WhatFinger


Media Bias: Then cites Trump’s evidence

Again: Reuters says Trump accuses Twitter of targeting conservatives 'without offering evidence'



Once again: Reuters says Trump accuses Twitter of targeting conservatives ‘without offering evidence This is getting as annoying as the media’s self-congratulatory “fact-checking” genre. We’re seeing it pretty much every day now. It’s the “Trump says (fill in the blank) without offering evidence” genre. A new media standard has been born for reporting on the statements of politicians. Starting on January 20, 2017, any time a politician says something, the media breathlessly informs us that the statement was offered without any supporting evidence, regardless of whether evidence as a) actually cited; or b) is so widely recognized that it really isn’t necessary to specifically cite it.
Oh, and the standard only applies if the politician speaking is named Donald J. Trump. It works like this: If Trump says, “MSNBC hates Republicans”, the media will announce, “Trump calls MSNBC biased without evidence.” It can apply to thinks like FBI bias, bureaucratic agendas or pretty much anything else. If Trump speaks and doesn’t present an evidence packet that would pass muster at a criminal murder trial, he has spoken “without evidence” and the media will report his statement thusly. Other politicians can say pretty much anything they want, no matter how absurd or unsupported, and that will be them a mere attribution. Maxine Waters can say all the insane nonsense she wants. Chuck Schumer can claim Brett Kavanaugh is going to destroy the constitution. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez can claim we only have low unemployment because everyone has two jobs. None of them have any evidence. That is perfectly fine. This standard applies to Donald J. Trump only. And it applies even if he does have evidence, or if the evidence is so well known that it’s absurd to expect him to cite it. We told you the other day when Reuters pulled this with respect to the FBI’s targeting of Carter Page – a hilarious example because even while claiming Trump had cited no evidence, Reuters mentioned in its lead the evidence Trump cited. Now they’re trying it again with Trump’s fairly obvious observation that Twitter is targeting conservatives:
U.S. President Donald Trump accused Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) on Thursday of restricting the visibility of prominent Republicans on its platform, without providing evidence, and he promised to investigate. “Twitter ‘SHADOW BANNING’ prominent Republicans. Not good. We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once!” the Republican president wrote in a Twitter post.

Support Canada Free Press


The practice involves limiting the visibility of a user in search results, specifically in the auto-populated dropdown search box on Twitter. Trump’s comments followed a Vice news report on Wednesday that Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and other Republicans including Donald Trump Jr’s spokesman were being “shadow banned.” “The notion that social media companies would suppress certain political points of view should concern every American. Twitter owes the public answers to what’s really going on,” McDaniel wrote on Twitter. Twitter did not have a comment on Trump’s tweet but a spokesperson said the company does not “shadow ban.” “We are aware that some accounts are not automatically populating in our search box, and we’re shipping a change to address this,” the spokesperson said in a statement.” Twitter said the technology used is based on user behavior not political views.

So Vice reports that this is going on, and Trump tweets about it in obvious reference to the Vice story. There’s the evidence, and Reuters even mentions it in their own story claiming Trump cited no evidence. But why does Trump have to say “according to Vice” when he tweets in reference to it? Does every other politician make such attributions? Did every president? Of course not. No one who comments about items of public interest walks around with an evidence packet handing out supporting documentation for every word out of his mouth. But in order to make Trump appear dishonest and reckless, the media have now decided to apply this standard to him, and only to him, to give you the impression that he constantly runs around running his mouth spewing nonsense that can’t be supported by fact. If he does so, he is hardly different than just about any other politician, but most of the time supporting information for what he says is well known and easily identified. It’s only because he’s Donald Trump that his statements are being reported in this way.


View Comments

Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.


Sponsored