The Mainstream Media Has Become Worse Than the Boy Who Cried 'Wolf'
If you thought the media disinformation campaign was bad during the Russia collusion witch hunt, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The boy who cried “wolf” has more credibility than most “journalists” these days.
In just a few days, mainstream media outlets have churned out so much false reporting about the manufactured “whistleblower” scandal that one might think they’ve learned absolutely nothing from being exposed as serial liars by the Russiagate flop.
Shortly after the White House released the transcript of President Donald Trump’s phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, for instance, The Washington Post reported that Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire had threatened to resign if he was not allowed to testify freely before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The article was clearly intended to imply that Maguire felt pressure to falsify his testimony from Trump administration officials, but there was one big problem: the claim was emphatically debunked by Maguire himself almost immediately.
That same day, ABC News reported that one of Zelensky’s advisors had indicated that Trump made the re-opening of an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, a precondition for their phone conversation.
In just a few hours, that “bombshell” story was also exposed as a dud. It turns out, the source in question hasn’t advised the Ukrainian president since April, yet ABC only told readers that he “has recently been distanced by the administration.”
In other words, their source was a Zelensky transition team staffer who has no insight into the goings-on of the Ukrainian government and may even harbor resentment against the current administration for declining to assign him to a government post.
Describing him as an “advisor” who only “recently” left the administration is an egregious violation of basic journalistic standards.
Since the release of the whistleblower’s complaint, the media have given the document fawning coverage. But as Sean Davis points out in The Federalist, the text is riddled with outright falsehoods and misrepresentations.
Not that it matters: with the release of the call transcript, everyone with internet access has more information than the whistleblower had at the time he filed his complaint. The complaint is pure gossip, not pertinent information, yet the media are treating it as though it carries more weight than the actual transcript of the call.
We shouldn’t be too surprised that this type of blatant dishonesty is on the rise. In their frustration following the collapse of the collusion conspiracy theory, so-called journalists at The New York Times openly admitted that their top priority is defaming the president of the United States, not accurately reporting the news.
The mainstream media have convinced themselves that traditional journalistic standards don’t apply when it comes to covering President Trump, whom they consider such a threat that they think they’re justified in manipulating the facts, or even concocting outright falsehoods, in their desperate effort to destroy his presidency.
The media have been trying to help the Democrats establish a feasible case for impeachment since election night 2016, and the Ukraine “scandal” is simply the latest example.
Every one of their previous schemes was ultimately defeated by the same powerful force that liberal journalists rejected in favor of their partisan agenda: the irrepressible truth. The whistleblower story will meet the same fate.
If journalists want to restore their reputation, they need to start being honest with the American people.
Unfortunately, the spate of false claims and outright lies they’ve produced in hopes of sustaining the preposterous “whistleblower” farce makes it clear that they aren’t going to stop crying “wolf” any time soon.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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