the name.

It is further reported that the U.S.S. John McCain was kept out of Trump’s view, and that sailors wearing hats with the ship’s name on it were turned away and/or given the day off so that Trump would not see the McCain name.

However, shortly after these news reports, key parts of the storyline began to fall apart.

The one grain of truth appeared to be that, in advance of Trump’s trip, a military official sent an email directing that the U.S.S. McCain be kept from Trump’s view. However, importantly, that direction was not followed. Further, Trump and White House aides indicated Trump played no role and was unaware of the direction.

Significantly, military officials stated that it was untrue that a tarp was placed over the ship’s name to block it from Trump’s view. They say it was the other way around: a tarp on the ship for maintenance was removed for Trump’s visit.

Further, U.S. officials said a paint barge in front of the U.S.S. John S. McCain was ordered to be moved for Trump’s visit and was gone by the time he arrived.

The tarpaulin was used as part of hull preservation work on the McCain and was removed on Saturday, two days before Trump delivered a Memorial Day address at U.S. Naval Base Yokosuka, where the McCain was stationed. All ships remained in normal configuration during [the President’s visit.

Cmdr. Nate Christensen, spokesman for U.S. Pacific Fleet, to NBC News

Though the main components of the Wall Street Journal story appeared to have been debunked, the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman oddly tweeted out a statement that the Times had confirmed the Wall Street Journal’s “excellent scoop.”

The main part of the story that the Times seemed to have confirmed was that unnamed White House officials were concerned about Trump seeing the McCain name and that sailors wearing ball caps that sported the ship’s insignia were turned away.

However, CBS News pointed out that “it is possible the reason they were turned away is that ball caps were not part of the dress code for the event.”

U.S. officials said about 800 sailors from more than 20 ships and Navy commands were present for the president’s visit and “all wore the same Navy hat that has no logo, rather than wearing individual ship or command hats.”

Support Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI

77. July 4, 2019

Several news outlets seemed to be victimized by a bad case of wishful thinking when they reported that President Trump’s Fourth of July celebration did not draw crowds. One analysis incorrectly claimed there were “small crowds.”

The Guardian featured a photo of an empty podium in Washington D.C. prior to the celebration and claimed the White House was “struggling” to draw crowds.

However, by any factual assessment, the crowds were, in fact, huge. That’s in spite of the bad weather.

78. January 2019

In January, New York Times, Vice and others reported on the “lost” immigrant children of the Trump administration. However, AP and other fact checks stated this was a misleading term. According to AP, the “lost” children were a matter of the government not being able to track them once placed with sponsors. In some cases this was because the sponsors– many in the U.S. illegally– would not respond to the government’s follow up phone calls.

It’s not highly unusual to fail to keep track of many minors who came unaccompanied to the border. During the last year of the Obama administration, HHS was able to locate 85 percent of the minors or their sponsors, according to an inspector general’s report. The Trump administration slightly exceeded that success rate in the last three months of 2017, even as it is accused of losing children.

Associated Press fact check

79. July 13, 2019

In a story about a lawsuit alleging that candidate Trump forcibly kissed a campaign worker, CNN failed to mention that that lawsuit had been dismissed. It later corrected its story to include the information.

80. July 21, 2019

Many in the media uncritically report a Georgia State legislator’s racist and false claim that a “white” man at a grocery store told her to “go back where you came from.”

Media reports link the supposed hateful comment to President Trump because Trump recently said several Democrats in Congress should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

However, the following day, the legislator acknowledges the man did not say she should “go back to your country” or “go back to where you came from,” as she originally claimed. She goes on to say she told him to “go back.” The man adds he is not white, but a Cuban and a Democrat.

I know I told him to ‘go back.’

Rep. Erica Thomas, Georgia, a day after her original accusations

After the legislator changes her story, the local news plays up the headline that the man “admits he swore,” rather than the far more important acknowledgement that her major claim was false. (See around 2:05 in the video near the end of the story.)

Even after the legislator retracted her original accusation, it remained widely published in national headlines and news reports.

81. July 21, 2019

An MSNBC contributor and law professor falsely tweets that Fox is not going to show upcoming Congressional testimony by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller on the Trump-Russia investigation. When the error is pointed out, the contributor says she was just kidding and deletes her tweet–but not before it has been “liked” and “retweeted” thousands of times.

82. Aug. 2019

Multiple news outlets including CNN and MSNBC falsely reported that an illegal immigrant had her nursing baby ripped from her arms. The mother was not lactating, CNN later acknowledged.

83. Aug. 28, 2019

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell apologizes for and retracts anonymous, unverified claims stating that Trump had loans with Russian co-signers. At last view, it appeared that far more people had seen or remarked on the initial information than the apology.

The now-deleted original tweet by O’Donnell stated: “A source close to Deutsche Bank says Trump’s tax returns show he pays very little income tax and, more importantly, that his loans have Russian co-signers. If true, that explains every kind word Trump has ever said about Russia and Putin.”

Last night I made an error in judgment by reporting an item about the president’s finances that didn’t go through our rigorous verification and standards process. I shouldn’t have reported it and I was wrong to discuss it on the air. I will address the issue on my show tonight.

— Lawrence O'Donnell (@Lawrence) August 28, 2019

84. Aug. 28, 2019

Ken Dilinian of NBC News corrects a false report he and others disseminated claiming that starting October 29, “children born to U.S. service members outside of the U.S. will no longer be automatically considered citizens. Parents will have to apply for citizenship for their the [sic] children in those situations.”

Correction: Experts who have looked at new USCIS policy say it applies if a service member adopts a child overseas, but children born to service members on deployment would still automatically get citizenship. I deleted tweets with the incorrect info. https://t.co/xeu8I3zrkJ

— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) August 28, 2019

85. Sept. 7, 2019

CNN and nearly every major media outlet criticized President Trump for tweeting that Alabama would likely be impacted by Hurricane Dorian. They claimed that was never the case. However, Trump was correct that multiple official hurricane advisories had put Alabama in a projected impacted area.

Watch for yourself.

There is no record of any corrections to these incorrect news stories. In fact, there are multiple follow ups repeating the false claims that Alabama was never in a projected path, and doubling down on the claim that Trump was inaccurate.

Rather than admit an error, some news outlets skirted the issue, parsing probabilities, “would” vs. “could,” the National Weather Service vs. the National Hurricane Center, and whether tropical storm force winds really qualify as hurricane effects.

(Above: Politico title)
(Above: New York Magazine Intelligencer title)

86. Sept. 10, 2019

Citing anonymous sources, CNN reported— and other media repeated– claims that the CIA had to remove a top U.S. spy from Russia in 2017 because of concern over President Trump’s handling of classified information.

The CIA, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and the White House strongly refuted the story. Other media, including The New York Times and Washington Post, also contradicted CNN and reported the decision to remove the spy happened before CNN said it did and for different reasons.

[CNN’s] reporting is not only incorrect, it has the potential to put lives in danger.

Stephanie Grisham, White House press secretary

CNN’s narrative that the Central Intelligence Agency makes life-or-death decisions based on anything other than objective analysis and sound collection is simply false…Misguided speculation that the President’s handling of our nation’s most sensitive intelligence — which he has access to each and every day — drove an alleged exfiltration operation is inaccurate.

Brittany Bramell, CIA Director for Public Affairs

The reporting is materially inaccurate… as a former CIA director, I don’t talk about things like this very often — it is only the occasions that I think put people at risk, when the reporting is so egregious as to create enormous risks to the United States of America, that I even comment the way I just did.

Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State

At least some of the original stories remained posted a day later without correction, clarification or updating to include CIA’s refutation.

87. Sept. 16, 2019

The New York Times publishes an editor’s note about its recent story recounting a newly-reported accusation about an incident decades ago involving Trump-nominated Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

The editor’s note discloses for the first time that the Times never spoke to the alleged victim, and that the alleged victim had told friends she had no recollection of any such event. The Times reporters explained that that information had mistakenly been edited out of the story.

88. July 24, 2019

In testimony to Congress, special counsel Robert Mueller puts to final rest the widespread reporting in 2016 originating with Slate.com that claimed a Russian bank server had been illicitly communicating with Trump Tower. When asked about it by a member of Congress, Mueller replied that “my belief at this point is…not true.”

89. July 29, 2019

Vox.com’s Aaron Rupar tweeted that Trump suggested he was a “9/11 First Responder.” In fact, Trump stated the opposite: “I’m not considering myself a first responder.”

90. Sept. 25, 2019

The Washington Post, quoting anonymous sources, reported that President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence threatened to quit over an alleged whistleblower issue.

Daily Beast headline

However, DNI Joseph Maguire issues a statement indicating the Post article was entirely false. “At no time have I considered resigning my position since assuming this role,” wrote Maguire in a statement.

91. Sept. 25, 2019

The Daily Beast and other media outlets reported that President Trump asked the President of Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, eight times in one phone call.

Daily Beast headline

However, the released transcript notes reveal Trump mentioned Biden’s son (not by name) one time. However, many in the media claimed the “eight times” allegation was really true because they counted each phrase in which Trump referred to possible corruption or the need for some sort of investigation.

(There are other areas of possible mistaken reporting regarding the same phone call, but they are generally subject to interpretation.)

92. Sept. 29, 2019

CBS News’s 60 Minutes reports “the government whistleblower who set off the impeachment inquiry of President Trump is under federal protection because they fear for their safety.”

Shortly after that report, the attorney for the unnamed “whistleblower,” Mark Zaid, tweeted out a statement that read: “NEWS ALERT: 60 Minutes completely misinterpreted contents of our letter.” (Sixty Minutes says it stands by the Scott Pelley report.)

93. Sept. 30, 2019

When a black girl claims white boys at school held her down, cut off her hair and called her “nappy” and “ugly,” the story makes national news. Multiple news outlets improperly report some details as if they are established as true, without proper attribution. For example, NBC writes, “The attack happened Monday…” and “The second boy grabbed her arms, while the third cut off some of her dreadlocks.” A local NBC affiliate writes: “…she was at recess and about to go down a slide when one of the boys grabbed her and put a hand over her mouth. Another boy grabbed her arms. A third boy cut off some of her hair.” CBS writes, “The incident took place…” (as if an incident had been factually established rather than was an allegation).

Many news reports also connect the attack to President Trump’s Vice President, Mike Pence, by stating that the “attack” happened at “a Christian school in Virginia where Vice President Mike Pence’s wife works.”

However, it turns out there was no attack or “incident.” Three days after the initial reports, the child’s family reported the whole story was made up, and they apologized.

94. Oct. 13, 2019

ABC airs video purportedly showing a “slaughter” and “horrific report of atrocities” against Kurds by Turkey after President Trump withdrew U.S. troops. (The video is allegedly not combat video at all.)

CORRECTION: We’ve taken down video that aired on “World News Tonight" Sunday and “Good Morning America” this morning that appeared to be from the Syrian border immediately after questions were raised about its accuracy. ABC News regrets the error.

— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) October 14, 2019

95. Oct. 16, 2019

Many major news outlets including Yahoo, USA Today, Roll Call, NBC, ABC and Fox quotes President Trump as saying Turkey’s invasion of Syria “is not our problem.” In a subsequent correction, NBC and others said, Trump actually said “it’s not our border.” However, hours after NBC’s correction, the initial allegedly false quote remains on Yahoo, USA Today, Fox, Roll Call, the Washington Times and other news sites.

96. Sun. Oct. 27, 2019

Multiple media claims state that President Trump was golfing during the U.S. raid in Syria that captured the head of the Islamic terrorist group ISIS, al-Baghdadi; and that a White House situation room photo had been “staged.” It turns out, according to later reports, that Trump had finished golfing and was at the White House during the operation. (Obama White House photographer Pete Souza had apparently originally tweeted out incorrect information on timing.)

97. Nov. 16, 2019

Rampant speculation ensues after a contributor to The Hill claims  President Trump visited Walter Reed National Medical Center due to chest discomfort. A White House statement from Trump’s physician issued two days later stated that was not the case.

“Despite some of the speculation, the President has not had any chest pain, nor was he evaluated or treated or any urgent or acute issues. Specifically, he did not undergo any specialized cardiac or neurologic evaluations,” the president’s physician stated.

98. Nov. 19, 2019

London’s Daily Mail posts a sensational headline during the impeachment hearings against President Trump. It claims that a key witness, Ambassador Kurt Volker, had “walked back” his testimony in a way that was detrimental to Trump. When Volker was asked, in real time at the hearing, if the Daily Mail headline was correct and he had, indeed, changed his testimony, Volker stated that no. The headline was wrong.

99. Nov. 19, 2019

Agence France Press publishes a sensational story saying that more than 100,000 children are being held in migration-related detention in the U.S. under President Trump. It turns out that was the number in 2015 under President Obama.

AFP is withdrawing this story.

The author of the report has clarified that his figures do not represent the number of children currently in migration-related US detention, but the total number of children in migration-related US detention in 2015.

We will delete the story. https://t.co/p30UjEWl7u

— AFP news agency (@AFP) November 19, 2019
Thank you to the thousands who are supporting the landmark case of Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI for the government computer intrusions.

Fight improper government surveillance. Support Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI over the government computer intrusions of Attkisson’s work while she was a CBS News investigative correspondent. Visit the Attkisson Fourth Amendment Litigation Fund. Click here.


  • 10K
  • 15K
  • 75
  •  
  •  

Filed Under: astroturf and media manipulation, News, Special Investigations, US Tagged With: Clinton Foundation, corrections, errors, ken vogel, Maggie haberman, media bias, media mistakes, New York Times, politico, trump

Sharyl Attkisson

About Sharyl Attkisson

Emmy-Award Winning Investigative Journalist, New York Times Best Selling Author, Host of Sinclair's Full Measure

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. AvatarGreg Goatley says

    June 10, 2018 at 2:55 pm

    It seems obvious that there is a well coordinated resistance effort to feed “news’ tips and lies to the national media. It’s likely a continuation of the Clinton campaign which started pushing the Russian narrative the day after the election. ( See Shattered”.) Today’s journalists are lazy. They wait for something to come in over the transom and just go with it. A good news organization would find the source of this coordinated effort and those holdovers in the administration who are leaking.

    • AvatarAlan says

      June 18, 2018 at 2:06 pm

      I do not think it has anything to do with being lazy. These commies are not playing “fast and loose” with the facts either. Both of these accusations would indicate that these coordinated attacks were incidental. THEY WERE NOT! You CANNOT have this kind of tsunami of lies and deception by accident. These worms know that the corrections they make, if any, get no where near the viral traction of the original smear piece. This is EXACTLY why Rush calls them the “Drive By” media. This has been going on at a feverish pitch since the end of the Clinton era. Now, it has been taken to an unbelievably whole new level.

      • AvatarKevin c Hastings says

        June 23, 2018 at 9:23 am

        you are very correct. The media today is dominated by communist ideolgues and has been since the end of WW2. Even the sainted Edward R Murrows best friend committed suicide when he found out that Hoover himself was coming to arrest him for consopiring with the Rosenburgs to sell the Hbomb info to the Russians. Any guesses who told him the FBI was coming for him? Most of us in our 60s remember what Cronkite, Blather and Huntley did to undermine our soldiers in Nam, how in 2004 the “media” (Blather, Mary Mapes and the 60 minutes 2 show) tried to use blatant, obvious forgeries in an attempt to undermine Ws re-election, The “media” is the biggest of all the enemy within, which also includes many “lawyers”(hence judges) and many in academia.

      • AvatarG. Alistar says

        January 23, 2019 at 3:01 pm

        Hmm, I think the d moderate media w not into hiding for eight years during Obama’s presidency. All that rest and they woke up ready to go with their fake news in Nov 2016

    • AvatarDudley C Lightsey says

      June 18, 2018 at 6:02 pm

      Now that is a reporter

    • AvatarWayne B (rain) says

      June 18, 2018 at 11:03 pm

      The link to the book is still wrong, it is missing a : after https

    • AvatarMickey Walker says

      June 19, 2018 at 2:46 am

      Fully Agree. Trump is making America Great Again and cleaning the Swamp a little at a time.

    • AvatarBill Wood says

      June 19, 2018 at 7:54 am

      Thanks for a well researched and detailed (but only partial) list of media deliberate misleads. It will bookmarked and kept for later use. I would send a copy to my liberal rag of a newspaper but it would not have a chance in he11 of being published. I notice that the TV ratings are showing FOX to have a commanding lead in cable news viewership. At least most folks will have a fair shot of getting the accurate news but even Fox with their ‘fair and accurate’ shouting matches contribute to the misinformation at times.

    • AvatarRichard1725 says

      June 19, 2018 at 8:15 am

      Our biased MSM is so far left, when they look to their RIGHT…Karl Marx is standing there!

    • Avatarm.secrest says

      July 7, 2018 at 12:31 pm

      Given how extraordinarily ferocious and well-coordinated this attack on the President has been, ever since he took office,it would appear that much more than mere politics is behind all this. One must take account of the huge and powerful multi-national companies who dominate the selection and editing of what news we read. Something the President is saying or doing really must rub them the wrong way. I think I know why & so will everyone else when they connect the dots. Or, as Woodward and Bernstein were famously told, “Follow the money.”

      • AvatarSJohnson says

        January 26, 2019 at 10:48 am

        Follow the money, indeed. That is the whole story that no one is telling because all of the MSM is owned by the world’s richest individuals. They want a one world government and they were well on their way to getting it until we elected Donald J Trump. They will do and say anything to get back on track to Armageddon.
        Great list by Ms Attkisson

    • AvatarTommy says

      January 27, 2019 at 11:20 am

      The real question is, are all of these actually mistakes? I would accept them as honest mistakes if they were also making mistakes in the other direction. This is an orchestrated effort to destroy Trump. It’s not just laziness. They are doing it on purpose. All of these “journalists” are no longer being journalists, but are active participants in Democrat/Liberal propaganda campaigns.

    • AvatarDenise Rogers says

      January 27, 2019 at 4:48 pm

      They report the fake news, take it back after it is already in the minds of its readers who don’t read the retractions/updates; then other media use the fake stories again later, repeating the same lies over again. Most people on the left sadly do not know the truth, they live in the lies, which are not Trumps, but the media.

  2. AvatarStan Welli says

    June 10, 2018 at 3:04 pm

    Great work, Ms. Attkisson! This is truly a mind-boggling list.

    • AvatarRodney Stanton says

      June 10, 2018 at 9:06 pm

      Well done! You clearly spent some time here. Thanks!

    • AvatarBetsy Lynch says

      June 11, 2018 at 9:52 am

      I have watched with great admiration, your steadfastness in the face of oppressive odds.
      Thank you for your work. It is a great service to us all. I was a lifelong liberal until I relocated to post retirement teaching here in Florida. My horror at the outcomes of liberal policies continues, and while I would rather not have voted for Trump, I found it was the only available option.

      • AvatarMark Breza says

        June 18, 2018 at 1:25 pm

        Gander and Goose
        Why trust your government either !o!
        The PolitiFact scorecard

        True27 (5%)(27)
        Mostly True67 (12%)(67)
        Half True87 (15%)(87)
        Mostly False124 (22%)(124)
        False182 (32%)(182)
        Pants on Fire83 (15%)(83)
        Donald Trump

        • AvatarRonald L Van Atta says

          June 20, 2018 at 4:19 pm

          Do you know the difference between fact and opinion? 74% of Americans don’t.

    • AvatarD Bowman says

      June 18, 2018 at 9:18 pm

      Notice how every last one of the mistakes is detrimental to Trump? Truly mind boggling indeed.

  3. AvatarRobert says

    June 10, 2018 at 4:29 pm

    The link to the book from the image is incorrect and leads to a 404 page.
    Remove the extra stuff at the very beginning

    http://https//www.amazon.com/Smear-Shady-Political-Operatives-Control/dp/0062468170/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

    Should look like this:

    https://www.amazon.com/Smear-Shady-Political-Operatives-Control/dp/0062468170/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

  4. AvatarLeonard Pailet says

    June 10, 2018 at 9:26 pm

    About your item: taking Trump’s statements and events out of context

    A slightly different take on what they did also included using an interpretation as a paraphrase. This is not technically taking statements out of context; it is a purposeful misreading of words to impute an entirely different meaning to them than Trump intended. A lot of modern literary criticism is based on this — O the author really meant to say that(thank you, Wolfgang Iser for telling readers that they really are the writer).

    As a PhD with an emphasis in classical/Renaissance rhetoric, I did a carefully study of Trump’s speeches (viewed) vs. what was written by reporters when I read one report and just happened to see the speech by accident that I could click on. That immediately sent me off to see other speeches and compare them. The two biggest problems were interpretation, not paraphrase, and leaving out whole sections of Trump’s argument to link an idea Trump threw out to the audience only to reject in a section that was not mentioned in the report, and to link the rejected section to the conclusion, proving, in their minds, that Trump did not know what he was saying or that he was lying. Trump uses the oral style (not the written style). When you see his speeches, you hear the intonation and see the gestures and facial expression which tell you exactly how serious Trump is about what he is saying. You cannot duplicate this information in print paraphrase.

    • AvatarTerryinBC says

      June 19, 2018 at 12:50 am

      Well writ, and precisely what we (listening to the parrot-media in Canada) have been served, nightly: the worst possible interpretations of his most-clearly-directed-otherwise statements. ‘The Ineffectuals’, pursuing Trumps demise, show themselves not to be credibly incompetent, in this (somewhat correctable) but perniciously malevolent. It’s not even taking sides; it’s search and destroy – journalism’s dark side.

    • AvatarWill says

      June 19, 2018 at 3:53 pm

      A book is in order. I’d buy it.

  5. AvatarBrian says

    June 10, 2018 at 9:44 pm

    #30 should read “as though” instead of “although”. Great list!

  6. AvatarBrian says

    June 10, 2018 at 10:04 pm

    The article mentions “taking Trump’s statements and events out of context.” I used to watch most of Trump’s speeches and other events with him and/or other White House administration officials and almost every time I would see the media misreport or distort what was said in order to make him look bad. Also, they would quite often flat out ignore important events or statements that a normal “free press” society would absolutely find newsworthy and even when they would “cover” the event/statement, they would sometimes focus on a single sentence that they would sometimes take out of context in order to bash Trump’s White House. It became crystal clear why Trump calls the media “fake news” after observing this day after day. The propaganda in USA’s media is sickening. It’s so bad that I’ve completely and *permanently* shut out certain outlets that I used to give my attention.

    • AvatarBob says

      June 18, 2018 at 1:27 pm

      It’s all about the Left feigning ignorance re his intended message(s), they know what they are doing.

      Just like the press went off topic to distract the nation re Bill Clinton’s comment “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” Neither the Courts or most EVERYDAY AMERICANS were fooled by that foolishness.

  7. AvatarDaniel Wall says

    June 10, 2018 at 11:33 pm

    I have to admit, when you first hear these stories they set a negative tone in your head and you can’t help but feel things are going very wrong for our country. Most people never read or hear about the corrections to the initial article.

    • AvatarMary Jacobs says

      June 19, 2018 at 12:51 am

      Thank you Ms Attkinsson for these stunning and horrific examples of media bias. I’ve long suspected the full intent of certain news media outlets is to fully and completely manipulate the truth and obfuscate the facts to gain support for their Leftist agenda. It is NOT incompetence. These stories are reviewed by a minimum of 2 editors, likely more in the large outlets from major cities. They are liberals who never stop acting like the Leftist radicals they actually are. This list is a stunning example of media bias and manipulation. Sad we must work so hard to discover the truth in the reports we read. Thanks again, glad we have someone working hard to expose the manipulators.

    • AvatarDrMichael says

      June 19, 2018 at 10:07 am

      >>Most people never read or hear about the corrections to the initial article.

      That’s the whole idea behind these moves. Most people believe the lies are indeed true so it works for the perpetrators.

  8. AvatarMark Jordan says

    June 11, 2018 at 12:53 am

    I will bookmark this treasure trove. I wish I could memorize it to fire at command but, alas, my memory isn’t that good.

  9. AvatarLeonard says

    June 11, 2018 at 5:09 am

    A lot of the mistakes seem deliberate. The agenda will continue because there are no consequences. We need a News Quality Rating system like we have for the financial system… Triple A, Double AA, B etc. or maybe something like the credit score for credit.

    • AvatarDaveGinOly says

      June 19, 2018 at 12:18 am

      If you a flip a coin and it keeps coming up “heads.” it should occur to you look at the coin and make sure it’s legit. A real coin (with two different sides) wouldn’t come up heads every time. Likewise the media wouldn’t make only anti-Trump “mistakes”; now and then actual mistakes would be pro-Trump. But this never happens.

  10. AvatarStephen Goldstein says

    June 11, 2018 at 9:33 am

    Week or so ago Mike Gallagher has a journalist guest who explained, sure, journalists make mistakes and correct them when the errors are called to their attention.

    I say, thanks to Attkission’s list, we can see how silly this is. If this was a matter of correcting “honest” mistakes, wouldn’t you think that there would be just about as many making the story less critical or less complementary.

    In other words, there would be as many times that the correction lowered the crowd size estimate as raising it.

    Sadly, I can’t recall a single instance of such a correction.

    Thanks Sharyl

  11. AvatarM.L.Johnson says

    June 11, 2018 at 9:33 am

    With all due respect, Sharyl, I’m calling ‘fake news’ on your headline. ‘Definitive’ implies a level of completeness that 50 doesn’t cover. Also, doesn’t ‘mistakes’ sound as if they were inadvertent? ‘Malicious Lies’ would be more accurate.
    But the headline is a minor, tongue-in-cheek quibble, this is a great resource. Thanks for it and everything you do.

  12. AvatarL.J Barnes, Jr. says

    June 11, 2018 at 9:43 am

    Many of us do not even bother with these (William Randolph Hearst type) sources, (NY Times, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN). It would be great if the Republicans would use your listing to show bias in the media and make this a major campaign issue. The voters who only get their news from the so-called main stream would become educated about fake NEWS and biased OPINION.
    So-called journalists have become opinionists (is this a word?) and should be avoided for the sake of our country and (violated) civil rights.
    Well done, and keep up the good work.

  13. AvatarAlan Brandenburg says

    June 11, 2018 at 9:48 am

    Thank you Ms. Attkisson. You have just confirmed that if it were not for Double Standards, the left would have no standards at all. The sad part is, even though these lies finely come to light, the little Fascists on the left still believe the Fake Part.

  14. AvatarChris Z says

    June 11, 2018 at 9:55 am

    Thanks for keeping it straight – #RealJournalism

  15. AvatarJoe Rohde says

    June 11, 2018 at 11:01 am

    Great piece Ms. Attkisson!
    Love that you include the links, making refutation impossible.

    Could we have one of these on the truth behind tariffs?
    Showing the current tariffs between each G7 member and the U.S., with the inception date and financial impact would shed a lot of light on the argument du jour.

  16. AvatarKeith McKenzie says

    June 11, 2018 at 12:24 pm

    Is Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson available in Calgary, Alberta?

    • sattkissonsattkisson says

      June 15, 2018 at 8:35 pm

      For now as far as I know just online anytime at http://www.fullmeasure.news. Thanks

  17. AvatarThomas A Birk says

    June 11, 2018 at 1:06 pm

    The truth is all we really want. Hate having to dissect what is and what isn’t factual. So for that, I thank you!

    Hey Sharyl, got an idea that I think would help everyone better understand spygate: list of all the players involved.
    Under each name a brief background of who they are (including past “missteps”), with whom they associate, and why they are news-worthy.
    I believe this list could paint a very nice big picture of what’s going on.
    I also believe it would show just how lop-sided many of the players’ interests are aligned with the status quo, and Obama and Hillary sicophants.
    Include a “scorecard” of sorts (i.e. Pro- this or that; Anti- this or that)

  18. AvatarSteve Depoe says

    June 11, 2018 at 2:24 pm

    Great work. Very well done. I see no reason #38 could not have been under Trump as well

  19. AvatarJack Rail says

    June 11, 2018 at 5:45 pm

    Wow. Thanks for this list, Ms Atkisson. It’s gonna be helpful in proving liberal lies to liberals who don’t even try to differentiate.

  20. AvatarTomABC says

    June 11, 2018 at 5:55 pm

    Great work again ! It is interesting how many of the cited stories were simply fabrications – often by recidivists. It is also interesting to see how old some of these stories are, how long they have been debunked, and that they are still being repeated today – by our “elite” media.

  21. AvatarMary Ann says

    June 11, 2018 at 9:34 pm

    Sharyl, your work is astounding! This article is impressive, and so well documented. I appreciate you so much! ❤

  22. AvatarGreg Penglis says

    June 11, 2018 at 9:50 pm

    I wrote an article a while back detailing the real quote by Donald Trump, and the total distortion and propaganda of it by the Leftist Media. Sharyl Atkinson I think you’ll find this interesting.

    https://canadafreepress.com/article/are-you-a-conservative-or-are-you-in-the-liberal-propaganda-bubble

    I’d also like to invite you to be a guest on my radio show on 1330 AM WEBY. It’s called “Action Radio” because we have our own citizen legislature writing bills. We don’t just talk.

  23. AvatarJack Camarda says

    June 11, 2018 at 10:37 pm

    Thank you, Sharyl, for keeping these continued attempts by the MSM to promote Trump Fatigue to the low information voter in the forefront of the argument. For my money, you and Judith Miller seem to be the last honest journalists willing to do the legwork, tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may. Just finished, The Smear. I had prided myself on being relatively knowledgeable about such things. Apparently not. In order to escape this barrage of daily drivel, I may have to move to Uruguay, where a dozen eggs is still the equivalent of $.79 USD.

  24. AvatarAbu Nudnik says

    June 11, 2018 at 11:13 pm

    “30. Nov. 6, 2017:” Worse, CNN’s video was in a square format, something I’ve never seen in a video. The quality was extremely poor, leading me to believe it was purposely shot *again* through a square filter using a zoom lens in a malicious attempt to defame the president. The square frame was used to filter out everything that did not contribute to the defamatory story.

  25. AvatarDavid Jay says

    June 12, 2018 at 9:26 am

    But I’m going to believe the mainstream press next time! Without question.

  26. AvatarRalph Gizzip says

    June 12, 2018 at 11:57 am

    And the media can’t understand why POTUS refers to them as “fake news”
    As far as I’m concerned they have zero credibility. My initial reaction to a news story is “Bullshit!”

  27. AvatarKathleen Lovin says

    June 12, 2018 at 12:20 pm

    This is quite a list! Thank you for putting it all in one place so we can all refer back to it. I do have one question: are number 15 and 41 about the same detainee and secret prison?

  28. AvatarJim Austin says

    June 12, 2018 at 1:12 pm

    Media mistakes? I tend to be somewhat less charitable in my evaluations.

  29. AvatarWestcoastdeplorable says

    June 12, 2018 at 4:12 pm

    Thanks for pointing this out Sharyl and for always being a “truth resource”. You’re one of a handful and deserve our respect.

  30. AvatarLucian R says

    June 12, 2018 at 4:23 pm

    Did you intentionally turn a blind eye to mistakes made by Fox News and other conservative media?

    • AvatarGeorge says

      June 20, 2018 at 8:06 pm

      List them.

  31. AvatarKathleen says

    June 12, 2018 at 6:20 pm

    Thank you Sheryl! You and I both witnessed firsthand the degradation of journalism. (CNN for me) I’m sure you too can probably attest to newsroom moments when the change became clear. Edicts to add “flowery” language and (subjective) adjectives to news copy or edicts to post on social media (valuable time that could have been spent developing sources or digging deeper into a story rather than thinking of clever tweets to lure viewers). Your work on this article is much appreciated. Keep it up!!

  32. Avatarwodun says

    June 12, 2018 at 7:28 pm

    It is a nice list but far from including all the instances of the media getting it wrong, sometimes intentionally.

  33. AvatarLynne Berl says

    June 12, 2018 at 8:13 pm

    Thank you for being a real reporter and for this info.

  34. AvatarGreg says

    June 12, 2018 at 9:26 pm

    It’s interesting that all the “mistakes” are designed to hurt or make Trump look bad. Not one “mistake” in his favor. Coincidence?

  35. AvatarMike Montie says

    June 12, 2018 at 10:34 pm

    Thank you Sharyl for correcting the record here, and for the job you do as one of the few “journalists” we have left.

  36. AvatarEskyman says

    June 12, 2018 at 10:37 pm

    An excellent list, though hardly “definitive.”

    You should check out Don Surber’s three books on this subject, which are truthful and hilarious, and which I highly recommend:

    -Trump the Press: Don Surber’s take on how the pundits blew the 2016 Republican race. (2016)
    -Trump the Establishment: The Elitists Never Learned in 2016 (2017)
    -Fake News Follies of 2017 (2018)

    All available on Amazon, or through Don’s website: http://donsurber.blogspot.com/

    It seems like the MSM is determined to provide material for endless books! I’m also getting your book “The Smear,” Sharyl- it’ll fit right in!

    Thank God for actual investigative reporters, and there are none better than you!

  37. AvatarLinda says

    June 12, 2018 at 11:14 pm

    Fantastic Sharyl! Hope this gets out for all the MSM’s viewers can see it. Doubt any of them heard the corrections and therefore still take their original stories as fact!

  38. AvatarAce Edwards says

    June 13, 2018 at 1:33 am

    I love Sharyl Attkisson’s reporting. Please continue to expose lying rat bastards in the media and Deep State.

  39. AvatarJoeV says

    June 13, 2018 at 6:01 am

    The “MMM” Mental Midget Media never lets the truth get in their way. Thank you Sharyl for confirming this and keep up the good work. The liberal media is gradually being taken to their knees! Hooray!

  40. AvatarJoeV says

    June 13, 2018 at 6:06 am

    Thanks Sharyl for exposing the “MMM” (Mental Midget Media) for their dastardly reporting. They never let the truth deter them from falsely reporting or exaggerating the news. Keep up the fine work.

  41. Avatarempty pockets says

    June 13, 2018 at 10:28 am

    We need about 50 more of Ms Attkisson…just for starters. As always, good job in a class above all the rest.

  42. AvatarRedSoloCup says

    June 13, 2018 at 2:41 pm

    They aren’t called “Fake News” for nothing, that’s a fact Jack!

  43. AvatarThe Diplomad says

    June 14, 2018 at 3:01 pm

    Outstanding as usual!

  44. AvatarSteve Burnett says

    June 14, 2018 at 3:39 pm

    You, Ms. Attkisson, are this Volunteer’s favorite Lady Gator!
    I can’t think of another investigative reporter who is a thorough and precise as you are.
    Thank You!

  45. AvatarAlex says

    June 14, 2018 at 7:24 pm

    Wow. The NYT – the paper of record – figures prominently. Either they lie outright or they’re incompetent. Clearly the tactic is: Just put it out there and worry about the consequences later so long as the initial impact stays in people’s minds.

  46. AvatarFred Stevens says

    June 18, 2018 at 11:25 am

    A list like this shows that the media are not making “mistakes.” This is to extensive – it is a purposeful effort to deceive us.

    Why do liberals hate America?

  47. Avatarkemo says

    June 18, 2018 at 11:34 am

    Great Reporting as always from A True Professional. A rare sight in journalism nowadays

  48. AvatarGreg Taylor says

    June 18, 2018 at 11:40 am

    What about the claim that Charlie Rose made about Flynn being “flipped?” That was a top-5 media lie in my opinion.

  49. AvatarGreg says

    June 18, 2018 at 11:42 am

    What about the claim that Charlie Rose made about Flynn being “flipped?” That was a top-5 media lie in my opinion.

  50. AvatarLarry the Cable Car says

    June 18, 2018 at 11:47 am

    If anyone ever wonders why the MSM has a credibility problem these days, this page is a great place to send them

  51. AvatarFrank L Ward says

    June 18, 2018 at 11:57 am

    Congratulations on a well written even handed article. I’ve a feeling that it’s only the “tip” of an iceberg.

    Sharyl; I’ve been following your stories (print/TV) since you left CBS. Thanks for good sound journalism!

  52. AvatarJohn says

    June 18, 2018 at 12:53 pm

    At the end of the day Trump still a National Embarrassment to any sane person!

  53. AvatarGoatOnABoat says

    June 18, 2018 at 12:58 pm

    Why stop at 50?

  54. AvatarYez Iamwontoo says

    June 18, 2018 at 1:15 pm

    My take away from this excellent summary of false reporting, is the media has a clear conflict of interest when it comes to reporting facts, their desire to get ratings, and a rush to be the first to report the news – apparently without due diligence in many cases.

    Apparently the marching orders for the media is to promote their personal views to get their agenda issues highlighted – asking forgiveness afterwards, but knowing they got out the message to persuade others, by hook or by crook.

    Isn’t it ironic the media are those who focus their reporting on everyone else’s failures.

    Good job Sheryl Attkisson, it never hurts to reminded the media how they earned the moniker of purveyors of “FAKE NEWS”.

  55. AvatarMike Markey says

    June 18, 2018 at 1:29 pm

    This proves something that has in fact, been true since the revolutionary war. When it comes to politics and social issues there really is no such thing as “Journalism”. There’s only advocacy and bias for one party or the other, one person or the other and one position or the other on almost every issue. CNN MSNBC CBS ABC NBC PBS the NYT the WAPO and dozens of other print and digital “news” outlets are 100% in the tank for any Liberal Democrat or any Liberal point of view. On the other side you have Fox, a couple of smaller local newspapers, sometimes the Wall St Journal and Rush Limbaugh. The idea that just plain unbiased Journalism exists is ludicrous and absurd. These 50 examples prove the point. None of the Liberal outlets can even report on a Hurricane aka, a weather event, without injecting Liberal politics into it in the form of climate change theories. I have no doubt that if she cared to spend another hour or two digging MS Attkisson could come up with another 50-100 examples. No real surprises here though.

  56. AvatarJess Sain says

    June 18, 2018 at 1:44 pm

    Thank you Sharyl, fabulous reporting. We don’t see much real news from the lamestream so thank you for being a reporter that actually knows how to do her job and do it so very well.

  57. AvatarChris Philips says

    June 18, 2018 at 2:33 pm

    The media have increaingly made a mockery of the great privilege granted them under the First Amendment. No other country offers the press so much freedom, and as the list above shows, they have thrown it back in our faces.
    We the people need to take the country back from those who would give it to a vast federal state to run as simply another department. We are a country of men and women who allow some lawmakers to manage our operations.
    We need to take the wheel back and steer ourselves back to self-rule, starting with the media. Note how no one calls them journalists anymore? They’re not- they’re content providers, scrambling for eyeballls to satisfy advertisers.
    Journalism is dead, with the exception of a few brave and principled professionals like Sharyl Attkisson. God bless you, Sharyl. Keep your powder dry.

  58. AvatarRichie says

    June 18, 2018 at 2:52 pm

    Ms. Attkisson, great job!

    One item that I would like to see added to an updated list is how the fake news handled the Nov., 2017 video of President Trump’s granddaughter, Arabella Kushner, reading Chinese poetry that Mr. Trump presented to Chinese President Xi Jinpinig. While America’s fake news raked Mr. Trump over the coals for what they claimed was cynical opportunistic manipulation of his granddaughter, the Chinese media and public opinion heaped praise and fell head-over-heels in love with Miss Kushner’s performance. Chinese web sites lauded the video as bringing the U.S. and China closer together.

  59. AvatarRon Smith says

    June 18, 2018 at 2:55 pm

    “Once is an accident. Twice is an unfortunate coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”

    Fifty times? The conclusion draws itself…

  60. AvatarRichard1725 says

    June 18, 2018 at 3:02 pm

    Our biased MSM is so far left, when they look to their RIGHT, Karl Marx is standing there

  61. AvatarIb Snooker says

    June 18, 2018 at 3:54 pm

    Missing from the list: Icecreamgate. Only Trump gets two scoops.

  62. AvatarDazzRat says

    June 18, 2018 at 4:30 pm

    They only make mistakes that harm conservatives or Republicans. Loathsome duplicitous hypocritical propagandists. (Also, water is wet and flows downhill. Sorry for restating the obvious.)

  63. AvatarJim says

    June 18, 2018 at 4:43 pm

    “Who? What? Where? When? How?” is dead.
    Now it’s “Here’s what I think, and I’ll skew details in a way that will justify my beliefs!”
    What does a modern Journalism Ethics textbook look like?

  64. AvatarDrDeuteron says

    June 18, 2018 at 4:46 pm

    Every time a reporter or new reader calls President Trump a “reality TV star”, they are engaging in Fake News. DJT was highly accomplished (far more than any community organizer) long before he hosted The Apprentice. Would we call Emmitt Smith a “reality TV star” for being on DWTS? No. When the MSM uses that term, it’s a smear, as if the likes of a J-Wow or Mike The Situation is running the country.

  65. AvatarEarl says

    June 18, 2018 at 5:49 pm

    At almost every Trump rally he would challenge the news outlets to swing the cameras around to show the crowd size. They never did it.

  66. AvatarBjorleif Blank says

    June 18, 2018 at 5:50 pm

    Reading the links to links in “40. March 8, 2018” I find that the error is not from $4k in taxes to $43 in refund – they also forgot to deduct children and parent, for another $1500 in refund. This has not been corrected in the original story.

  67. AvatarRon Lewis says

    June 18, 2018 at 5:55 pm

    Please tell us the real list – the lies they do not say, the most critical omissions, the most deceitful distortions, which issues were framed, and which were elevated for purely political purposes. It’s fun to play Freddy Fact-Checker, but if we let the big lies slide while mucking in this minutiae, corruption remains a harmless freak show for Mom and Pop America to download on NetFlix.

    While you’re at it, Sheryl, investigate whether the increase in dementia cases coincides which the increase in hours spent over a lifetime watching video. And how the very act of making sense out of the flickering images your brain knows is coming from a device, but you have to believe is real people, albeit very tiny, in order to enjoy the activity, essentially opens a subconscious “backdoor” into our brains through which truth and untruth pass equally. Who doesn’t want us to know this?

    Alas, a person needs a stronger palm than I to slap sense into America.

  68. AvatarJoe McDonald says

    June 18, 2018 at 5:57 pm

    How do these clowns still have jobs?

  69. Avatarstonehillady says

    June 18, 2018 at 6:35 pm

    Look, the media just hates Trump because he is not in the Club, and it is known that all the folks in the FBI, the CIA, the DOJ and all the other agencies have being in the bed feeding the media as anonymous sources, because they all expected HRC to win and the treasonist stuff that has been going down for the last 25+ years Trump is going to expose it all. That is what makes everyone’s panties all tied up in knots about Trump.

  70. AvatarAndy Howe says

    June 18, 2018 at 7:11 pm

    There are so many reporters with multiple transgressions that one has to wonder how they manage to keep their job. But then if we depended on most reporters to get their facts straight and not veer off into opinion and conjecture and false narratives, we would have few real reporters left. Oh, wait, we do have few real reporters left. The rest are just mouthpieces.

  71. AvatarHoward says

    June 18, 2018 at 7:22 pm

    Sharyl’s work is incredibly important to our country. She deserves MUCH gratitude for her hard work, dedication and integrity.

  72. AvatarMark T Winkler says

    June 18, 2018 at 7:36 pm

    I have taken the liberty of making a comprehensive list of media mistakes that were favorable to President Trump, which I will post here:

  73. AvatarJohn Denney says

    June 18, 2018 at 7:50 pm

    For me, the classic is when the President tweeted that the FAKE NEWS media is the enemy of the people, and the FAKE NEWS media immediately proved him correct with headlines like, “Trump says the press is the enemy of the people!”

    The FAKE NEWS media seems to be adjective challenged, leaving off, “FAKE NEWS”, in this case, and “illegal” when the topic is “illegal immigrants”.

  74. AvatarSkip Press says

    June 18, 2018 at 9:28 pm

    I’d like to post the 50th response to the 50 to say GOD BLESS YOU, SHARYL ATKISSON!

  75. AvatarGerry Kauffeld says

    June 18, 2018 at 9:39 pm

    “Our repeat mistakes involve declaring that Trump’s claims are ‘lies’ when they are matters of opinion, or when the truth between conflicting sources is unknowable….”

    I’m so pleased to see this reported since I’ve noticed it frequently and for quite awhile, and I’ve been quite irritated that it has continued unchallenged, to my knowledge – until now. Thanks, Ms Attkisson.

    I believe such reporting results from an intentional policy *not mistakes*, at least for some sources. For example, on the twice hourly ABC radio news summaries, almost every assertion or statement by President Trump is immediately followed by a flat-out refutation by the ABC newscaster (a practice I don’t recall during the Obama Presidency). So, an established policy of refutation would preclude portraying Trump’s statements as opinions or honestly debatable claims since the newscaster would then be less able to credibly refute them as being false or lies.

    Our media isn’t as bad a that of the USSR’s Pravda or Izvestia which routinely went to ridiculous lengths to report in ways consistent with the party line. The result was almost unanimous distrust, even ridicule, scorn, and contempt by Soviet citizens. It’s not good for our media or for any of us that our media seems determined to earn a similar reputation.

    I suppose all we can do is point it out, as done by the uncompromising Ms Attkisson and too few others.

  76. Avatardoug moore says

    June 18, 2018 at 9:40 pm

    AP is suppose to be non-bias and yet most of the articles in the list are AP.
    now how can that be?

    • AvatarScott says

      June 19, 2018 at 11:24 am

      The NY Times is the feed for nearly all of the content broadcast by the AP. The widespread belief that the AP is an independent unbiased news source is false and they are merely another source of fake news.

  77. AvatarKarl Baumgarten says

    June 18, 2018 at 10:01 pm

    Thanks for showing who is quick and dirty and who corrected their mistakes. If the media had been this careless (or corrupt) in the past, we wouldn’t even be considering this issue because they wouldn’t be there. It’s left to each of us to decide careless vs corrupt. I’ve made my choice.

  78. AvatarAlexander Hunter says

    June 18, 2018 at 10:59 pm

    Having read both your books should be required reading for any remaining so-called journalists out there. Certainly, my thanks for this outstanding list would be redundant, but let me add to it anyway.
    Having been a alternative news magazine editor for about 5 years in the independent press during those independent days back in the 1990’s I also covered a few very newsworthy items that were smeared and spiked in the press. I would love to tell you the story and how I did get some of it into a local weekly newspaper column I was writing before expanding to a newsletter than a full fledged magazine, which ended in latter 1999. Certainly would appreciate time to talk with someone who has done so much for journalism in the past. I’m working on a book on the Media at this time too. How does someone like me reach someone like you. All information you need would be forthcoming if you contact me, THX. Alex

  79. AvatarSam Kahn says

    June 19, 2018 at 12:10 am

    Guess the 1st Amendment should have added “Freedom of the Press…for the truth only”

  80. AvatarIgmar Schatz says

    June 19, 2018 at 1:42 am

    News Media…you have a problem; and at its root it is likely an emotional one, misguiding your keystrokes or producing a cicada-like buzz in your ears..

  81. AvatarDavid says

    June 19, 2018 at 1:58 am

    Wow! I’m glad I saw this because I remember some of these stories but never heard the correction.
    I try to keep up but sometimes between my job and other events, I’m MIA for a few days and don’t hear or read the news.

  82. AvatarSteven Kane says

    June 19, 2018 at 3:37 am

    Disgusting and despicable! We can derive some hope from the fact that the unending and psychotic lying by the media has most likely permanently destroyed the credibility of major news outlets. Few Americans trust or believe these pathological liars any more so, now, they are shooting blanks!

  83. AvatarTerry says

    June 19, 2018 at 3:43 am

    Thank you Sharyl- good list. One suggested addition – the disabled reporter that Trump ‘mocked’. That deceitful editing still has people believing that he did so

  84. AvatarSeabee201 says

    June 19, 2018 at 3:49 am

    That egg on you face…it’s sunny side up for Trump in 2020.

  85. Avatarrichard says

    June 19, 2018 at 7:14 am

    Journaliars – fake news reporting

  86. AvatarSteve Walser says

    June 19, 2018 at 8:02 am

    For the first time in my 66 years I fear for our beloved country. That so much of the public can believe so much that is untrue and that is, obviously, engineered by the media to believe these untruths, is frightening evidence of how easily detached from reality a whole society can become. Our media has become the enemy of freedom. and truth.

  87. AvatarW. Keith Marbourg says

    June 19, 2018 at 9:02 am

    Great piece. I am wondering, however, if the absence of Fox News on this list should be interpreted to mean Fox News has not made any “mistakes” in its reporting? My question pertains only to hard news reporting, not the opinion talkers. Thanks.

  88. AvatarRon Neal says

    June 19, 2018 at 9:03 am

    This is rooted in the News Industry, not just the informants. It’s a question of edits, producers, and dollars. They report as truth and sub with “reportedly” and or “unverified”. The FCC is mute and has no teeth. Get rid of the producers and replace them with the independent journalists that are telling the truth. This is no different than April 27, 1773, except that its information now.

  89. AvatarTheodore Sumrall says

    June 19, 2018 at 9:13 am

    Sharyl: You have more honor, integrity and courage than 95% of the men in the media. Please keep up the fight. You are admired far more than you realize.

  90. AvatarMike Rios says

    June 19, 2018 at 9:17 am

    It is so glaringly obvious here that it screams at you and, I hope I’m not the only one to notice it, but Fox News, the terror of the leftwing propaganda kool aid drinkers, doesn’t appear to have had to retract, fire, suspend or otherwise change a story about the President because they wanted to make him look buffoonish or stupid.

    I guess they just stuck to the truth and let the chips fall where they would no matter what the other so called news outlets say or do.

    That’s a bit refreshing for once.

  91. AvatarYukiko says

    June 19, 2018 at 9:28 am

    This article shows the media to be at best ignorant and lazy, at worst they are criminally negligent.

  92. AvatarJoe says

    June 19, 2018 at 10:02 am

    Only 50??

  93. AvatarW Long says

    June 19, 2018 at 10:08 am

    Excellent work Sharyl. Have followed you for years. Amazing how simply being a truth teller can send you so deeply out into uncharted waters. “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” Thank you for your continued objectivity. No matter how old it gets it will always be refreshing.

  94. AvatarKLand says

    June 19, 2018 at 10:28 am

    A few errors over a long period of time could be called mistakes. These and numerous other errors, however, do not qualify as mistakes. These are intentional and amount to a conspiracy to undermine the election of President Trump and violate the voting rights of millions of Americans. In many cases, the statements should be considered criminal fraud. In particular, No. 23, Brian Ross’ statement, is at best gross negligence and at worst intentional misrepresentation for the purpose of causing harm. ABC and Brian Ross should have to pay for the losses incurred by investors as a result of the intentional actions of Brian Ross. In fact, every person who published the false statements should have to pay for any losses sustained as a result of their dishonest reporting. There is no privilege for intentional lies intended to cause harm. CNN and the New York Times should be investigated to determine if there are meetings in which reporters are told to “create” dirt to undermine the presidency. Then, if someone like Sharyl discovers the falsehood, “we’ll print a correction.” Facts are okay; intentional lies are not.

  95. AvatarGeneral says

    June 19, 2018 at 10:38 am

    By time the truth is out it is on the last page for corrections, it must be on the front page but no bury it , lie, cheat, steal, anything to destroy him and look credible.

    All these media`s belong in the trash magazine sections, anyone who reads not vetting these issues are brain washed and have little credibility belong in the comic section as Twain said;
    want the truth read the comic sections…

    This is cause for suing defamation, etc. for they lied and knew it….

  96. AvatarRobb MAck says

    June 19, 2018 at 12:56 pm

    Great list…great work.

    We need a list of top slurs against President Trump and compare it to any and all slurs against President Obama.

    Somehow Google does not make the slurs against Trump easy to accumulate. Surprise.

  97. AvatarJerry L Scafidel says

    June 19, 2018 at 2:07 pm

    EXCELLENT!
    Thanks for your hard work. My pet peeve is the chyrons and headlines from CNN and others that nearly always include “falsely” or similar adjectives in ADDITION to “claims,” to make clear their opinions of the president. It is not enough to say, “President Trump claims,” they will say “President Trump falsely claims…”
    Thanks, Sharyl

  98. Avatarbuzbee says

    June 19, 2018 at 6:34 pm

    Thanks for calling out the Fake News !

    Sharyl is a REAL reporter !

  99. AvatarCarolan La Vallee-Rahman says

    June 19, 2018 at 10:17 pm

    Sharyl Attkisson is an outstanding journalist/reporter, the likes of which I had thought were near extinction….

    I thank God there are still some honest people in this field as I can no longer tolerate all the lies, propaganda, diversions and histrionics in the media and by politicians like Schumer, Pelosi, Cummings, et al.

    Keep up the great work Sharyl, the country needs you!

  100. AvatarMary Flanagan says

    June 19, 2018 at 10:54 pm

    Thanks, Ms Attkisson. The above article prompted me to do a Google search of you. . . which led to a couple of excellent TED talks. . . and a truly frightening exposure of Google’s partisan influence and the misinformation supplied by Wikipedia. “The Circle” (Dave Eggers) is closing, and we are caught. It is increasingly difficult to research stories when reputable newspapers (NYT) are corrupted and standard online tools are skewed. We ‘know’ what they want to tell us. I sound paranoid, don’t I?

  101. AvatarTom says

    June 20, 2018 at 12:14 am

    This is superior journalism, Miss Attkisson. Thank you very much for doing all this work. The Gatekeeper Press’s cavalier disregard for precision is, I guess, dreary, but thanks anyway; it’s best that things be placed in proper focus.

  102. AvatarP.J. Stubler says

    June 20, 2018 at 2:19 pm

    I will pray for you people. I have also learned one thing; there is nothing that anyone can say to a Trump supporter or someone gathering “facts” to change their minds as to how great he is. I just hope that God has mercy on us for dividing a country and creating hate among Americans. I just hope that God doesn’t finally loses faith in us.

  103. AvatarDavid Schwenk says

    June 20, 2018 at 6:40 pm

    This is great work..I will enjoy reading the rest later after download…
    I know several religious liberals including some family members who would make the claim that the ‘conservative’ media did the same thing to Pres. Obama.
    I would like to see some kind of comparison between Obama and Trump as to how the different media outlets reported on them .. verifiable facts..references ect…please..

    Anybody have such a list or know of a web site???
    Something I can show the family members that can not be denied.
    dgs119 AT psu dot edu

  104. AvatarRitchie Tiemann says

    June 21, 2018 at 6:40 pm

    The biggest whopper of all which Sharyl missed: That Trump mocked the disability of a reporter. Jake Tapper repeated this falsehood in a Rolling Stone interview last August, and at a commencement speech he gave at UMass Amherst in May. And I might as well note that Meryl Streep peddled the lie at the Golden Globe Awards in January. The New York Slimes reported the lie without comment. It can be seen frequently in various media still. I guess it will never die.

  105. AvatarRitchie Tiemann says

    June 21, 2018 at 6:56 pm

    Sharyl missed the biggest whopper of all: That Trump mocked the disability of a reporter. This one pops up frequently in various media. Jake Tapper peddled it in a Rolling Stone interview last August, and in a commencement speech at UMass Amherst in May. While I’m at it, I might as well mention that Meryl Streep smeared the Trumpster with it at the Golden Globe Awards in January. The New York Slimes reported her remark without comment. The Slimes itself has, of course, repeated the disability fiction several times.

  106. AvatarJoseph Parisi says

    June 21, 2018 at 10:11 pm

    Here’s No. 51, from the 6/21/2018. Check out the correction at the top of this fake news.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-will-stop-prosecuting-parents-who-cross-the-border-illegally-with-children-official-says/2018/06/21/4902b194-7564-11e8-805c-4b67019fcfe4_story.html?utm_term=.17fcf3abc1e1
    —

  107. AvatarJoseph Parisi says

    June 21, 2018 at 10:16 pm

    Here’s that 6/21/2018 Washington Post correction I referred to previously. It was atop the article for awhile, but has since been removed.

    This story has been updated to clarify how migrant parents will be processed going forward. An earlier version incorrectly stated the Trump administration was suspending prosecutions for parents of migrant children. The senior Customs and Border Protection official quoted below was describing how the agency’s operations would change to no longer refer parents of migrant children for prosecution. Decisions whether or not to prosecute are the purview of the Department of Justice.

  108. AvatarPriscilla Hochhalter says

    June 28, 2018 at 11:21 am

    Can you please add the time when the mainstream media kept showing an edited video in which they claimed Trump ignored a handicapped child, when the full video clearly showed him greeting the child? Lying through editing. Priceless.

  109. AvatarRay Van Dune says

    June 28, 2018 at 6:49 pm

    When anyone comments to me about Trump’s “raising” tariffs, I merely ask them whether our current tariffs are higher, lower, or the same as the other side’s. They will usually admit they don’t know, but often claim it somehow doesn’t matter!

    So I ask them: if there was one week left in the season, would you take a bet on which of two sports teams will finish the season with the best record, without looking at their current won-lost record? As they look at me with mouth hanging open, I finish them off by pointing out that since the media NEVER compares the CURRENT tariffs, it pretty much tells you the other side’s are higher, doesn’t it!

  110. AvatarC. Martin says

    July 1, 2018 at 1:00 pm

    CNN reported that Nancy Sinatra said she was “not happy” about Trump using her song and she said she didn’t say that. I notice that she didn’t actually say that she was happy for him to use it, just that she wished him well. So maybe she used another phrase other than “not happy.” Classic non-denial denial on Sinatra’s part and who cares anyway?

    Other examples seem trivial.

    And if Trump doesn’t want misstatements made about his tax returns, he should simply release them as other presidents have. Also it appears that NYT’s mistake was corrected when his returns were leaked to MSNBC so MSNBC didn’t tank them, right?

    As for Trump Tower being bugged, that’s been going on for a long time. At least I hope it has. In “Red Mafiya,” a book published in 2000, Robert Friedman talks about a Russian gangster named Ivankov, sought by the FBI and finally located in Trump Tower. His “personal phone book included a working number for the Trump Organization’s Trump Tower Residence, and a Trump Organization office fax machine.”

  111. AvatarTracy says

    July 8, 2018 at 4:49 am

    Great list! I really hope you add this to it, and include the video:

    The lie about the alleged mocking of the disabled man: https://youtu.be/PX9reO3QnUA

    The truth about the alleged mocking of the disabled man: https://youtu.be/CsaB3ynIZH4

  112. AvatarKirkland Byars says

    July 9, 2018 at 12:41 am

    July 8, 2018. I just watched a real news show. Your objectivity and research are magnificent.
    I’ve always wanted to do a qualitative/quantitative study on Obama vs Trump on use of “negative” vs. “positive” wording. Any word used over and over negatively, like on The View, vs. positive words, like on any local newscast or Laura Inghram. Also. Body language like guests persuading hosts to “head bob” up and down for the agreeable vs. side to side for negative. I just see this manipulation all the time. Again. Keep up the great work. Do a tour.

  113. AvatarBill M says

    July 17, 2018 at 2:22 pm

    No surprise. This is who they are; this is what they do.
    .

  114. AvatarCynthia Taggart says

    September 10, 2018 at 10:15 am

    Beautiful compilation of facts! Thank you.

  115. AvatarPaul says

    September 12, 2018 at 9:58 am

    56 media mistakes? Out of the hundreds of thousands of Trump-related stories over the past year? Excuse me if I’m not blown away.

    But the people who WILL be blown away by an article like this will, in turn, completely ignore Trump’s daily lies.

    So odd.

    • AvatarKevin says

      September 19, 2018 at 1:51 am

      Yet people like Paul, who claim Trump lies “daily” completely ignored Obama’s eight years of endless whoppers, starting with “if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor” … and btw, people DIED in his scandals! Sooooo odd, indeed … !

  116. Avatarwww.lowsodium.com says

    September 19, 2018 at 6:50 am

    Properly boys,? Mommy finally stated after they һad provide you with lots of
    foolish ideas of what God did for fun, ?What God actually likes is when people love one another and deal with one anotheг ⅼike we do in our family.?
    That made sense to Lee and Larry so Lee hugged Mommy and Larry hugged daddy to only makе God
    hapрy.

  117. AvatarAlvin Weinerman says

    October 11, 2018 at 12:56 pm

    And yet, after all the BS, Trump survived, and still stands with Americans and flag lovers. He does not back off, or kneel. He is the president I have been waiting for and I am glad, that I am passing this on to my children, grandchildren and future generations.

  118. AvatarAdam J. P. says

    November 15, 2018 at 12:37 am

    The link for your book is missing the colon after the https.

    Without it, browser will redirect to http://www.https.com.

  119. AvatarRich says

    November 18, 2018 at 4:58 pm

    What about CNN releasing a Kushner email about the hacked DNC emails purportedly dated two weeks before Wikileaks actually released them, implying Kushner knew about it beforehand? Turns out they didn’t look at the date of the email which was over a WEEK AFTER
    the emails were release? I didn’t see that on the list.

  120. AvatarJim in Idaho says

    November 28, 2018 at 10:56 am

    If you posed these identified ‘mistakes’ as true and false questions, my guess is that most Americans would answer true to almost all of them

  121. AvatarEd Rathje says

    November 28, 2018 at 2:12 pm

    Hi Sharyl,

    I think you may have missed the BIGGEST double-whammy fake news about candidate Trump:

    WaPo forgetting about its own reporter’s story of 9/11, and then joining ALL MSM in falsely accusing Trump of ridiculing the reporter’s deformity:

    https://www.catholics4trump.com/the-true-story-donald-trump-did-not-mock-a-reporters-disability/

    BTW — remember getting a congratulatory spring flower bouquet (Dogwood ?) at your CBS office during F+F?? Thanks for the Tweet thanks!

    Keep up the fantastic work!!

  122. AvatarArtymisFoul says

    December 3, 2018 at 5:57 pm

    Well written, but hardly definitive. IMHO you have just exposed anfew flakes in a blizzard. Also worth mentioning is when media pundits post lies ON PURPOSE knowing these will generate many tweets and retractions will generate hardly any. So lies are swallowed by masses never seeing token retractions.

  123. AvatarLuther Golden says

    December 27, 2018 at 8:11 pm

    Sharyl, you are the best. Thanks for your great reporting.

  124. AvatarJohnS says

    January 4, 2019 at 9:38 am

    “The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie–deliberate, contrived and dishonest–but the myth–persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” -JFK-

    The leftist pravda media enjoys the comfort of existing in their leftist echo chamber. Creating and perpetuating false narratives is how they are attempting to destroy society. “The orange man is bad,” that is all people need to know, according to these soulless and diabolical leftist automatons.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqqwTgk8ri0

    • AvatarDick Tombs says

      January 27, 2019 at 1:31 pm

      Well put,very well put John S.It is really sad when the media has chosen a political ideology to ally its self with,{very reminiscent of the political “news”of the Bolsheviks} and has gotten away with it for so long,that the line of propaganda and journalism no longer exist.-FOUNDING FATHERS MUST BE ROLLING IN THEIR GRAVES.

  125. AvatarPatrick Clancy says

    January 12, 2019 at 1:42 pm

    I would suggest it’s not a “mistake” when done deliberately.

  126. AvatarSuzy Que says

    January 18, 2019 at 8:14 pm

    Great work, Ms. Attkisson!

  127. AvatarMichael Zufelt says

    January 23, 2019 at 3:04 pm

    Excellent research and documentation!

  128. AvatarJack Cross says

    January 26, 2019 at 10:42 am

    You missed Trump erasing Obama Climate Website on inauguration day, when of course it was archived with all of obama’s sites. (which they had warned people of for monthe beforehand)

    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/01/trump-white-house-deletes-all-mention-of-climate-change

  129. AvatarVicki Harriman says

    January 26, 2019 at 8:34 pm

    Excellent article sharyl it’s about time someone put an article out that detailed all of the lies about our President.I knew some of the falsehoods.But your article nailed it.Now if the people can just open there eyes and see this president cares about America and the people.

  130. AvatarColin says

    February 18, 2019 at 8:14 pm

    Compounding the media bias against Trump is their written bias.
    Trump speaks to Americans, not to the political class.
    The political class writes in soundbites for the political media, and their scripted work is crafted, pre-approved, processed like Kraft cheese and served up like Big Macs – predictable, conforming and bland.
    People do not talk like Obama speaks. People talk and hear speaking like Trump speaks. From the heart, off the cuff.
    Take away Obama’s teleprompter and he is a bumbling, mumbling fool. Ditto Pelosi, Dubya, Gore – all of them. How on earth any of these fools can be considered eloquent is beyond all but the journalists who read and transcribe (regurgitate) their speeches – for that is what they do.

Primary Sidebar

Sharyl Attkisson is a nonpartisan Investigative Journalist who tries to give you information others don’t want you to have. What you do with it is your own business. Do your own research. Seek advice from those you trust. Make up your own mind. Think for yourself.  Full bio

Coming Soon

Subscribe

Subscribe to SharylAttkisson.com RSS Feed and email: RSS | Email

Attkisson v. DOJ/FBI

Learn about Attkisson lawsuit against US govt computer intrusions. Click here to support today. Fight government overreach.

Follow Sharyl Attkisson

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent Comments

  • Kevin w on Timeline of alleged “sabotage” of Trump in 2016 by Democrats, Ukraine
  • Michael on READ: Federal court: ex-White House counsel must testify
  • Aaron Cohn on POLL: Most say they’d rather hear nothing more about impeachment

Subscribe

Subscribe to SharylAttkisson.com RSS Feed and email: RSS | Email

Footer

Pages

  • Home
  • About
  • Podcast
  • Contact

2ndary Pages

  • Full Measure Stations
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Subscribe to SharylAttkisson.com

SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS

  • Attkisson v. DOJ/FBI
  • Benghazi
  • Fake News
  • Fast & Furious
  • Obamacare

Copyright © 2019 · News Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in