Media Mistakes In The Biden Era: The Definitive List

After four Muslim men were killed over a 9 month period in Albuquerque, NM, many in the news media joined political advocates and analysts in the unfounded conclusion, without evidence, that the murders were "anti-Muslim hate crimes." That appears not to be the case, according to police.

May 31, 2022

• Politico reported the opposite of what the Supreme Court ruled in the case of a Texas law banning social media companies from moderating based on people's political views

May 21, 2022

• The New York Times falsely reported that 4,000 children ages 5-11 had died with COVID-related multisystem inflammatory syndrome.

March 29, 2022

• The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Robert Costa break the story of a supposedly suspicious 7 hour gap in Trump White House phone records on Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the Trump rally and Capitol riots.
• The Atlantic, CBS News, Rolling Stone, NPR, the BBC, Forbes, USA Today, the New York Post and many others follow up, writing articles nearly identical in content.

Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022

• Nina Totenberg reported that Supreme Court Justice John Roberts had instructed all Justices to mask, (despite being fully vaccinated and boosted), and that Neil Gorsuch refused.
• Thousands of news stories and commentators accepted and amplified the anonymously-sourced allegations— which included no comments from those involved—as if they were proven true, disparaging and smearing Gorsuch.

January 2022

• The fact checker for the Washington Post, Glenn Kessler, gave Sen. Tom Cotton a rating indicating Cotton wasn't telling the truth in March of 2021 when Cotton accurately tweeted that under the Biden administration's Covid relief initiative, murderers like convicted Islamic extremist terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from the Boston Marathon bombings would receive a Covid stimulus check.

The Huffington Post Correction

• An obituary mistakenly stated that Sidney Potier was the first black actor to win an Academy Award. Actually, that distinction went to Hattie McDaniel 24 years earlier.

Nov. 19, 2021

• Numerous media outlets defamed and otherwise published false information about Kyle Rittenhouse, who was found not guilty of all charges by a jury

Kyle Rittenhouse

• went to Wisconsin to protect storefronts and businesses being looted and burned by rioters, shot and killed two attackers during violent protests, and shot a third man
• Media reports widely declared him a murderous white supremacist
• all three of the men shot were white

The Washington Post belatedly admitted its false reporting about the anti-Trump opposition research compiled by Democratic operative and ex-British spy Christopher Steele

• The Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, had long insisted that Sergei Millian, a Belrusian-American businessman, was one of Steele's sources
• But its stories, which relied on two sources it did not name publicly, were increasingly undermined.

Fri. Nov. 12, 2021

• Mediaite falsely claimed that Biden did not refer to Satchel Paige as a “Negro” in his Veterans Day speech. In fact, Biden had done just that.
• Biden said, “I’ve adopted the attitude of the great negro at the time... his name was (expletive deleted).”

The Washington Post Corrects an Article

• An article by Ashley Parker and Carissa Wolf falsely claimed that a pro-Trump crowd broke into a chant of “Let’s Go, Brandon!” during a speech by Donald Trump, Jr. in Georgia.
• The crowd was actually chanting an expletive: “F-- Joe Biden!"

Myocarditis

• It is rare and temporary.
• However, scientists say the disorder can have permanent impacts and even be fatal.
• An article in Medscape states that myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation reported in some people, after the COVID-19 vaccination is "rare and temporary."

Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2021

• CNN falsely reported that Rogan had taken a "horse" medicine for Covid-19.
• In fact, Rogan says he took the doctor-prescribed human version of ivermectin, which some medical experts say has proven safe and effective for some patients as an off-label treatment for COVID-19

Correction:

• The New York Times makes several corrections to an article by Apoorva Mandavilli
• First, it incorrectly stated that Sweden and Denmark had begin offering single doses of Moderna vaccine in children after safety issues were raised.
• Second, the article wildly overstated the number of U.S. children hospitalized with COVID-19 from August 2020 to October 2021. The article stated the number was 900,000, when it was actually 63,000.

Business Insider publishes an allegation in a book by former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham that First Lady Melania Trump dissed the family of Rep. Steve Scalise during a White House visit after he was shot by a radical Bernie Sanders supporter at a Congressional ball game.

• After the article was published, Scalise disputed the claim. The publication updated its story to reflect Scalise's challenge, which included photos of Melania Trump meeting with the Scalise family at the White House.

Some media, such as Axios, began deleting their unsupported reporting that claimed Border Patrol agents were whipping Haitian immigrants who had illegally crossed the border.

• Mon. Sept. 27, 2021

Sept. 9, 2021

• Washington Post reporter Jacob Bogage broke the news that U.S. Postal Service workers were not included in President Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Monday Sept. 6, 2021

• 70% of recent calls to the Mississippi Poison Control Center were from people who had ingested the medicine ivermectin to try to treat COVID-19.

Rolling Stone retracted a false story claiming an Oklahoma hospital had been overrun by people who poisoned themselves with the COVID-19 treatment ivermectin, and that had resulted in gunshot victims and others being turned away or being left waiting for emergency care.

• After the story was published, the hospital issued a statement that prompted a correction.
• It turns out the one doctor quoted in the story hadn't worked in the hospital in months, and the hospital had treated no patients related to the treatment.

Thursday Sept. 2, 2021

• Slate and other media falsely labelled a complaint about a man in the women's spa locker room a "transphobic hoax."
• However, on Aug. 30, police actually filed charges of indecent exposure against the man, Darren Agee Merager.

Thursday Sept. 2, 2021

• USA Today corrects a fact check that had bad facts
• A fact check article by David Funke falsely claimed that President Biden only checked his watch after a ceremony in which the bodies of U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan were returned.
• In the false article, Funke made liars of the family members of fallen soldiers who saw Biden check his watch and said so to news reporters.

Functional Neurological Disorder (FND)

• FND is a neurological disorder involving malfunctioning of the nervous system and how the brain and body transmit signals. Symptoms include limb weakness, paralysis, tremor, spasms, problems walking, speech problems, tingling, vision loss, seizures, fatigue, anxiety, chronic pain, memory symptoms, and blackouts.

Saturday Aug. 28, 2021

• Writing about a major study in Israel that finds, like many others, natural immunity is far superior to vaccination for COVID-19, Meredith Wadman falsely writes in the journal Science that those who were infected with Covid-19 and gained natural immunity still benefitted from vaccination afterwards.
• This is the same disinformation the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) got caught distributing in late 2020 and early 2021.

Wednesday Aug. 28, 2021

• Hari Sreenivasan and others wrote that video of a violent passenger at Miami International Airport showed a "tantrum...like a 5 year old" against mask rules.

The Texas Tribune “overstates” the number of children hospitalized in Texas by a factor of more than 40

• The article initially claimed more than 5,800 children had been hospitalized during a seven-day period in August.
• However, the true number was about 142 children in a week.

The 2020 Sturgis, South Dakota Motorcycle Rally was not a “Super Spreader” event

• Data analysis showed the rally wasn’t associated with anywhere near the national average of cases, and especially not the quarter million that some original claimed

An investigation revealed that the fan was yelling the name of the Rockies team mascot, and that racist-minded observers mistook that for the N-word.

• However, uncorrected headlines and/or with the false information remained accessible online (see below).

Monday July 26, 2021

• The Associated Press corrects a story that falsely claimed CDC had released guidance in May stating that unvaccinated people don’t have to wear masks indoors.

Tuesday May 17, 2021

• The Poynter Institute retracts a September 2020 Politifact fact check about a statement by Li-Meng Yan that falsely claimed, among other assertions: The genetic structure of the novel coronavirus rules out laboratory manipulation.
• Politifact has removed the fact-check from its database pending a more thorough review.

Wednesday May 11, 2021

• As people wait in long lines for gas, and even as the New York Times showed images of long lines in its news coverage, the newspaper claims in a Tweet that "there have been no long lines."

Saturday May 1, 2021

• The New York Times, Washington Post, and NBC News correct their false reporting about Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
• Giuliani and One America News did not receive so-called “defensive briefings,” as claimed in the articles, and have not received any such briefings.

Friday April 30, 2021

• NPR reports that President Donald Trump’s allegations of election rigging and widespread voter fraud are “false”
• The reports should accurately say that NPR and other news outlets have not uncovered evidence of widespread fraud.
• If NPR inserts opinions and attacks in its news reporting, it should label them as opinions or attribute them to a source.

Friday April 30, 2021

• Newsmax corrects its 2020 election fraud reporting and apologizes to Eric Coomer, director of product strategy and security for Dominion Voting Systems

Tuesday April 27, 2021

• A Politico article by with three bylines, EUGENE DANIELS, KRYSTAL CAMPOS and MICHAEL CADENHEAD, wrongly stated that Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) was "Florida's first-ever Black Republican in Congress." In fact, he is third.

Tuesday April 27, 2021

• New York Post reporter Laura Italiano resigns after saying she was pressed to write an incorrect article claiming a book written by Vice President Kamala Harris was being distributed to children who illegally crossed the border into the U.S.
• A correction to the Post article noted that only one known copy of the book was given to a child.

Tuesday, April 4, 2021

• CBS’s 60 Minutes is accused of selectively editing a segment with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in which he implied he is guilty of “pay-for-play” by linking a campaign donation from Publix grocery stores to the selection of the company as a Covid-19 vaccine distribution center.
• After the segment, numerous Democrat political figures in Florida confirmed that the company was recommended by other state agencies rather than the governor's office, and other stores were actually chosen for earlier vaccine distribution jobs before the governor.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution falsely reported that Georgia's new voting integrity law would "limit voting hours."

• Nothing in the law changes the hours: 7am to 7pm.
• Experts say the net effect was to expand the opportunities to vote for most Georgians, not limit them.

Fake News

• The Washington Post falsely reported that President Trump pressed a lead Georgia elections investigator to "find the fraud," and told the investigator it would make them a national hero

Friday, Jan. 8, 2021

• The New York Times reports that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was killed by "pro-Trump supporters" who "overpowered" him and "struck him in the head with a fire extinguisher."

https://sharylattkisson.com/2022/08/media-mistakes-in-the-biden-era-the-definitive-list/