Few outlets have as great a reach as @Reuters, who rushed to parrot Hamas talking points to the world when the explosion happened.
The one outlet who rivals their reach is @AP — who did the same thing, repeating what they had been told by Hamas.
Perhaps the most egregious disinformation came from @nytimes. Not only did they rush to quote Hamas in their headline and tweet, as @HillelNeuer points out, they made it their website homepage.
More of the same from Washington’s paper of record, @washingtonpost.
Why would anyone take “Palestinian authorities” - which translates to Hamas, to be clear - at their word?
@MSNBC was on the ground to sow disinformation.
Naturally @CNN pushed the lie too.
I expected better from @politico. But at least they called the health authority “Hamas-run”
More of the same from @axios
@BBCNews was particularly bad. (h/t to @AdamBienkov)
@NewsHour telling the story the same way Hamas tried to.
I’m running out of room but more of the same from @Forbes
@FT
@thedailybeast
@thehill
Remember, the outlets who pushed this Hamas lie are the same ones who have spent years shouting that the greatest threat society faces is disinformation.
Apparently they’re happy to promote disinfo so long as it confirms their priors.
Then there were the individual journalists who pushed the lie. Here’s @michellenichols and @idreesali114 from @Reuters and @OmarJimenez from @CNN
And there was @KarenAttiah, who recently appeared to endorse the idea of violence against Israelis following Hamas’s initial attacks (found by @megynkelly), who suggested that Israel had to be behind the explosion. (H/t @ChuckRossDC)
Here’s how the lies from the press get repeated by other people in the media yniverae, like @keithboykin.
@KeithOlbermann presented without comment.
Some outlets have since very quietly changed their headlines to try to walk back their since disproven claims, like @nytimes.
This progression from @business really is something. Look at the time stamps.
Plenty of people who are always happy to hate on Israel ran with the misinformation.
Some of them, like @IlhanMN and @RashidaTlaib, are in Congress.
If you’re wondering whether the press will learn anything from all this, outlets like @nytimes are still parroting Hamas when it comes to the disputed death count, even a day later.
In your anger toward the media about this journalistic malpractice, please don’t forget that there are real people suffering as a result of this violence. There are plenty of charities at work on the ground — if you can, please donate to them.
I can’t get this side-by-side of @nytimes out of my head.
If you're wondering what the @nytimes has taken from their & their press peers' failure, it's that they did nothing wrong & were the victims of circumstance: "The fast-moving events highlighted the difficulty of covering the war between Israel and Hamas." nytimes.com/2023/10/18/bus…
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8 years after I said I would, 2 years after a brain tumor diagnosis, and 1 year after finishing chemo & radiation, I’m finally running the Army 10-miler in a couple weeks, and raising money for a good cause.
I hope you’ll check out the details in the 🧵thread🧵 below. 👇
The 10-miler is, as the name implies, a 10 mile road race in Washington, D.C. It’s October 13th, so, soon!
If you’d like to donate (100% of donations go to charity, more on that below). The link is here:
I’m running (okay, slowly jogging) it to raise money for Undue Medical Debt, a really good charity that helps people who’re saddled with debt from the medical care they need (or needed).
It’s genuinely unclear who is executing the responsibilities of the leader of the free world and the media — providers of transparency, beacons of integrity — couldn’t seem to care less.
That there could be any question more important for anyone in the media to ask than “who is in charge of the country, right now, at this moment?” defies all logic.
Look, I know there’s bigger news today, but with Biden’s “black jobs” quip on Friday, I’ve gotta revisit the media meltdown on the term, as stupid as it is.
Do you remember how insulted & offended the press were when Trump said “black jobs”?
I’ve got screenshots. ⤵️
Some quick context: Biden in a speech on Friday, referred to jobs as “black jobs,” as in held by black folks.
If that phrase sounds familiar, it’s because Trump said it at his debate with Biden a couple months ago.
The media went ballistic.
Just look at the indignation here from @axios when Trump used the phrase.
“Reality check.” I mean, cmon!
And so now what, Axios? Is Biden suddenly a monster, too?
I was struck by the number of dubious statements and flat-out lies at the DNC.
It appears the mainstream media isn’t much interested in them, amid their jubilant, joy-full coverage. So I decided to do some fact-checking, focused on Biden’s speech.
There’s a lot. ⤵️
1. The first thing that jumped out to me was Trump’s alleged “very fine people on both sides” description of Charlottesville.
Haven’t we been over this, time and again? The context makes clear Trump didn’t mean the neo-Nazis. Even @snopes admitted it!
Yet Biden trotted it out.
2. Biden claimed he and his admin “demonizes no one.”
What, then, about Biden’s remarks about Trump supporters? That they are “determined to destroy democracy,” practitioners of “semi-fascism,” and “a threat to the very soul of this nation.”
The media haven’t been interested in providing voters with much of a picture of Kamala Harris beyond “vibes.”
So I did the work for them and went back through what she’s actually said and done on policy and beyond.
It isn’t a pretty picture. Follow along ⤵️
There’s nowhere better to start than on immigration. Back in 2020, Harris was among the Dem candidates who supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings.
Now @politico claims she “promised to go tough on border security.”
Color me skeptical.
Especially considering she supported eliminating ICE, tried to stop production on the border wall, and otherwise unwind the Trump policies that actually reduced illegal immigration.