Fact-checking President Trump's 'Fake News awards'
The “Fake News Awards” announced on the Republican National Committee website and touted by President Trump pose a conundrum: Does it really count if the news organization admits error?
Regular readers of The Fact Checker know that we do not award Pinocchios if a politician admits error. Everyone makes mistakes — and the point is not to play gotcha. News organizations operate in a competitive arena and mistakes are bound to be made. The key test is whether an error is acknowledged and corrected.President Trump almost never admits error, even as he has made more than 2,000 false or misleading statements. So with that context, here’s an assessment of the “awards:”
“1. The New York Times’ Paul Krugman claimed on the day of President Trump’s historic, landslide victory that the economy would never recover.”
Krugman, of course, is a columnist. So it’s a bit odd to feature an opinion as fake news when it’s not really news, just opinion. (We don’t fact-check opinions at The Fact Checker.) Krugman wrote: “We are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight. I suppose we could get lucky somehow. But on economics, as on everything else, a terrible thing has just happened.”
Clearly that prediction has not happened. So Krugman looks like he has egg on his face. But we are betting he would argue that we need to wait till 2020 to see if his prediction turns true.
“2. ABC News’ Brian Ross CHOKES and sends markets in a downward spiral with false report.”
Ross got his timeline wrong, claiming that former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who had just pleaded guilty, was expected to testify that President Trump instructed him to contact Russian officials shortly after the election. Big mistake — but ABC News corrected the error and Ross was suspended for the “serious mistake.”
“3. CNN FALSELY reported that candidate Donald Trump and his son Donald J. Trump, Jr. had access to hacked documents from WikiLeaks.”
Here’s a case where other news organizations — The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and NBC News — quickly reported that CNN had gotten it wrong.
It turned out that the sender of the email in question was notifying the Trumps of already public documents.
“The new details appear to show that the sender was relying on publicly available information,” CNN admitted. “The new information indicates that the communication is less significant than CNN initially reported.”“4. TIME FALSELY reported that President Trump removed a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. from the Oval Office.”
This is is reference to a tweet by a reporter — which was quickly corrected. Do tweets really count as “news”? This did not appear as a news article — and the correction came less than an hour after the original tweet.
Zeke Miller
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@ZekeJMillerThe Winston Churchill bust is back in the Oval Office
7:21 PM - Jan 20, 2017
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@ZekeJMillerCorrection: The MLK bust is still in the Oval Office. It was obscured by an agent and door.
Zeke Miller
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@ZekeJMillerTweeting again: wh aide confirms the MLK bust is still there. I looked for it in the oval 2x & didn't see it. My apologies to my colleagues
“5. Washington Post FALSELY reported the President’s massive sold-out rally in Pensacola, Florida was empty. Dishonest reporter showed picture of empty arena HOURS before crowd started pouring in.”
Again, another tweet. Again, quickly corrected, within minutes. This also did not result in a news article, except to say that the reporter apologized for the mistake.
“6. CNN FALSELY edited a video to make it appear President Trump defiantly overfed fish during a visit with the Japanese prime minister. Japanese prime minister actually led the way with the feeding.”
Again, this started as a tweet — of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Trump tossing spoonfuls of fish food into a Koi pond. What went viral was a clip of Trump appearing to quickly pour his entire box of food into the pond. But then it turned out that Abe went first. It could have just been a matter of how the video feeds were released to reporters. The CNN report noted: “The move got Trump some laughs, and a smile from Abe, who actually appeared to dump out his box of food ahead of Trump.”
“7. CNN FALSELY reported about Anthony Scaramucci’s meeting with a Russian, but retracted it due to a ‘significant breakdown in process.’”
Another case when a reporting mistake led to consequences: CNN issued a correction and three employees, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, were forced out. (The RNC includes a headline about the reporters resigning.)
“8. Newsweek FALSELY reported that Polish First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda did not shake President Trump’s hand.”
Newsweek based its report on a brief clip of the meeting, in which Kornhauser-Duda appear to walk past Trump’s outstretched hand to shake Melania Trump’s hand. When the extended clip was released, showing she then shook Trump’s hand, Newsweek corrected the story. (Vanity Fair, by the way, made the same error.)
“9. CNN FALSELY reported that former FBI Director James Comey would dispute President Trump’s claim that he was told he is not under investigation.”
Yep, CNN got this story wrong. It was also corrected once it was clear that CNN realized its mistake: “The article and headline have been corrected to reflect that Comey does not directly dispute that Trump was told multiple times he was not under investigation in his prepared testimony released after this story was published.”
“10. The New York Times FALSELY claimed on the front page that the Trump administration had hidden a climate report.”
This was certainly a screw-up, as the report had been publicly available for seven months. The error was only half-heartedly acknowledged by the Times, which added a correction and this line: The report “was uploaded to a nonprofit internet digital library in January but received little attention until it was published by The New York Times.” But that was not entirely correct either, as The Washington Post had written about it months earlier — just not on the front page.
“11. And last, but not least: “RUSSIA COLLUSION!” Russian collusion is perhaps the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people. THERE IS NO COLLUSION!”
Special prosecutor Robert Mueller, appointed by the Trump administration, continues his investigation, as do congressional committees led by Republicans.
To sum up, at least eight of the “Fake News” winners resulted in corrections, with two reports prompting suspensions or resignations. Two of winners were simply tweets that were quickly corrected and never resulted in news articles.
Let’s it put it this way: If the president admitted error as frequently, he would earn far few Pinocchios.
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Liar-in-Chief forgets when you point a finger at someone, three are pointed back at you.
with his tiny hands, only two
LOL
“The economy has created nearly 2 million jobs and gained over $8 trillion in wealth since the President’s inauguration.
African Americans and Hispanics are enjoying the lowest unemployment rate in recorded history.
The President signed historic tax cuts and relief for hardworking Americans not seen since President Reagan.
President Trump’s plan to cut regulations has exceeded “2 out for every 1 in” mandate, issuing 22 deregulatory actions for every one new regulatory action.
The President has unleashed an American energy boom by ending Obama-era regulations, approving the Keystone pipeline, auctioning off millions of new acres for energy exploration, and opening up ANWR.
ISIS is in retreat, having been crushed in Iraq and Syria.
President Trump followed through on his promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and instructed the State Department to begin to relocate the Embassy.
With President Trump’s encouragement, more member nations are paying their fair share for the common defense in the NATO alliance.
Signed the Veterans Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act to allow senior officials in the VA to fire failing employees and establishes safeguards to protect whistleblowers.
President Trump kept his promise and appointed Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court.“
Yeah, the worst annual jobs report in the last 7 years! So much for being the best in creating jobs!
And Trump wants to take credit for that?! Do you think maybe the reason that could be is that a certain black President resided over a unemployment rate that went from 16.6% to 7.8%.....
And what we have now is chemical companies getting away with dumping toxic chemicals in drinking water
Comedy! Don’t even get me started about the Keystone Pipeline, where the projections have that it will create a whopping total of 54 permanent jobs! Where it will increase Canadian oil production but not US production, where we will be responsible for any accidents or spills that results from this pipeline. Or how about ANWR where the impact on production will not be felt for another decade! Not to mention oil production also rose steadily under Obama as well, unlike natural gas which hasn’t moved a tick under Trump!
In which most of the work was done before Trump became President
One question. Did anything occur between George W. Bush's and, Donald Trumps presidency? Here's a hint,
That's it? Those are the "fake news" awards?
Trump (and his White House) makes more 'mistakes' than all that combined within a couple news cycles.
The "fake news" awards are fake news.
John he also forgets that in one hour he lies more than this.
trump tells more lies before 9 AM than most people do all day
Trumps go to "news" amazingly lies by omission on a daily basis, fuax buried the story about trump and his porn star frolics even after they verified. They routinely keep bad news about the GOP and trump from their viewers and talk incessantly about Hillary and Pelosi blah blah.
I read Trump's initial announcement of this idiocy and as soon as I read that they considered "The Daily Show" as media I knew they were desperate
I think he's just toying with them, and pointing out the obvious....that the predominately left wing media cannot be trusted for truth and accuracy.
....Or, he actually thinks that "The Daily Show" is legitimate news media!
I didn't know that FAUX Noise was a "Left wing" media source.