Caught: NYT Forced Into Embarrassing Correction After Massive Trump Lie Exposed
Despite taking great exception to the label of “fake news” foisted upon them by President Donald Trump, the tag is often quite fitting for several major media outlets, most notably The New York Times.
That is because far too often The Times and other outlets run with stories that are incredibly misleading, if not outright false, in an effort to either discredit Trump and Republicans or to promote a leftist narrative.
And when these outlets are inevitably called out for their “fake news,” they typically issue a correction in fine print at the bottom of the story or in a tweet that almost no one will ever see, meaning the damage done by the first false story will remain in the unknowing public’s mind.
Breitbart recently pointed out a glaring example of this duplicitous behavior by The Times in regard to the tax cuts and reform passed by Republicans and signed into law by Trump.
That story by The New York Times, which originally ran on Feb. 23, walked through the preparation of a tax return using TurboTax software by a hypothetical New York family of two income earners with two children and an elderly parent, each of whom could be claimed as dependents.
The original story suggested that “2018’s Bottom Line” was that “The family would owe $3,896 more in taxes under the new tax law,” with the obvious intent being to frighten middle-class Americans into thinking they would actually pay more in taxes after Trump’s tax reform took effect.
Our readers no doubt recall that this narrative was pushed heavily by the Democrats and their media allies around the time the tax bill was passed.
However, The Wall Street Journal took note of the article by The Times a short time later and pointed out that not only did The Times get their math horribly wrong, they also neglected to factor in a few additional credits, deductions and exemptions that would theoretically lower the hypothetical family’s tax liability.
Indeed, after being called out by The Journal, The Times added a “correction” on March 2 in small print to the bottom of the article and redid some of the math in the body of the piece, almost as if nothing wrong had ever occurred.
The correction reads: “An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the probable effect of the new tax law on a hypothetical couple’s 2018 tax bill. The TurboTax ‘What-If Worksheet’ that generated the projection for their 2018 taxes failed to indicate that the couple would probably be entitled to claim a sizable deduction for income earned from consulting. As a result of that deduction, the amount they would likely owe on taxes would decline by $43, not rise by $3,896.” (Emphasis added.)
Additionally, the corrected “2018’s Bottom Line” now reads: “While TurboTax’s ‘What-If Worksheet’ indicates that the family would owe $3,896 more in taxes under the new law, I.R.S. guidance is still in flux and TurboTax did not include a sizable deduction for consulting income for which the couple is likely to qualify. That deduction would probably result in a small net decrease in their tax bill next year.”
However, given that the article had already been live for some time, the subtly corrected version was most likely seen by far fewer readers than the initial posting which contained the grievous mathematical errors. Again, the damage had already been done, and the quiet correction largely went unnoticed.
Even after that correction, The Journal noted that The Times had still neglected to include certain credits for dependents that the hypothetical family likely would have claimed, meaning their tax liability would probably be even lower than the corrected number, and pointed out that rather than accept blame for their mistake, The Times sought to shift accountability for their blatant lie to the TurboTax software and the delay in IRS guidelines for future years.
It is reporting like this that ironically helped get Trump elected president, and is why the label “fake news” is so very apt and relevant for much of the liberal media.
Blatant mistakes and outright falsehoods designed solely to make Trump and Republicans look bad is also why the general public has such an incredibly low level of trust for the mainstream media these days. What The Times did will only make matters worse for them.
Please share this story on Facebook so everyone can see the “fake news” about Trump’s tax cuts and reform that The New York Times tried to run with until the Wall Street Journal called them out on it.
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