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162. Weds. Aug. 22, 2024
Axios, Reuters, and PBS’ Judy Woodruff repeated false claims that Trump was “on the phone” encouraging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to put off peace talks in Israel’s conflict with the Islamic extremist terrorist group Hamas, because a deal could help Democrat Kamala Harris.
Woodruff later apologized, admitted she hadn’t done any reporting of her own, and she also said she hadn’t seen that both the Trump campaign and Israel had denied the claims.
161. Sat. July 13, 2024
In the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump getting shot at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, numerous left-leaning news organizations posted headlines that obviously did not match what had clearly been observed and recorded on video. The headlines seemed designed to make Trump seem weak or minimize the seriousness of the event.
For example, CNN claimed Trump was rushed off the stage after he “fell.” At no point did it reasonably appear as though Trump had “fallen.”
Although it was immediately clear there may have been shots fired, some outlets chose to skip mentioning the possibility and instead implied that Trump had reacted to scary, loud pops or noises.
The Washington Post and AP claimed Trump had been escorted away after “loud noises.”
And a grammatically incorrect headline from left-leaning USA Today stated that “loud noises startles [sic] former president.”
While it’s difficult to know what’s occurring during a breaking news event, the reports of gunfire were immediate, and Trump was seen immediately grabbing his ear and with blood on it. Reasonable headlines stated that there were reports of gunshots that had yet to be definitively verified.
160. Aug. 15, 2017
This is another belated add. On Aug. 15, 2017, at a news conference, President Trump gave an initial response to protests in Charlottesville, Va. The media falsely reported that Trump referred to Nazis and white supremacists as “very fine people.”
In fact, Trump explicitly, repeatedly condemned any white supremacists. He stated, for example, “we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. It has no place in America.”
Trump also stated, “I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue of Robert E. Lee.” And Trump added, “you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.
Trump was condemning Nazis and white supremacists, and made the explicit distinction that not everyone who was protesting fell into that category.
159. April 3, 2020
This is a belated add because it was an oversight when it originally happened. Multiple media outlets claimed President Trump told people to “drink” or “inject” bleach.
Trump never said this. The fabrications were spread after Trump alluded to research and studies on bleach-like disinfectant to treat Covid.
Indeed, in December of 2021, one such study compared two bleach-like disinfectants and concluded that “Chlorine dioxide is a more potent antiviral agent against SARS-CoV-2 than sodium hypochlorite.”
According to published information, “Chlorine dioxide is a gas used in very small quantities to disinfect water…Chlorine dioxide kills bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Very small amounts are used in public water treatment facilities.”
158. Oct. 5, 2023
Citing anonymous sources, ABC, The New York Times, CBS, and other media report Trump allegedly discussed US nuclear subs with a foreigner from Australia after Trump was president. Trump called the story “false and ridiculous and “almost all of Australia’s living former prime ministers have denied receiving top-secret information.” CBS later reported, “Sources tell CBS News there is no indication former President Trump shared sensitive records with an Australian billionaire + no charges have been filed by the Special Counsel through their alleged discussion about US Nuclear subs was investigated.”
157. March 17, 2022
The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC and many others falsely reported that the Hunter Biden laptop scandal story was “unsubstantiated” and/or “Russian disinformation.” In September, 2021, the New York Times quietly deleted its false “unsubstantiated” claim. In March 2022, the newspaper acknowledged that the FBI did have a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, which contained scandalous material and possible alleged evidence of criminal activity.
Along with the false reporting by the Times and others, social media giants censored the story, incorrectly calling it “false” and “disinformation.” Polling later revealed that a large number of Biden voters would not have voted for Biden in 2020 if they had known about the censored Hunter Biden laptop story.
156. June 9, 2021
The Inspector General found that, contrary to false media reports by NPR and others, and implications by NBC and others, the Secret Service did not clear Lafayette Park in May of 2020 for the purposes of allowing Trump to have a photo op posing with a Bible. The crowd was cleared for a contractor to install a fence and because protesters were breaking the law.
155. June 2, 2021
The Washington Post joins a cacophony of other media in finally correcting their reporting that falsely claimed, early and often, that the Covid-19 “lab theory” was a “debunked” “conspiracy theory.”
154. April 27, 2021
A New York Times report one year ago this week was wildly incorrect in projecting the first Covid-19 vaccine would not be ready until November of 2033.
They were only off a little bit: instead of taking more than 13 years, it took about seven months. The Times also said if a SARS vaccine were able to be “repurposed” that could be ready as early as “late 2021.”
Also, nearly every expert quoted in the Times article was also far off the mark, including vaccine industry propagandist Peter Hotez, who discussed a fast-tracked 18-month time frame.
The original story post and list follow. Additional items are now added at the top of this post.
Notable Mistakes and Missteps in Major Media Reporting on Donald Trump
1. Aug. 2016-Nov. 2016:
2. Oct. 1, 2016:
3. Oct. 18, 2016:
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:
6. Jan. 20, 2017:
7. Jan. 20, 2017:
8. Jan. 26, 2017:
9. Jan. 28, 2017
10. Jan. 31, 2017:
11. Feb. 2, 2017:
12. Feb. 2, 2017:
13. Feb. 4, 2017:
14. Feb. 14, 2017:
15. Feb. 22, 2017:
16. April 5, 2017:
17. May 10, 2017:
18. May 27, 2017:
19. June 4, 2017:
20. June 6, 2017:
21. June 7, 2017:
22. June 8, 2017:
23. June 22, 2017:
24. December 2, 2017:
25. July 6, 2017:
26. July 6, 2017:
27. Aug. 31, 2017:
28. Sept. 5, 2017:
29. Sept. 7, 2017:
30. Nov. 6, 2017:
31. Nov. 6, 2017:
32. Nov. 29, 2017:
33. Dec. 4, 2017:
34. Dec. 4, 2017:
35. Dec. 5, 2017:
36. Dec. 8, 2017:
37. Jan. 3, 2018:
38. Jan. 12, 2018:
39. Jan. 15, 2018:
40. Feb. 2, 2018:
41. March 8, 2018:
42. March 13, 2018:
43. March 15, 2018:
44. April 1, 2018:
45. April 30, 2018:
46. May 3, 2018:
47. May 7, 2018:
48. May 16, 2018:
49. May 28, 2018
50. May 29, 2018
51. June 1, 2018
52. June 21, 2018
53. June 22, 2018
54. June 28, 2018
55. July 10, 2018
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
Sopan Deb, New York Times
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.
71. Various dates: Other faked attacks reported by the news as if confirmed
- 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.
- 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.”
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.
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.
86. Sept. 10, 2019
Citing anonymous sources, CNN and the New York Times 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.
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.
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 not combat video at all. It is file tape of a training show in the U.S.)
ABC tweets out the following:
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.
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.
100. Nov. 28, 2019
Newsweek falsely reports that President Trump is spending Thanksgiving golfing in Florida at his Mar-a-Lago Resort. He was actually in Afghanistan serving dinner to U.S. troops. It’s the second year in a row that national media makes the same mistake. (The reporter, Jessica Kwong, was reportedly later fired.)
101. Nov. 24, 2019
It turns out the same Newsweek reporter, Kwong, reported an allegedly misleading story the week before about President Trump’s tipping implying he’d been cheap.
Newsweek later updated the story to remove the headline reference to a “thin stack of cash” and include that it was 100 dollar bills, and above and beyond what Trump had already tipped the servers.
102. Dec. 3, 2019
(Allegation) Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) files a $435 million defamation lawsuit against CNN over a Nov. 23 CNN story that claimed Nunes had flown to Vienna, Austria in December 2018 to meet with a former Ukrainian prosecutor in to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Nunes says at the time CNN claimed he was in Vienna, he was actually in Benghazi, Libya and Malta for meetings; and Nunes produced photographs he says proves that. Additionally, he says he has never met with the named former Ukrainian prosecutor in Vienna or anywhere else.
(If evidence ultimately shows CNN was correct and Nunes is incorrect, this post will be updated and removed from the count.)
103. Dec. 9, 2019
It would be difficult if not impossible from a practical standpoint to list the thousands of the media reports, from the New York Times to CNN, that have now been proven false by information documented in Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the FBI’s misbehavior in investigating the Trump campaign.
Here, they will all be grouped together as one media mistake, but include nearly every major national media outlet that falsely reported, as if fact, that the discredited Democrat-funded “dossier” — submitted by the FBI to get a wiretap to spy on Trump associate Carter Page — was only a “small part” of the wiretap application. Also, the reports that Page was a Russian spy and the conduit between Trump and Putin. Also, the many insistences that Trump was a “Putin stooge” and coordinating with Putin or Russia, when the FBI’s own evidence now shows they never found anything remotely close to that. In fact, they appeared to disprove it.
104. Jan. 31, 2018
(Out of chronological order because it just came to my attention.)
Media reports in Dec. 2017 claimed the Trump administration banned officials at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using seven words.
In response, doctors posted photos of themselves with tape over their mouths.
It turns out documents showed there was “not a ban or prohibition on words but rather suggestions on how to improve the chances of getting funding.”
105. Dec. 25, 2019
(Allegation) An unusually unequivocal denial of a Wall Street Journal report come from the Trump administration. Trump officials say the anonymously-sourced report is “total false, untrue and baseless. It did not happen.”
If information comes to light that proves the Wall Street Journal source was accurate at the time, this post will be updated to reflect that.
106. Dec. 16, 2019
The news media widely misreport that the report by Dept. of Justice Inspector General Horowitz found “no political bias” in the Russia probe. As Horowitz made clear in his Congressional testimony, that is false.
Instead, Horowitz gave a limited, qualified opinion about a narrow part of the opening of the investigation, stating he could not find documentary or testimonial evidence that the serious political bias of various FBI officials impacted the original decision to open the probe into Trump campaign-related Americans.
Horowitz explicitly acknowledged that various FBI officials involved in the probe, including Peter Strzok and Lisa Page had political bias against Trump.
He also stated, in Congressional testimony, that Christopher Steele, the political opposition researcher hired by the Clinton campaign to provide the anti-Trump “dossier” to the FBI, had political bias.
And he stated that it’s possible political bias was behind other inexplicable and egregious errors the FBI made during the probe, which he did not say was free of bias. Those matters, Horowitz testified, have been referred to the criminal probe and to the FBI to handle.
107. Aug. 5, 2019
(Out of chronological order because it just came to my attention.)
MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace falsely claims that President Trump had talked about “exterminating Latinos.” She apologized the next day stating, on Twitter, “I misspoke about Trump calling’s for an extermination of Latinos. My mistake was unintentional and I’m sorry.”
108. Jan. 9, 2019
(Out of chronological order because it just came to my attention.)
Ken Vogel of the New York Times corrects a story that falsely claimed Trump adviser Paul Manafort had wanted to share polling data with a Russian oligarch close to President Putin.
109. Dec. 27, 2019
The New York Times corrects a report it published to demonstrate how people who voted for Donald Trump no longer support him. Their featured example was a man who– it turns out– never voted for Trump in the first place.
110. Jan. 7, 2020
MSNBC wrongly reports up to 30 U.S. deaths after an Iranian rocket attack. In fact, no Americans were killed. The number was a fabricated number reported by the Iranians.
111. Jan. 16, 2020
MSNBC’s John Brennan, former CIA Director, falsely reports that Trump personally wrote a note regarding wanting Ukraine’s president to announce an investigation into possible corruption related to the former vice president and his son.
112. Feb. 21, 2020
The New York Times and multiple other news outlets report on a secret briefing to Congress that supposedly told lawmakers that Russia is interfering to try to get Trump reelected in 2020. The report is later followed up by stories indicating that the warnings may have been “overstated.” In fact, officials told CNN the US “does not have evidence that Russia’s interference this cycle is aimed at reelecting Trump.”
113. Feb. 26, 2020
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, multiple media outlets imply or state that President Trump slashed, cut or gutted the budget for the Centers for Disease Control. In fact, the CDC budget has increased each year.
114. Feb. 28, 2020
Numerous media outlets falsely report that President Trump called the coronavirus a “hoax.” In fact, the president called the Democrats’ politicization of the outbreak a hoax.
115. March 1, 2020
(Allegation) Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) announces plans to sue The Washington Post over what he says was false reporting about him. The Post claimed Nunes went to the White House and talked to President Trump about a Congressional briefing by then-Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire about prospects of Russia interference in the current 2020 campaign. The Post report then claimed that Trump “erupted” at Maguire before replacing him.
Nunes says he never talked to the president about Maguire and did not go to the White House when The Post claimed he did.
If information comes to light showing that The Post was correct, this post will be updated.
116. March 5, 2020
The Washington Post editorial team refers to many of America’s “hundred of millions” of voters in the U.S. supporting Joe Biden. But there are not that many voters in the U.S. (There were 153,000,000 people registered to vote in 2018. Tens of millions of them do not vote.).
117. March 15, 2020
An anonymously-sourced news report alleges President Trump attempted to bribe a German coronavirus vaccine maker and wants to hoard the vaccine so only Americans will have it.
Reuters reported that the German Health Ministry confirmed the report.
However, the German Health Ministry clarified it had not verified the report, just a quote attributed to one of its spokespersons. The Trump administration denied the report altogether.
(If the original report is verified and turns out to be true, after all, this entry will be removed from the list.)
118. March 18, 2020
The New York Times and Jeremy Peters publish an article with multiple false claims about Sharyl Attkisson and Rob Schneider, claiming they and others have “minimized” coronavirus risks and “insisted” it it is overplayed. In fact, Peters altered an Attkisson quote and made at least nine false claims about her work. Peters also manipulated a Schneider quote and quoted him out of context in order to make him appear as though he had violated recommendations not to eat at restaurants, when he had not. More details here.
April 1, The New York Times lawyers issue multiple Corrections to the false article. They:
- Partially fix a deceptively-altered quote
- Remove a section
- Amend three parts
- Publish a “correction”
119. March 19, 2020
Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post wrongly blames Republican leader Senator Mitch McConnell for delaying a coronavirus package vote. The Post later issued a correction, stating: “An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) delayed a vote on the House’s coronavirus relief package. In fact, McConnell vowed to move at “warp speed” on the bill and it was only delayed due to a demand from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for an amendment on the bill. This version has been updated.”
120. March 27, 2020
The New York Times issues a correction after falsely reporting that the U.S. was short at least 800 thousand ventilators in the coronavirus crisis because a million would be needed and there were only 200k on hand. In fact, a study actually projected a million people may need a ventilator over the course of the pandemic, not at one time.
121. March 28, 2020
A New York Times timeline about the slow implementation of coronavirus testing in the U.S. is corrected. The date of the country’s first confirmed case of coronavirus through travel was almost two weeks later than stated in the original timeline.
122. March 30, 2020
CBS This Morning airs a story supposedly showing video of a New York hospital crowded coronavirus patients. Some viewers recognized it as the same video shown to represent a hospital in Italy.
CBS News issues a correction saying the network mistakenly used the Italy video in the U.S. story. “It was an editing mistake. We took immediate steps to remove it from all platforms and shows,” a CBS News spokesperson said.
123. April 6, 2020
CBS News airs social media video of a crying woman who says she was a nurse and quit her job due to not having masks while treating coronavirus patients. The video got more than eight million views.
When questions were raised about the video, CBS left it up but added a “clarification”: “Imaris Vera, the nurse in this video, clarified her experience on Monday in a tweet: ‘We were each assigned 1 N95 per 1 covid patient?s room but was not allowed to wear it outside of the room, wear our own N95 mask around the Nurses station or Halls, which I came prepared with’.”
The clarification did anything but clear up the facts, but it seems to indicate nobody was asked to treat coronavirus patients without masks, after all.
124. April 8, 2020
Days after CBS News mistakenly uses shots of an Italian hospital as if it is in New York City, and apologizes for the mistake (Mistake #122 above), the network uses the same Italy video again in a discussion about coronavirus-overrun Pennsylvania hospitals.
125. April 15, 2020
A Facebook “science fact check” incorrectly flags as “false” an Epoch Times coronavirus documentary about the virus’s possible link to a Wuhan, China research lab. That’s despite the fact that none of the documentary’s information is proven false, and the documentary draws no conclusions.
In addition, contrary to Facebook’s fake “fact check,” the government has explicitly announced it is investigating information that the Covid-19 outbreak started with a leak at the lab.
It turns out the first named reviewer referenced by Facebook’s fact check is a U.S. scientist who has been working at the Wuhan lab.
126. April 14, 2020
The U.S. government publicly confirms it is looking into possible links between coronavirus and a research lab in Wuhan, China.
On Feb. 17, 2020, Paulina Firozi of The Washington Post had falsely declared the idea of the virus coming from the Wuhan lab to be “debunked.” It had not been debunked.
In fact, a more recent April 14 article by The Washington Post debunked the earlier Washington Post article’s claim that the Wuhan tie had been debunked.
127. April 22, 2020
Reuters and other new outlets claim President Trump tapped a “former Labradoodle breeder… to lead U.S. pandemic task force.” They imply the official, Brian Harrison, is unqualified and blame him for supposed slowing the U.S. coronavirus response.
The stories from multiple outlets appear on the same day.
However, Harrison never led the coronavirus task force. Additionally, while he did briefly own a family business raising Labradoodles, he has also served three administrations in high level posts and was not plucked from dog breeding obscurity to serve on the pandemic task force.
128. April 25, 2020
After Marketwatch and The Washington Post report coronavirus checks may or “will” be delayed several days to get President Trump’s signature on them, the Treasury Department announces the checks are being issued “on time, as planned” and that there was no delay.
129. April 25, 2020
In a widely distributed report, Politico reports that President Trump owes the Bank of China tens of millions of dollars in a loan coming due in 2022, as he deals with China on coronavirus. However, the Bank of China issued a statement saying it only held the loan for 22 days and sold it to a U.S. real estate firm in 2012.
Politico changed its headline and details of the story but did not issue a “correction” or apology, and still maintains Trump has improper ties to China.
Update: Politico belatedly issued a correction three days later, acknowledging that they committed a basic mistake by not asking the Bank of China for comment before publication.
130. April 28, 2020
Yahoo reporter Hunter Walker asks Trump a question with false information in it:
“Overall, South Korea has done five times more tests than the U.S. per capita,” Walker asked Trump during an Oval Office meeting that included Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) “Why is that?” “I don’t think that’s true,” Trump replied.
“That is true,” Walker insisted.
In fact, South Korea’s testing was 11 per 100,000 people and the U.S. is at 17 per 100,000.
Walker later apologizes in a Tweet: “We have passed South Korea in the number of tests conducted per capita. I misread the mobile version of this chart and am sorry about that, @realDonaldTrump.”
131. April 6, 2020
Maggie Haberman, Peter Baker, Katie Rogers and David Enrich at The New York Times report that “Trump has seized on [hydroxychloroquine] as a miracle cure.”
In fact, the day before the article was published, the president repeatedly qualified his support for hydroxychloroquine– as he usually does– and did not call it a miracle cure.
“It may work, and it may not work. But if it doesn’t work, it’s nothing lost by doing it,” said Trump at an April 5 media availability. He also stated, “in case it does work, we want to have it,” and “Now, it may not work, in which case, Hey, it didn’t work. It may work, in which case it’s going to save a lot of lives. Now, a lot of people say…it has a profound effect. Well, maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t.”
132. May 10, 2020
NBC’s Chuck Todd on Meet the Press used a deceptively edited comment made by Attorney General William Barr about the case of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. The network later apologized for the error.
133. May 10, 2020
CBS 60 Minutes falsely tweets that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “attempted to resurrect a debunked theory that the virus was man-made in China.” Pompeo had said the opposite.
“Look, the best experts so far seem to think it was man-made. I have no reason to disbelieve that at this point,” said Pompeo.
When asked, “Your Office of the DNI says the consensus, the scientific consensus, was not man-made or genetically modified,” Pompeo then replied, “That’s right. I agree with that. I’ve seen the summary that you saw that was released publicly. I have no reason to doubt that that is accurate at this point.”
When asked further, “So just to be clear, you do not think it was man-made or genetically modified?” Pompeo replied, “I’ve seen what the Intelligence Community has said. I have no reason to believe that they’ve got it wrong.”
One other flaw with the 60 Minutes tweet is that the news organization cannot claim to know, first hand, the origin of coronavirus since nobody from the news agency was present for its birth.
134. June 2, 2020
Mediaite writes an account of demonstrations outside the White House, quoting numerous reporters as saying tear gas was unjustifiably used. Fox News host Laura Ingraham said no tear gas was used. Mediaite quotes numerous reporters as “fact checking” Ingraham and concluding she is wrong.
However, the U.S. Park Police releases a report that recounts a litany of violent acts the protesters had allegedly been committing, including pelting officers with objects and trying to grab their weapons. The police confirmed that during the efforts to control the crowd, no tear gas was used.
“Correct your article, please,” tweeted Ingraham.
As of this posting, Mediate had not corrected its article or reverse fact-checked the apparently false claims about Ingraham and tear gas.
135. June 22, 2020
The New York Times, NPR and others unquestioningly link, as if a fact, the discovery of a “noose” in a black NASCAR driver’s stall to racism.
An investigation quickly concluded it was a garage door pull rope, and had been there for months, long before the driver had been assigned the stall.
136. July 12, 2020
USA Today used a “Fact check” to connect a Trump campaign T-shirt design using an eagle– to a Nazi eagle.
The newspaper later “clarifies” its article to note that “the eagle is a longtime US symbol, too.”
137. Fri. July 17, 2020
On this date, newly-released documents reveal at least nine factual errors or misrepresentations in a New York Times article by Michael Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti, and Matt Apuzzo about alleged Trump-Russia collusion in 2017.
Among other issues, internal notes made by then FBI official Peter Strzok– but kept secret until this date– contradicted claims in the Times article including: that Paul Manafort had been picked up communicating with Russians, that Roger Stone had been investigated by the FBI, and that Trump advisers had gotten caught communicating with Russians. Details here.
138. Thurs. July 23, 2020
The Atlantic issues a series of corrections to a false story it published, “How I Became a Police Abolitionist,” written by social justice activist Derek Pernell who claimed she became scarred and anti-police because, as a child, she witnessed a police officer shooting her cousin, a “boy” for skipping a basketball sign in sheet, and that the police officer wasn’t held accountable. It turns out, it wasn’t a police officer, it was a private security guard; the victim, who was shot in the arm, was an adult, not a child; and the guard did not escape serious consequences, he was charged with assault.
Photo from Twitter
139. Thurs. Aug. 5, 2020
An AP report about groups named in an FBI affidavit regarding an alleged Ohio corruption scheme false reported that one named figure, D. Eric Lycan, is the current counsel for the Republican Party of Kentucky. But Lycan left that position more than a year ago.
140. Sat. Aug. 8, 2020
Multiple analysts, news outlets, politicians, and advocacy groups falsely report that President Trump has announced plans to eliminate Social Security and/or Medicare if he’s re-elected. In fact, the executive order signed by the president clearly shows a temporary cut in payroll taxes (which fund the entitlement programs) applies to those earning under approximately $105,000 a year. Others continue paying. Others in the media, such as the LA Times’ liberal and pharmaceutical propaganda columnist Michael Hiltzik, left false implications, though stopping short of claiming Trump announced a policy to eliminate the entitlements.
Photo from Twitter
141. Sat. Aug. 8, 2020
The Washington Post publishes the “Mother of all Corrections,” a 579 word correction of a July 23 article written by food writer Korsha Wilson. The correction consists of 15 bullet points. Post executive editor Martin Baron said the paper was “embarrassed by the widespread errors in this freelance article.”
The article was titled “Black families once lived off their southern farmland. Their descendants are struggling to hold onto it.” The Post acknowledged it “contained many errors and omitted context and allegations important to understanding two families’ stories.”.
Photo by: Celeste Noche Photography
142. Sat. Aug. 22
AP publishes a fact check that concludes President Trump’s true statement about an event at the Democratic National Convention was something other than true.
Trump had tweeted: “The Democrats took the word GOD out of the Pledge of Allegiance at the Democrat National Convention.” AP labelled the true claim to be misleading even as the news agency acknowledged, “the Muslim Delegates and Allies Assembly and the LGBTQ Caucus meeting, both Tuesday, left out ‘under God,’ from the pledge.” AP argued that because others Democrats had cited the pledge accurately, Trump’s tweet did not qualify as true.
143. Mon. Aug. 31, 2020
The Washington Post’s Yasmeen Abutaleb and Josh Dawsey publish allegations in an article entitled: “New Trump pandemic adviser pushes controversial ‘herd immunity’ strategy, worrying public health officials.”
The headline contains no attribution and states the allegation as if it’s an established fact. The article itself relies on unnamed, anonymous people.
However, the subject of the allegations, Dr. Scott Atlas, stated in unequivocal terms that he has never pushed nor spoken to President Trump about the described strategy, nor has anybody that he knows of.
(If evidence arises showing The Post was correct, after all, this item will be updated.)
144. Tues. Sept. 8, 2020
Trump critic John Bolton becomes the latest in a series of on-the-record, firsthand sources to debunk The Atlantic report by Jeffrey Goldberg that relied upon anonymous sources to claim that Trump faked the cancellation of a helicopter trip to a French cemetery in 2018 where fallen US soldiers were buried because he didn’t want his hair messed up by the weather, and that Trump referred to the dead troops as “losers” and “suckers.”
Multiple news outlets repeated the claims.
“That was simply false. I don’t know who told the author [Jeffrey Goldberg] that,” said Bolton who was in the room in Paris when the decision was made. “The president assented to the recommendation that he not go. It was a very straight weather call.”
Shortly after the initial report, the White House denied the allegations and released documentation also showing there was, indeed, a weather cancellation, and that the call was made by military officials.
Bolton and others also said Trump did not call fallen soldiers names during the meeting in question or at any time that they ever heard.
When Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin sought to confirm The Atlantic story, she came back with what she called “confirmation” of the anonymous claims, yet reported a different set of details. Griffin said that according to her anonymous sources, once the weather cancelled Trump’s helicopter trip to the cemetery in France, he declined the option to drive there by car.
Griffin also said her sources heard Trump call living generals, not fallen US soldiers, names back in the US at a different time and place. She said Trump told the generals at the Pentagon that they were “losers” and babies.”
Later in interviews, Goldberg acknowledged a key point of his story may be wrong, admitting that there could have been a weather cancellation of the helicopter trip. In all, 21 on the record sources disputed Goldberg’s original claims. However, The Atlantic has not issued a correction.
https://twitter.com/JonathanTurley/status/1303125135570931717?s=20
(If evidence comes to light showing that The Atlantic was correct after all, this post will be updated.)
145. Mon. Sept. 21, 2020
Newsweek falsely reports that a particular Catholic group associated with Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett inspired The Handmaid’s Tale, “set in the fictional Gilead, where women’s bodies are governed and treated as the property of the state under a theocratic regime.”
Later, Newsweek corrects its story.
146. Fri. Oct. 9, 2020
Politico’s “Playbook author” Anna Palmer tweets out the “breaking news” that President Trump lost the Nobel Prize, after apparently (mistakenly) believing his nominations were for this year rather than 2021.
https://twitter.com/apalmerdc/status/1314500362733268992?s=20
147. Sat. Dec. 19, 2020
The New York Times award-winning podcast “Caliphate,” turns out to be centered on a man who told false stories about killing for the Islamic State. The Times returns the prestigious “Peabody Award” the podcast series won for the false reporting in 2018.
148. Wed. Dec. 30, 2020
A senior political reporter at The Huffington Post, Jennifer Bendery, falsely states that Vice President Mike Pence is wrong to claim that “millions” of Americans have been vaccinated for coronavirus… even as Bendery simultaneously acknowledges the number is in the millions.
149. Sun. Jan. 10, 2021
The New York Times misidentifies a shirtless man outside a broken window at the Capitol as a Trump supporter. In fact, the Times didn’t do a basic fact check of its assumptions.
The shirtless man was a credentialed journalist for The Daily Caller who had reportedly removed his shirt after getting maced in the chaos. The Times issues a correction.
https://twitter.com/elivalley/status/1348481465496035329?s=20
150. Thurs. Jan. 14, 2021
Numerous reporters falsely transcribe or refer to a falsely transcribed interview with a Republican senator, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, to incorrectly claim he wants to delay Biden inauguration.
The accurate transcript makes clear that Sen. Tuberville was speaking hypothetically while accepting the inauguration date.
151. Saturday, Jan. 16, 2021
CNN’s Jim Sciutto, Wolf Blitzer, and others report a man had been arrested at a checkpoint to a locked-down zone of the Capitol prior to Biden’s inauguration carrying fake credentials, an unregistered handgun, and 500 rounds of ammunition.
However, it turns out the man was not an insurrectionist with fake credentials and an unregistered handgun; he was a security contractor with an inaugural credential who was working an armed security job with Capitol Police and authorized to have a firearm, which was licensed in Virginia.
He was released from custody with officials saying they considered him no threat to public safety.
152. Monday, March 11, 2021
The Washington Post corrects its false story (an “exclusive”) that quoted then-President Trump as pressuring a Georgia elections investigator to “find the fraud,” and that she would be a “national hero” if she did, and alleged it “could amount to obstruction.”
As Breitbart News pointed out, the Post story “relied on information from a single anonymous source, described as ‘an individual familiar with the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the conversation’.”
More than two months after that report, the facts show Trump did not the quote, after all.
Although The Washington Post issued a correction, there was no published apology and no information on what action, if any, would be taken against the reporter who published the false material.
The correction reads:
Correction: Two months after publication of this story, the Georgia secretary of state released an audio recording of President Donald Trump’s December phone call with the state’s top elections investigator. The recording revealed that The Post misquoted Trump’s comments on the call, based on information provided by a source. Trump did not tell the investigator to “find the fraud” or say she would be “a national hero” if she did so. Instead, Trump urged the investigator to scrutinize ballots in Fulton County, Ga., asserting she would find “dishonesty” there. He also told her that she had “the most important job in the country right now.” A story about the recording can be found here. The headline and text of this story have been corrected to remove quotes misattributed to Trump.
153. April 15, 2021
U.S. intelligence dials back a New York Times bombshell. According to Daily Beast:
It was a huge election-time story that prompted cries of treason. But according to a newly disclosed assessment, Donald Trump might have been right to call it a “hoax.”
The story by Charlie Savage, Eric Schmitt and Michael Schwartz claimed Russians put bounties on US troops in Afghanistan under President Trump.
Newly-released information, according to Daily Beast shows: “U.S. intelligence only had ‘low to moderate’ confidence in the story. Translated from the jargon of spyworld, that means the intelligence agencies have found the story is, at best, unproven—and possibly untrue.”
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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.
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.
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.
That’s great info that I’ve never heard before.
The lying Main Stream Media is the scourge of the earth.
The msm is the reason 0bama got elected and still roams free. Hide the truth, and spin the lies.
Your comment is 100 percent spot on … especially referring to Cronkite as a traitor …. although you have only touched the surface … Find a copy of General Giap’s (NVA Commander) book of the war (in English) where in he describes in detail how Cronkite made him realize he did not have to win … he just had to kill enough Americans and THE PRESS would get us to quit!
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
“Lazy” must be an euphemism, or that is what I want to believe. Because:
The lady wrote this, and it is a brilliant point in her list of intelligent observations.
(JOURNALISTS) “.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.”
I have seen far too much of this sort of fantasy with talking heads across the spectrum of media. My own philosophy calls the source a ‘negative motivation generator.’ It’s the part of your brain that talks loudest when you hate someone or what they seem to be, to you. You can’t think of a positive motivation for what that someone does, you can only give credence to that which casts a negative light.
This woman is not just smart, she’s brilliant. And lucky for us, determined.
Your fourth paragraph goes right to the heart of the matter. That negativity will be more pronounced in a spoiled or abused individual. Thank you.
Very well stated. Agree!
Well said. I, too, noticed.
Totally agree; she is smart, brilliant and determined!
BINGO !!!! TRUMP 2020 and beyond.. MAGA. Mt. Rushmore awaits.
?
The Parr that sickens me the most is that people on social media still tout, especially, the Russia collusion lies as fact. MSM in this country should be outlawed. Wht they have done to President Trump is criminal.
Absolutely! Well stated! What are the chances of every “mistake” not one of them was in Trump’s favor. But all of them damaging? I would say I would have a better shot at winning the lottery with a ticket found on the side of the road. Or Nancy Pelosi coming across in an interview as someone who has a grasp on her sanity and a handle on reality.
If you or I made that many “mistakes” at work, we’d be collecting unemployment.
Alan is spot-on; however, journalists are also lazy. Twitter is real to them. They were brought up to believe that myth.
Hey here’s a little light reading for y’all :)
Here’s the Republican lead Senate Select intelligence report on Russian Active Measures and interference into the 2016 election report. It’s almost 1000 pages, so I have not had time to review the ENTIRE thing but it’s pretty damning and could make great material for a spy thriller.
I think you’ll find the information quite enlightening!!
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
ABSOLUTELY Alen.
Exactly!
Now that is a reporter
This is the most thorough honest reporting I have seen in years. What a great job !!!
The link to the book is still wrong, it is missing a : after https
Fully Agree. Trump is making America Great Again and cleaning the Swamp a little at a time.
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.
Our biased MSM is so far left, when they look to their RIGHT…Karl Marx is standing there!
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.”
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
we need to contribute to her case as obama was spying on her as a news media.
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.
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.
It is, most certainly, a coordinated effort to destroy not only Trump, personally and professionally, but his whole family. And any association is reason for anyone else to be treated the same. Artists telling him not to play ‘their’ music, like ‘their’ music would be anything without the support of millions of Americans of all stripes. Fashion houses and magazines refusing to allow their ‘fashions’ worn or articles covering the FLOTUS, the graceful and lovely Melania..
As Mad Maxine said “get in their face and let them know they aren’t welcome here’ (or words to that effect,) far too many publicly un-associated people portray higher and higher levels of vile representations and violent responses. Whoopi and her gang of vipers, too
Even the Puppet Masters of the Internet Universe show a violence against the whole segment of people who actually “get” Trump — and love him. They defund, block, ban, suspend, and destroy the businesses that are ‘judged’ to be a Trump supporter, or “conservative.’ Kinda like the gang members silencing all competition, in a fatal manner.
The insanity has to stop somehow. I’m very impressed with this reporter. I’d appoint her to Czar of Truth in Publishing, if I were Trump, and let her set up ‘sensitivity classes’ to explain opinion versus fact to those who want press privileges, protections, and tax status. And ensure the Masters of the Universe understand what ‘fake’ and ‘real’ are in the real world.
If we can force every college to have ‘diversity,’ ‘sensitivity,’ and ‘consent’ requirements for students, we can have every journalist be required to pass a basic impartiality “IQ” test. Sorta like the bar exam for lawyers.
This article should be printed out and handed out like candy everywhere.
Really enjoyed this article and hope it continues to be updated as “Obamagate” grows. Many of my friends can be found on the “left” and we often have interesting discussions about politics. Of course, they are quick to drink the liberal kool aid and then regurgitate it as though it is fact. This award-worthy article will give us so a lot more to talk about. Wish President Trump could use his social media skills to send this out to millions of people – I have no social media accounts to speak of. I have texted this to quite a few people though and cannot wait until I begin getting feedback. Would be interesting to create a spreadsheet the demonstrates which of the major news outlets has made the most mistakes here. Anyway, great job Sharyl on the article and heard you on Glenn Beck earlier. You’re amazing!!!!!!
When Obama was in office, he complained bitterly about his negative news coverage. At the time, the reporting was, indeed, 55% negative. Such a shame.
Now that Trump is in office, Barry says nothing about the unbalanced covered. Trump’s negative coverage factor is 95% and above depending on the day.
I can’t believe these liars are not facing criminal or civil court action.
Wow!! obviously there’s more…. What a guy our Mr. Trump is…a bit wacky and the heart of a lion who unabashedly loves his country and the people in it.
This was a bang up job of reporting. hope it continues and has a wider audience.
Thank You.
FIX THE MEDIA, SAVE THE WORLD. simple as that !
Great work, Ms. Attkisson! This is truly a mind-boggling list.
Well done! You clearly spent some time here. Thanks!
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.
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
Do you know the difference between fact and opinion? 74% of Americans don’t.
Notice how every last one of the mistakes is detrimental to Trump? Truly mind boggling indeed.
That’s the greatest takeaway to be made from this.. Below is a list I’ve compiled of all the mistakes the media have made in favor of Trump.
The link to the book from the image is incorrect and leads to a 404 page.
Remove the extra stuff at the very beginning
https://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=
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.
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.
A book is in order. I’d buy it.
#30 should read “as though” instead of “although”. Great list!
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.
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.
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.
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.
>>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.
I will bookmark this treasure trove. I wish I could memorize it to fire at command but, alas, my memory isn’t that good.
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.
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.
Even before the election the media mis-quoted Trump: Let’s please right this destructive wrong. What Trump actually said was “I plan to ban Muslims from entering this country until the Emigration people get their act together. There was a slight hesitation between the “country” and “until” and the press jumped all over it. Check the video files. His point was that the emigration people were failing to vet applicants.
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
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.
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.
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.
Thanks for keeping it straight – #RealJournalism
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.
Is Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson available in Calgary, Alberta?
For now as far as I know just online anytime at http://www.fullmeasure.news. Thanks
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)
Great work. Very well done. I see no reason #38 could not have been under Trump as well
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.
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.
Sharyl, your work is astounding! This article is impressive, and so well documented. I appreciate you so much! ❤
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.
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.
“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.
But I’m going to believe the mainstream press next time! Without question.
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!”
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?
Media mistakes? I tend to be somewhat less charitable in my evaluations.
Thanks for pointing this out Sharyl and for always being a “truth resource”. You’re one of a handful and deserve our respect.
Did you intentionally turn a blind eye to mistakes made by Fox News and other conservative media?
List them.
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!!
It is a nice list but far from including all the instances of the media getting it wrong, sometimes intentionally.
Thank you for being a real reporter and for this info.
It’s interesting that all the “mistakes” are designed to hurt or make Trump look bad. Not one “mistake” in his favor. Coincidence?
Thank you Sharyl for correcting the record here, and for the job you do as one of the few “journalists” we have left.
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: https://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!
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!
I love Sharyl Attkisson’s reporting. Please continue to expose lying rat bastards in the media and Deep State.
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!
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.
We need about 50 more of Ms Attkisson…just for starters. As always, good job in a class above all the rest.
They aren’t called “Fake News” for nothing, that’s a fact Jack!
Outstanding as usual!
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!
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.
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?
Great Reporting as always from A True Professional. A rare sight in journalism nowadays
What about the claim that Charlie Rose made about Flynn being “flipped?” That was a top-5 media lie in my opinion.
What about the claim that Charlie Rose made about Flynn being “flipped?” That was a top-5 media lie in my opinion.
If anyone ever wonders why the MSM has a credibility problem these days, this page is a great place to send them
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!
At the end of the day Trump still a National Embarrassment to any sane person!
Why stop at 50?
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“Once is an accident. Twice is an unfortunate coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”
Fifty times? The conclusion draws itself…
Our biased MSM is so far left, when they look to their RIGHT, Karl Marx is standing there
Missing from the list: Icecreamgate. Only Trump gets two scoops.
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.)
“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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
How do these clowns still have jobs?
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.
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.
Sharyl’s work is incredibly important to our country. She deserves MUCH gratitude for her hard work, dedication and integrity.
I have taken the liberty of making a comprehensive list of media mistakes that were favorable to President Trump, which I will post here:
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”.
I’d like to post the 50th response to the 50 to say GOD BLESS YOU, SHARYL ATKISSON!
“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.
AP is suppose to be non-bias and yet most of the articles in the list are AP.
now how can that be?
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.
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.
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
Guess the 1st Amendment should have added “Freedom of the Press…for the truth only”
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..
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.
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!
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
That egg on you face…it’s sunny side up for Trump in 2020.
Journaliars – fake news reporting
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This article shows the media to be at best ignorant and lazy, at worst they are criminally negligent.
Only 50??
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.
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.
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….
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.
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
Thanks for calling out the Fake News !
Sharyl is a REAL reporter !
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!
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?
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.
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.
It is not Trump or his supporters that have “divided this country”. It is 100% due to the hatred and intolerance of the Left to accept the results of a legitimate election and being sore losers. Since Trump got elected they’ve been screaming about “racism”, “intolerance”, “get in their faces” etc. etc. Yet they are blaming Trump. for the division that THEY THEMSELVES have caused.
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
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.
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.
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
—
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.
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.
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!
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.”
Let me get this straight….16 years before Trump was elected some Russian who supposedly had a criminal background was found to have a phone number of Trump’s real estate / business office?
And this is supposed to be evidence of what exactly?
I’m guessing then that ALL THE OTHER NUMBERS in this guys phone book must have also been with guilty secret Russian operatives, other than just simple phone numbers that most people have in their records for any of a thousand reasons.
You people don’t realize how sad it looks when you grasp at such wispy straws in order to support your per-conceived world view and TDS.
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
Also, the very fine people on both sides comment.
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.
No surprise. This is who they are; this is what they do.
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Beautiful compilation of facts! Thank you.
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.
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 … !
Please provide a list like Sharyl – so odd that you do not. Refuting rhetoric is impossible and pointless.
Ah yes, the “daily lies of Trump” which the Libs are always talking about. Yet they cannot ever mention ONE. Funny that.
(Note: differences of opinions are not “lies”, nor is “bloviating” or “boastful exaggeration”, which all Trump supporters admit that he often does.).
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.
The link for your book is missing the colon after the https.
Without it, browser will redirect to http://www.https.com.
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.