A barbaric terrorist attack that killed over a thousand Israelis brought out the worst from the mainstream media. I want to walk you through some really terrible examples. @FreeBeacon
A lot of outlets essentially said that Israel had it coming.
That included @washingtonpost, who take victim blaming to the next level with this one. Just give it a read.
I asked this earlier this week but again: if you didn’t have the names on them, could you tell which is from @washingtonpost and which is from Hamas?
@NBCNews also seemed to run with Hamas talking points.
@NPR led off this conversation with a stirring defense of the terrorist’s decision to kill innocent people. See for yourself.
As the dead were still being counted, @nytimes rushed to explain how and why some Gazans see the barbarism as “justified”
@nytimes even had an inconceivable stealth edit on another piece. After calling the Hamas terrorists who gunned down innocent women and children “terrorists,” they changed the wording, as @greg_price11 pointed out
Then there were the individual journalists like @m7mdkurd who justified the violence, and others like @KarenAttiah who expressed sympathy for terrorism as a form of resistance. (H/t @megynkelly)
This isn’t the first time the media have produced slanted coverage about Israel. When Hamas’s rocket bombardment in 2021 led to an Israeli response, the @nytimes dedicated its front page to some of the victims, without including that Hamas had gotten them killed. (H/t @BA_Fogel)
And the rest of the press, led by @MSNBC and @NBCNews struck a similar note as we’re seeing today: that Israel is evil and deserves what it gets at the hands of terrorists.
H/T’s @theMRC and @NickFondacaro
@omriceren is still right about this one. @washingtonpost
Much has (rightly) been made about the horrible statements and sentiments around what’s happening in Israel - Democrats on the Hill, diversity activists who cheerlead terrorism, elite universities, etc. We can’t leave the press out of that discussion.
And it’ll only get worse.
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If you missed Trump’s address to Congress last night, I wouldn’t rely on media stories to explain it.
Rather than report on a speech viewers found “inspiring,” the corporate press played PR for Democrats.
Wanna know why trust in the press is underwater? Look. ⤵️
A @CBSNews poll of viewers found “A large majority of viewers approve” of Trump’s message, overwhelmingly describing it as “inspiring,” rather than “divisive.”
The speech was certainly partisan - and viewers skewed right.
But the press’s own view appears to slant their takes.
What leads me to claim that? Well, just look at how @CBSNews decided to report on the speech.
They tweeted out that “there was a horribly tense feeling,” and it was “filled with drama.”
Why focus on how their reporter felt, rather than viewers?
Having worked on the Hill I get the ubiquity of Politico Pro and its cost.
But I think it takes an enormous suspension of disbelief to call it a conspiracy theory to look askance at the millions of dollars the Biden admin paid the paper that ran this hatchet job on his opponent.
Which, to be clear, is exactly what outlets like @CNN are doing.
@CNN This from @axios seems particularly unreasonable.
It isn’t a “fake theory” to say that Politico is “funded by the government.” It is, to the tune of $8 million. That isn’t in dispute.
Quick 🧵 revisiting corporate media claims on the Covid lab leak theory then (a “conspiracy theory,” “misinformation,” etc.) vs. now (“okay the CIA even admits it”).
Trump’s return to the Oval Office has me reflecting on some of the worst “journalism” during his first term.
Of that long list, one in particular jumps out: the corporate press hype around the Steele dossier.
Do you *really* remember how bad it was? Follow along. ⤵️
Before I dive in, would really encourage you to read my full piece at @Holden_Court, because there’s too much to fit in a thread.
That said, surely you remember the dossier, a bunch of dramatic claims about Trump that even @nytimes now calls “discredited” open.substack.com/pub/drewholden…
But before that, there was the hype: the hero worship of Christopher Steele, the spy who was going to save American from Trump, the Russian puppet.
I mean, @washingtonpost put “hero” right in the title.
The rest of the piece is worse. WaPo repeats the claims — that the Russians had kompromat on him for engaging with prostitutes! Maybe Trump was compromised — verbatim without mentioning in the first instance that there’s no evidence these claims are true! Look at the highlights.
An unthinkable breach of journalistic ethics. There was plenty more.
Do you remember the media meltdown over Trump’s pardons? As Biden hands out decades-long passes to his family and friends, that concern is nowhere to be seen.
Biden no doubt wants you to forget this outrage in the glow of the inaugural.
Don’t. Screenshots help. ⤵️
When Trump announced pardons late in his first term, @nytimes said it “showed his willingness to use his power aggressively on behalf of loyalists” to “override courts, juries and prosecutors to apply his own standard of justice for his allies.”
When Biden did the same thing, @nytimes said he was using his “power to protect people targeted by…Trump” to “head off politically driven prosecutions.”