Thread by @DrewHolden360

🧵THREAD🧵

We’ve got to talk about the Rolling Stone invermectin article. Turns out the story about rural hospitals so flooded with ODs that they couldn’t treat other patients was made up, entirely invented.

A lot of people took the bait, and I’ve got the screenshots.⤵️

First, for context, here’s the original piece from @RollingStone and the follow up from the actual hospital saying the story was BS and that the one (one!) person the story quotes doesn’t work at that hospital anymore (and hasn’t in months).

But it wasn’t just a single story out in the ether. Plenty of other places picked up the story, too, with no additional sourcing or research.

Here’s @BusinessInsider (@thecherylt) parroting the scoop that wasn’t true to begin with.

But the real champion of this tall tale was @MSNBC.

@maddow had a tweet about it that went viral.

She’s got an audience of millions of people and couldn’t be bothered to even look into a story that pretty obviously doesn’t pass the sniff test.

That @briantylercohen pushed a baseless lie on a show called “No Lie” is really just a little too on the nose. @NoLieWithBTC

We even had an executive producer from MSNBC push the story that wasn’t. @laurenpeikoff

You know what’s a good way to not be derisively referred to as “fake news”?

Stop pushing fake news.

For some reason British outlets went all-in on this one, too.

Will we get any apologies from @guardian or @DailyMailUK?

I just really don’t understand why seemingly real news outlets - like @Newsweek @NYDailyNews and @thehill - didn’t bother to even look into this story before they pushed this narrative?

Didn’t it sound odd? Wasn’t it worth investigating? Maybe a single phone call?

Needless to say, a certain variety of Twitter bluecheck couldn’t help themselves on this story. Here’s @shannonrwatts of Moms Demand Action.

This sentiment was pretty widespread because it just fit the narrative perfectly - “look at these dumb hicks and their horse medication!” right, @dabeard?

@DrJasonJohnson took the conspiracy theory a step further, suggesting that Senator Inhofe was somehow profiting (?) from the situation that wasn’t actually taking place.

Dr. Johnson, I think you owe @JimInhofe an apology.

And plenty of actual bad actors got involved in pushing this one, too. I don’t know how @DrEricDing hasn’t been kicked off of Twitter by now. He’s a bottomless well of misinformation.

He’s got me blocked but @joncoopertweets continues to be one of the worst, most dishonest people on this platform.

Obligatory @kurteichenwald mention.

I won’t pretend I expected much from either @dailykos or @OccupyDemocrats but both of these are pretty egregious.

I don’t usually include people who aren’t verified but I couldn’t resist this one.

@RVAwonk is a postdoc studying “mis/disinformation” and had a whole thread *actively pushing disinformation*

There were simply too many people to break each of them out as their own tweet.

Here we’ve got:
@justinbaragona
@PoliticusSarah
@georgehahn (again with the narrative)
@timmarchman

See what I’m saying?

@mims
@EoinHiggins_ (quickly becoming a thread favorite)
@GidMK (“health nerd”)
@AngryBlackLady (this is definitely an illustrative example of something, just not the thing that you think it is)

I’m running out of space and patience but one last four-box:

@rolandsmartin
@lanaveenker
@cruickshank
@johnpavlovitz

It should go without saying, but inventing a narrative out of thin air simply because it confirms your priors is not going to help rebuild trust in the media.

It would’ve taken a single phone call to shoot this story down.

Why didn’t that happen?

And the same people who purport to be concerned about misinformation and how it spreads on platforms like Twitter will surely be silent on this.

Where’s the nashing of teeth from the “disinformation” reporters? Where are the Twitter content warnings? Where’s the outrage?

You won’t hear any. Because this is the acceptable type of political lie.

And none of these people or outlets will learn anything. They’ll keep doing this.

Because they care more about scoring cheap dunks on their opponents than getting the truth.

For new folks/those asking, I don’t have anything to sell or subscribe to.

But if you’re able, food banks remain in desperate need of support. For those in DC (or otherwise) I think Capital Area Food Bank does great work. give.capitalareafoodbank.org/give/324509/#!…

Okay a few points given some questions.

First, have seen folks say the response was just a random OK hospital. That isn’t true. It’s the hospital the doc quoted is publicly affiliated with. If he’s referring to another one, that would be a detail worth including/verifying.

Second, yes, Rolling Stone issued an “update” on this story with the hospitals push back and even ran a new story on it.

I have no idea why they haven’t pulled the original story or found an actual example of the phenomenon they claim is so widespread.

And third, for those asking, I do have a Patreon profile. If you want to throw me a few bucks for the beer fund to help massage my sanity from staring at these kinds of bad takes takes all day, link is here: patreon.com/drewholden360

Latest “update” from @RollingStone completely shreds the premise of the original piece.

Why hasn’t it been taken down?

also *ivermectin lol