Media errors give Trump fresh ammunition

BY  <http://thehill.com/author/jonathan-easley> JONATHAN EASLEY - 07/04/17 
11:19 AM EDT 
<http://thehill.com/homenews/media/340564-media-errors-fuel-trump-attacks#bottom-story-socials>
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<mailto:?subject=TheHill.com%3A%20Media%20errors%20give%20Trump%20fresh%20ammunition&body=From%20TheHill.com%3A%20%0A%0A%0A%0Ahttp%3A//thehill.com/homenews/media/340564-media-errors-fuel-trump-attacks>
  

A string of high-profile corrections and retractions by major news 
organizations on stories about President Trump or his allies have fueled more 
allegations of bias in the mainstream press.

The relationship between Trump and the news media regularly hits new lows, with 
insults flying between the two camps and reporters warning that the president 
is inciting violence against journalists.

But Trump’s allies on the right believe the president’s claims that the 
mainstream media is “fake news” have been bolstered by recent missteps. They 
point to recent admissions from top news outlets — including CNN, the New York 
Times and the Associated Press — that bombshell stories were either overcooked 
or included incorrect details.

Adding insult to injury: Breitbart News, the pro-Trump media outlet that is 
scorned by many in the mainstream press, has been fact-checking their 
mainstream counterparts with some success.

Breitbart’s Washington political editor Matthew Boyle was first to call into 
question a CNN story on alleged ties between a Trump associate and Russia that 
was later retracted. Boyle was also reporting on an error in an Associated 
Press report when the newswire corrected and later rewrote the story.

Together, the corrections and retractions amount to only a few stories out of 
the thousands published every day. But the high-profile nature of the errors 
hurts the media's credibility at a time when the press is under more scrutiny 
than ever before, giving new political ammunition to critics of the mainstream 
press.

“There’s a dramatic difference in the degree of hostility the press has shown 
Presidents Trump and Obama,” said Tim Graham, a director at the conservative 
Media Research Center. “I guess it’s easier to make errors writing stories 
where Trump is twirling his villain’s mustache than when you’re writing about 
how tone  <http://thehill.com/people/michelle-obama> Michelle Obama’s arms are.”

Last week,  
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/pageoneplus/corrections-june-29-2017.html> 
the New York Times and  
<http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TRUMP_RUSSIA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-06-30-17-32-29>
 the Associated Press ran similar corrections acknowledging that reports on 
Russian interference in the 2016 election had overstated by more than a dozen 
the number of U.S. intelligence agencies that had signed off on the assessment.

Both outlets had reported that all 17 organizations that fall under the 
umbrella of the U.S. intelligence community had made the assessment. In fact, 
only four – the CIA, FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence 
and the National Security Agency - had contributed to that conclusion.

The Associated Press correction was applied to four stories that had run from 
early April to late June.

The corrections were gleefully aggregated by conservative media outlets and 
bounced around social media on the right.

The AP ran into more trouble over the weekend after it ran a story about how 
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt met privately with 
the CEO of a top chemical company, then decided to drop a ban on a widely used 
pesticide that has been shown to harm children’s brains.

The story insinuated that Pruitt had made the decision under pressure from a 
corporate lobbying campaign. 

But while the meeting between Pruitt and Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris was on 
Pruitt’s schedule, it never happened — an admission the AP made after Pruitt’s 
office and Breitbart pressed them for a correction.

The EPA and Dow Chemical both said the scheduled meeting at a hotel in Houston 
had been canceled,with the two men instead  
<https://apnews.com/2350d7be5e24469ab445089bf663cdcb> having only “a brief 
introduction in passing.”

The AP followed with a Saturday story — published without a byline —  
<https://apnews.com/feb0fb4603a04b2cba91a02f2c682edb/EPA-says-Pruitt-meeting-with-Dow-Chemical-head-was-canceled>
 titled “EPA says Pruitt meeting with Dow Chemical head was cancelled.”

Breitbart took a victory lap.

“A Breitbart News investigation has led to the correction by the Associated 
Press–which originally resisted–of the fake news it printed as deeper questions 
of responsibility, accountability, and journalistic ethics consume the AP 
heading into Fourth of July weekend,” Boyle  
<http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/30/fake-news-associated-press-engulfed-in-cnn-level-scandal-as-it-covers-up-invention-of-imaginary-pruitt-meeting/>
 wrote.

It’s the second time Breitbart has been at the center of a media correction 
controversy.

Boyle was the first to  
<http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/23/very-fake-news-cnn-pushes-refurbished-russia-conspiracy-inaccurately-claims-investment-fund-under-investigation/>
 call into question a CNN report alleging that Trump associate Anthony 
Scaramucci was under investigation for improper dealings with a Russian state 
bank. Meanwhile, Sputnik News, the Russian-backed news outlet, disputed CNN’s 
claim that the bank in question was also backed by Moscow.

Later that same day, CNN retracted the article. Several days later, three of 
its top journalists resigned.

“An organization of nearly 4,000 news professionals; an organization that has 
spent huge sums recruiting ever-greater reportorial muscle; an organization 
that promises both sides a fair shake; an organization that values 
right-on-the-money exclusives — it just cannot abide getting shamed by Sputnik 
and Breitbart,” Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple  
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/06/26/three-cnn-employees-resign-over-retracted-story-on-russia-ties/?utm_term=.aabdaabccad1>
 wrote at the time.

It has been a tough stretch for CNN. A few weeks earlier, the network had to 
retract a story authored by some of its most recognizable on-air talent after 
it was directly contradicted by public testimony from former FBI Director James 
Comey.

In that same testimony, Comey described a bombshell New York Times story 
alleging contacts between Trump campaign officials and Moscow as “almost 
entirely wrong.” 

Most reports sourced to anonymous officials about the Russia investigation 
should not be trusted, Comey said, because those who are willing to talk don’t 
know about the investigations and those who do know about the investigations 
aren’t talking. 

Last week, Vice News retracted two stories about how Disney would not give a 
robotic Trump figure a speaking role in its “Hall of Presidents” attraction.

Those errors come as Trump’s conservative media allies are increasingly on the 
hunt for media errors and alleged bias.

Conservative activist James O’Keefe has targeted CNN employees in a string of 
undercover sting videos. One video revealed a CNN producer criticizing 
Kellyanne Conway’s looks. 

A second video found CNN commentator Van Jones calling the Russia controversy a 
“nothing burger.” A third video showed a producer alleging the network was 
burying important stories as part of its obsession with Russia. 

The media’s errors come as Trump and his allies launch a barrage of attacks 
aimed at undermining and calling into question the veracity of the news media.

Trump’s personal attack against the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe and his 
weekend tweet showing him body-slamming a wrestler with the CNN logo emblazoned 
over his face have unified the press.

GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill have condemned Trump’s attacks, as have a broad 
cross-section of newsmakers on the political talk show circuit, who called the 
attacks sexist or an incitement of violence against reporters.

“The basic premise is most of the elite media is center left and most of the 
country is center right,” conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt said Sunday on 
NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Combativeness towards the media plays well. Cruelty 
does not. And when the president crosses the line between combativeness into 
cruelty, he loses some of his base.”


But the White House has shown no sign it plans to let up in the war against 
the media and his allies are seizing on the missteps to chip away at press 
credibility.

“These people claim to be defenders of fact and truth but are only out to smear 
Trump and his supporters,” said Graham. “They’re stenographers for the 
resistance.”

 

 

EM

On the 49th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika 
machafuko" 

 

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