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Another day, another MSM hoax — 14 Comments

  1. Neo, I’d like to accept your thesis at face value, but I’m not convinced. It doesn’t seem to me, at least based on the data you provide (and my own preconceptions), that American conservative media is less likely to run with a story that confirms its own prejudices.

    You may well be right. (For example, given the way conservative media tends to get pilloried when it gets something wrong, while liberal media often gets a pass, conservative media may well do better fact-checking. But I’d like to see more data on that.)

  2. If I recall corrrectly, James Taranto (WSJ) suggested that recent NYT errors could be a result of them being unable to continue paying editors. Maybe the same thing is happening at other lefty places.

  3. It’s not that the liberal media are easy and will bend over forward at the drop of a confederate dollar — they are not stupid. What they are is desperate to substantiate the narrative. Any story to the tune of racist, sexist, (pick-a)phobic gets air time. Any ditty, no matter how outlandish, that beats the drum of multi-culty diversity, vibrancy, and that shines, sparkles, will get type space. They would buy the Brooklyn bridge if it were put to them that it was built by undocumented 3rd world PoCs and condemn it to scrap iron if it were put to them Roebling was a slave holder. How the hell they (liberal media) continue to exist is beyond me. George Soros must have really deep pockets.

  4. Daniel in Brookline:

    I’d like to see more data, too, but when I look back on the last decade or two, all the major hoaxes I can think of were on the left. Stephen Glass, Jason Blair, Pat Smith (you may not remember her, but I do because she wrote for the Globe and I had always liked her writing), and now these two.

    I’m not talking about a minor fact gotten wrong here and there.

  5. In the Rolling Stone piece we are treated to a phenomenon you see sometimes: a word or phrase written with such a sneer that you can feel the sneer while reading the text. In the case of the Rolling Stone article the word was blonde.

    The writer wanted these frat brats’ guts and she wanted their heads on her wall above the fireplace in the spot Sarah Palin saves for Bambi’s mom. You could feel it.

    A lot of vitriol contained in that one word.

    Were I an editor I might get the same sort of nudgings from a story, any story, about a guy named Mohammed Islam. Or if the 72 million dollar kid were named Single Mother.

    Or Oliver Klosoff.

  6. Nolanimrod:

    I haven’t read the Rolling Stone article (and would frankly rather not). I would think, though, that the sort of palpable sneer you describe would be a giant red flag to ANY editor worthy of the name — this writer is too heavily invested in the story for responsible journalism!

    Then again, there were multiple giant red flags here, weren’t there, starting with the sole witness who insisted that no other witnesses be contacted… and the “journalist” who went along with it! Unbelievable.

  7. Daniel in Brookline
    I would think, though, that the sort of palpable sneer you describe would be a giant red flag to ANY editor worthy of the name …

    Sneering is a default liberal mechanism. When in the ’80s my political stance changed from generic liberal to a “a plague on both your houses” neutrality, I started to notice all the sneering. In media, I noticed the sneering underlying NPR’s reporting on a Reagan victory. In bumperstickers: “Vote Republican. It’s easier than thinking.”

  8. there is no pravda in itsvetsia, no itsvetsia in pravda

    72 Million More Reasons To Doubt The Mainstream Press

    New York magazine occupies one of the top rungs on the media elite ladder. Surely it would never publish a piece that hadn’t been thoroughly fact-checked and edited.

    Turns out the $72 million-kid story had gone through those steps. The magazine even sent a fact-checker to the 17-year-old’s home to view a bank statement.

    Plus, Pressler’s tale fit comfortably with how liberals view Wall Street – as little more than a lottery where someone can “score” millions by “playing” the market. So why bother being skeptical of the kid’s tale?

    But the story was, in fact, a complete hoax. The teen in question, Mohammed Islam, apparently was a member of an investing club at his high school, but he had never put a dime of actual money into the market.

    Not everyone was fooled by this easily debunkable story. Twitchy, a conservative site that tracks Twitter feeds, almost immediately cast doubt on it after noticing a stream of tweets saying it couldn’t possibly be true.

    And when the New York Observer did some actual reporting, it quickly uncovered the deception.

    Meanwhile, the University of Virginia gang rape story continues to unravel, exposing new depths of laziness, recklessness and bias at Rolling Stone.

    –Investor’s Business Daily–

  9. Perhaps lib journos are so used to lying because they’ve had to do it for so long, in matters large and small, to support the narrative. If you ignore, spike, or cover up something that contradicts the narrative, what’s the problem with just making stuff up.
    Erdely did this twice before, once with “billy” and some Catholic priests, and once wrt the Navy. In both cases, as with this, the point was to make the powers that be seem callous and indifferent. All were built on lies. All got great reception among the usual suspects.

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