Thread by @DrewHolden360

🧵THREAD🧵

We’ve got to talk about the Jussie Smollett case.

I know it can seem easy to laugh or shrug off. But it’s instructive in why so many people don’t trust the corporate press and the Dems & commentators who help drive it.

So let’s revisit ⤵️

First, a reminder on the original details. Actor @JussieSmollett alleged that two white men wearing MAGA hats out for a stroll at 2 AM in Chicago in -20 degree weather recognized him & beat him up yelling racist and homophobic slurs. Luckily, he fought them off, supposedly.

The press quickly jumped on the story despite the relatively inconceivable nature of the allegations, asserting that surely this had happened as Smollett describes.

Here’s @CNN reporting this as not something they was alleged but that definitely happened (multiple times).

There were plenty of voices within @CNN, too, who leaned in on this one, including @donlemon (peep the reference), @brianstelter (“we may never know what happened on that street in Chicago”) and @keithboykin (sheesh)

Even the outlets who weren’t at the forefront of pushing the story bought the idea that the two most racist, homophobic Empire fans might’ve been waiting around a bone-chillingly cold Chicago night to dole out violence.

Here’s @nytimes without a caveat to be found.

Maybe no outlet did more to promote this hoax than @ABC.

For weeks they covered every undulation of the “brutal attack” and - like the Times, CNN & most places - always framed it as a foregone conclusion that the details were true.

Now we know they were all lies.

And even given the opportunity to push on the really implausible details of the story, instead @ABC went so far as to develop their own graphics quoting how upset Smollett was at his “doubters”

And it wasn’t just ABC who did the latter. Plenty of outlets not only pushed out everything Smollett had to say but served as conduits for his (and his allies’) outrage that anyone would dare question his story. Here’s @AP.

It wouldn’t be a thread without a mention of @MSNBC. No surprise that they were all too happy to pile on for this one, including leading conspiracy theorist (and person who has me blocked) @joyannreid.

@Yamiche of NPR helped lead the charge, parroting the ridiculous claims made by Smollett and his family, including the allegation that Smollett was the victim of the kind of “‘domestic terrorism’ happening to people across the country” (?!)

Again. There was A LOT of this, even after the story started to unravel. I don’t have space for every outlet but here’s:

@GMA
@VanityFair (I mean cmon guys really?)
@latimes
@CBSNews

A lot of folks have wondered why Smollett would do something like this.

My hunch is that the expected outpouring of supportive news must’ve factored in. And @Variety, @HuffPost, @etnow and @NYMag were among the outlets happy to deliver.

Of course, it wasn’t just the media.

Both now President @JoeBiden and Vice President @KamalaHarris put out moving statements attesting to Smollett’s character and how awful America is, which haven’t exactly aged perfectly.

Remember “an attempted modern day lunching”? I do.

In particular, @RepMaxineWaters went out of her way to blame Trump for the hoax, claiming that he was responsible “for emboldening racists” like Smollett’s attackers which…hasn’t aged well, either, I don’t think.

But of course she wasn’t the only one. We had some whoppers from @RashidaTlaib, @ericswalwell (go figure) & @AOC.

Perhaps if things are as bad as you claim, you wouldn’t have to rely on blatant hoaxes to make your point?

And AOC, can you see now the value of news caveats?

There were tons of Democrats who went all-in on this one. I don’t have space for all of them but here are a few more:

@repmarkpocan
@RepJimmyGomez
@harrisonjaime
@SenSanders

Also worth pointing out that President Trump, who I don’t believe is on Twitter, bought the Smollett hoax, too.

And naturally the lefty blue check brigade drew a lot of very definitive conclusions from the supposed ordeal, particularly around Trump. I won’t have room for all of them but here’s a few egregious ones:

@KarenAttiah
@mindykaling
@kevinnadal (a perfect tweet, retrospectively)

We saw the truly fake news promoted by many people who are, supposedly, very worried about disinformation and how it spreads on the internet, like @MSignorile and @cmclymer.

And a number of once-credible organizations decided this was a hill worth dying on, including @ACLU and @ADL (and @JGreenblattADL).

Perhaps next time they’ll be more discerning about unbelievable stories.

Now, shockingly, no one wants to talk about it.

@CharlesMBlow of the Times captures that duality well: when the story confirmed someone’s priors, it was worth talking about. As soon as it turns out that it never did, the refrain was ‘why do we bother talking about this?’

And of course the usual grifters were plenty happy to jump onto the bandwagon.

That includes @TheRevAl, @democracynow and @mmpadellan. Not that any had credibility left, but you would at least think they could avoid spewing more disinformation.

All of this happened because the preposterous story Smollett spun checked too many boxes (about race, sexuality, Trump) to be worth asking a few journalism 101 questions.

If you’d like to know why trust in the media is at an all-time low, look no further.

The corporate press loves to wax poetic about the terrible role of disinformation in society, and yet they race against each other to be the first to uncritically share an absurd hoax.

Maybe the real problem isn’t a meme your grandmother shared on Facebook.

Smollett is only the latest in a long series of stories pushed by the corporate press that never materialized - from Covington Catholic to Russiagate and beyond.

If the press wants to rebuild trust, they can start by not uncritically promoting lies.

I’m not holding my breath.

The reaction here from Biden & Co is unsurprising. My concern - one I have a feeling I’m not alone in - is that nothing has been learned. Not from Russiagate or CovCatholic or Hunter’s “disinfo” laptop or “Russian bounties” or the Steele dossier and on it goes.

Why start now?