It was a horrible, terrible, disastrous, sad year for the mainstream media. From a plethora of fake news stories to endless corrections, the CNNs and the Washington Posts have seen their reputations tarnished – if they had any reputations to begin with.
Despite fake news being one of the most hated terms in America today, one that was created by the mainstream media in the first place, it is the best way to describe the pro-war media industrial complex.
So, what were some of the biggest fake news stories of 2017?
Let’s examine the top five:
Washington Post Claims Russia Hacked Vermont Power Grid
The Washington Post rocked the news media on New Year’s Eve 2016 and New Year’s Day 2017 when it reported that the Russian government hacked a Vermont power grid. This would be awful if it really happened. But it didn’t.
It was just part of the Russian hysteria inside the Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper.
ABC’s Brian Ross Gets it Wrong Big Time
ABC had a bad 72 hours earlier this month.
ABC News reported that former national security advisor Michael Flynn will testify that then-candidate Donald Trump “directed him to make contact with the Russians.” This caused Joy Behar’s botox to burst.
But it turned out that it was fake news. Hours later, the network’s Brian Ross, who initially reported the story, issued a clarification that this was an inaccurate report, stating that it was President-Elect Trump, NOT Candidate-Trump.
Did WikiLeaks Give Trump Campaign a Heads Up?
CNN thought it had killed two birds with one stone: the birds being President Trump and WikiLeaks.
The Counterfeit News Network reported that Donald Trump Jr. was sent an email on September 4, 2016 from a man named Michael J. Erickson. The contents of the email included a link to WikiLeaks documents and a decryption key to emails.
Unfortunately for the pro-war network, the much hyped “exclusive” was a failure.
Two things: the real date of the email was September 14 and WikiLeaks made the documents public on September 13.
Ouch.
The Atlantic Partakes in Some Selective Editing
WikiLeaks and Julian Assange collaborated with Trump Jr. Or so that is how the media portrays the story.
Ostensibly, there were three DMs exchanged between the president’s son and WikiLeaks. Three!
To the media, this is dishonorable and reeks of a conspiracy, despite the fact that journalists and anchors spent time with the Hillary Clinton campaign with private dinners and fundraisers.
But that wasn’t the real story. The real story was the selective editing that The Atlantic performed.
Author Julia Ioffe reported:
“It is the third reason, though, Wikileaks wrote, that “is the real kicker.” “If we publish them it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality,” Wikileaks explained. “That means that the vast amount of stuff that we are publishing on Clinton will have much higher impact, because it won’t be perceived as coming from a ‘pro-Trump’ ‘pro-Russia’ source.”
But here is the full DM (emphasis ours):
“That means that the vast amount of stuff that we are publishing on Clinton will have much higher impact, because it won’t be perceived as coming from a ‘pro-Trump’ ‘pro-Russia’ source, which the Clinton campaign is constantly slandering us with.“
Yes, selective editing is fake news.
James Comey Will Testify Trump is Under Investigation
Just before former FBI director James Comey delivered his testimony, CNN had reported that he will confirm that Trump is under personal investigation. This prompted millions of Americans to tune in to the Senate hearing and hope for a big, juicy revelation that Trump is about to be charged.
Well, like everything else CNN does, it got the story wrong.
CNN initially reported:
“Comey is going to dispute the president on this point if he’s asked about it by senators, and we have to assume that he will be. He will say he never assured Donald Trump that he was not under investigation, that that would have been improper for him to do so.”
Trump is not under personal investigation.
Brian Stelter will declare that this isn’t fake news, but rather reporting errors. Considering that coverage of the Trump administration is mostly negative (SEE: Study: Up to 98% of media’s Trump coverage has been negative), and the media manipulates video (SEE: Koi-Gate: U.S. media spread fake news during Trump’s Japan visit) and jack it up to 11 if they find out that the president drinks 12 Diet Cokes, it is easy to determine that it is fake news.
Andrew Klavan did an excellent job explaining what fake news is in the video below:
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