Take it from someone who spent 35-plus years working in newspaper editorial departments, once upon a time, the news media could be counted on to report news accurately.
Yes, occasional mistakes were made, but almost always they were unintentional and once identified, the errors received unqualified corrections.
Over the years, as more products of our leftist public schools and colleges have filtered into journalism, a lot of warped-minded social justice warriors have viewed this as their chance to massage the news to reflect their views.
At first, they tried to just slant things a bit so that the organizations for which they worked could retain plausible deniability. Their stories were long on message and short on facts, but always there was just enough truth in their reporting that the public didn’t scream in outrage.
Emboldened by their successes, these journalists in name only have progressed steadily to our current point, that being where outright lies, distortions and propaganda are spouted freely.
Donald Trump rightly recognized the ridiculous state of journalism and correctly branded the usual suspects as fake news.
If and when these leftist reporters are forced to make corrections to their erroneous reports, what should be straightforward matters of setting the record straight instead become exercises in tortured logic claiming victim-hood for the purveyors of falsehoods because of all the meanies who called them out on their lies.
Consider the ongoing parody that is Rolling Stone, reporting that some doctor in Oklahoma had lamented hospital emergency rooms overflowing with patients who have taken ivermectin, ostensibly to treat COVID-19 infections.
The story has many flaws, including one exposed by the hospital that noted said doctor hasn’t worked there for two months and the hospital has treated exactly ZERO ivermectin overdoses.
Rolling Stone, which should stick to covering musicians overdosing on more conventional drugs, won’t admit the story is bogus with an outright correction or retraction, but instead provided an “update” to its false information by posting the hospital’s statement.
Ivermectin, which is both a horse de-wormer and an anti-parasitic drug prescribed for humans, must be debunked because it might be viewed as an alternative to never-ending COVID vaccines.
Speaking of that, you likely won’t hear from any of the VacciNazis in mass media that boxer Oscar De La Hoya has had his comeback stalled. The boxer posted on social media that he has been hospitalized with a COVID infection “despite being fully vaccinated.”
Similarly, the VacciNazis aren’t eager to spread the science from Israel, where last month it was reported that 60 percent of people hospitalized with COVID infections are, wait for it, “fully vaccinated.”
The you-must-be vaccinated-repeatedly train has its media sycophants eager to spread the propaganda but ignore the facts.
The media is like so many hand maidens for the leftists.
When families lamented Joe Biden repeatedly checking his watch as bodies of American service members killed in the Kabul Airport bombing were brought home, at first some media sources branded the families as liars.
A typically pencil-necked geek fact checker at USA Today said Biden did not check his watch during the actual ceremony, but “only after.”
Then, when video proof emerged that Biden did repeatedly check his watch (time for his diaper change?) it was lumped into the too-insignificant-to-report category.
The fact checker wasn’t happy that he was being criticized for getting it wrong. Give the man a dictionary because he clearly can’t tell the difference between facts and what his political leanings lead him to wish were the facts.
Only a few weeks back, the self-appointed fact-checking site Snopes was exposed for running stories stolen from other news organizations without the proper attribution.
Time for some serious fact-checking of fact checkers.
And, finally, when the “news” was reported quickly after the Kabul Airport debacle that two ISIS-K “planners” had been killed in a drone strike, we noted on this site that the story lacked credibility.
First, it was conveniently quick, in an attempt to spin the news cycle away from Biden’s and the military commanders’ botching of the Afghanistan withdrawal operation.
These are the same military and intelligence people who said repeatedly they expected an attack on the airport, but somehow were unable to stop it from being successful. Yet, within hours, they had visited revenge on what supposedly were ISIS-K higher level operatives.
The names of those victims continue to be unavailable all these many days later, suggesting maybe the drone blew up a couple of camels and their handlers in a tent, not anyone high up in the ISIS-K command chain.
None of the typical video of the actual missile strike has been released, either, just some generic shots of an exploded vehicle.
Meanwhile, another drone strike in Kabul is reported to have killed six children, 10 civilians overall, but is being defended by the military as targeting ISIS-K.
Where are all the fact checkers on this one?
Sam Ross Jr's site 