The mainstream media is biased. In my article “The Media Is Not Bias Myth” I use studies, campaign contributions, and survey data to prove that the mainstream media is biased in favor of the left and against the right.
The studies show that media outlets like CBS, CNN, NBC, ABC, and MSNBC are all left-leaning outlets, that frequently have negative coverage against Republicans and Conservatives.
It is also very common for the mainstream media to spread misinformation to promote their left-wing political narrative.
Sharyl Attkisson, an Emmy-Award-winning investigative journalist, has compiled a list of 157 falsehoods by the mainstream media. (Check out her full list)
They say that the disinformation that they promote is just a mistake, but the so-called mistakes they make usually tend to go in one direction. They tend to promote a negative view of Republicans while promoting a positive view of Democrats.
A majority of Americans don’t believe the mistakes that the mainstream media makes are unintentional. They believe they’re done intentionally to promote an agenda.
According to the results of a Gallup/Knight Foundation survey, “70% of respondents are concerned that owners of media companies are influencing coverage to push an agenda. 57% of respondents believe that the news they view is biased, and 52% of respondents believe that inaccuracies in reporting are a deliberate attempt to misrepresent the facts.”
In Part 1 and Part 2 of this article I will be covering the top 10 mainstream media lies. Most of these lies/falsehoods resulted in hundreds, maybe thousands, of individual lies related to each topic. This misinformation pushed by the mainstream media has led people to lose trust in the news. Below are 5 of the top 10.
1. TRUMP-RUSSIA COLLUSION
After Donald Trump’s victory against Democrat Hilary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, the FBI and the Department of Justice started investigating whether Trump had illegally conspired with the government of Russia to ensure his victory.
The Department of Justice investigation was run by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller’s investigation went from 2017 to 2019.
Mueller’s investigation, the FBI, and an investigation led by the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General found no evidence that Trump or his administration had conspired with Russia.
From the beginning, there were major inconsistencies in the Trump-Russia Collusion story. Despite this, the mainstream media jumped on the opportunity to push this false narrative, with networks like CNN and MSNBC leading the charge.
In 2017, Project Veritas released two undercover videos showing that high-ranking employees at CNN were aware of the Trump-Russia Collusion story being false. One undercover video showed a CNN supervising producer saying that the story was “mostly bullshit”, admitting that it was being pushed to lead to higher rankings. The other undercover video showed Van Jones, a popular CNN political commentator, admitting that there was no evidence of Trump colluding with Russia. Jones said, “The Russia thing is just a big nothingburger. There’s nothing there you can do.”
Here’s a list by left-wing journalist, Glenn Greenwald, covering 10 of the biggest media failures and lies related to the Trump-Russia Collusion story. (Click to read)
Out of Sharyl Attkisson’s documented 157 falsehoods by the mainstream media, about 26 of them are related to the Trump-Russia Collusion story. Number 14, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 33, 34, 35, 37, 46, 73, 75, 81, 83, 86, 88, 103, 106, 108, 112, 115, and 137 are all about the Russia Collusion Hoax. (Check out her full article)
2. KYLE RITTENHOUSE
The mainstream media portrayed Kyle Rittenhouse as a white supremacist, who crossed state lines with an illegally acquired rifle, looking for protesters to kill.
This of course was false. Rittenhouse wasn’t a white supremacist, an FBI investigation proved that after scouring through his phone records.
He didn’t cross state lines with his rifle. His rifle was already located in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
His rifle wasn’t illegally acquired. He was legally allowed to possess it under Wisconsin law.
He wasn’t looking for protesters to kill. He was there to clean graffiti and provide medical aid to injured rioters. After putting out a dumpster fire, a group of rioters pursued and violently attacked Rittenhouse. He shot three of them, killing two, in self-defense.
Despite, killing them in self-defense, he was charged with murder. A jury of his peers found him innocent of all charges on Nov. 19, 2021. The judge overseeing the trial, was Judge Bruce Schroeder, a Democrat.
Here’s a list by Newsmax, covering “20 Biggest Media Lies in the Rittenhouse Case.” (Click here)
Here’s a list by New York Post, covering “10 heinous lies about Kyle Rittenhouse debunked.” (Click here)
3. LAFAYETTE PARK
The mainstream media pushed the false narrative that in late May 2020, during a BLM protest, Trump ordered tear gas to be used on “peaceful protestors” to have a “photo-op” in front of St. John’s Church in Washington, D.C.
This is false. This narrative was debunked by the Inspector General of the United States Department of the Interior, Mark Lee Greenblatt.
In a report, Greenblatt wrote, “The evidence we obtained did not support a finding that the USPP cleared the park to allow the President to survey the damage and walk to St. John’s Church. Instead, the evidence we reviewed showed that the USPP cleared the park to allow the contractor to safely install the anti-scale fencing in response to the destruction of property and injury to officers occurring on May 30 and 31. Further, the evidence showed that the USPP did not know about the President’s potential movement until mid-to-late afternoon on June 1—hours after it had begun developing its operational plan and the fencing contractor had arrived in the park.”
According to another report, over the various days leading up to the clearing of the protesters, protesters threw bottles and bricks, injuring nearly 50 officers.
There were reports of looting, property destruction, assault, and arson the night before the protesters were cleared.
Here’s a video by MSNBC of the Lafayette Park riot the night before the rioters were cleared. (Video)
This is listed as lie number 156 of the 157 mainstream media lies that Sharyl Attkisson has documented.
4. HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP
Before the 2020 election, the New York Post had broken a story of then-US presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, likely being involved in a major corruption scandal with his oversea business dealings.
The Post had obtained this information from the owner of a computer repair shop. Hunter Biden left his laptop at a computer repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware. The owner of the shop, John Paul Mac Isaac, informed the Post of the troubling material found on the laptop.
Twitter and Facebook censored the story; while several media outlets claimed that the laptop didn’t belong to Hunter Biden and the whole thing was “Russian disinformation.” This turned out to be false.
It was confirmed that the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden. The contents on the laptop potentially point to criminal activity.
The mainstream media and social media companies were responsible for misleading the public about this vital election information.
New York Post columnist Miranda Devine said, “I think it’s a complicated story and it has been ignored by The New York Times and The Washington Post. I mean, the media organizations with the enormous resources that can put a sort of 15 reporters on a story about Ron DeSantis sending 50 illegal migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, they have spent the last two years just ignoring this story. And I think it’s a point of pride for them. They don’t want to be seen to have bits corrupt. This is journalistic corruption and malfeasance at its worst. And for The Washington Post, which still runs on the fumes of Watergate, to have ignored not only the story of corruption that’s enormous and has ramifications in Washington beyond Joe Biden, beyond the Democratic Party, but also the cover-up. Like with Watergate, the cover-up is now as big as the original corruption story, and they’ve ignored that as well.”
Had the public known about this information, the outcome of the election would have been different.
According to a Rasmussen Reports survey, 62% of voters believe Joe Biden is involved in Hunter Biden’s illegal business dealings.
According to a survey, by the New Jersey-based Technometrica Institute of Policy and Politics, 79% of Americans believe President Donald Trump would have won reelection had voters been accurately informed about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
This is listed as lie number 157 of the 157 mainstream media lies that Sharyl Attkisson has documented.
5. OFFICER KILLED BY TRUMP SUPPORTERS ON JANUARY 6TH
The false media narrative was that Trump supporters, during the January 6th Capital attack, struck an officer, Brian Sicknick, over the head with a fire extinguisher. This led to the officer being rushed to the hospital and being placed on life support. The following day he passed away.
In reality, he was never hit in the head by a fire extinguisher. The medical examiner ruled that his death was from natural causes, not internal or external injuries from being attacked.
New York Times and MSNBC were primarily responsible for pushing this falsehood.
The original New York Times article was headlined, “He Dreamed of Being a Police Officer, Then Was Killed By a Pro-Trump Mob.”
This is how the Times described the event: “Then on Wednesday, pro-Trump rioters attacked that citadel of democracy, overpowered Mr. Sicknick, 42, and struck him in the head with a fire extinguisher, according to two law enforcement officials. With a bloody gash on his head, Mr. Sicknick was rushed to the hospital and placed on life support. He died on Thursday evening.”
Real objective and investigative journalism would have prevented these falsehoods from being reported.
SOURCES
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