"The Media Lies" Challenge

Media Challenge

Mainstream media does not “lie.”

There. I said it. It's trendy nowadays for people of both ends of the political spectrum to talk about and act as if it’s a pre-existing condition that the “media” lies. But it doesn’t. Yes, some media like the New York Times has a mildly left-of-center worldview, but that is not a lie. If the Washington Post chooses to run a story critical of Trump over a story about cute puppies, that is not a lie. It may be biased but one can be biased without being a liar.

Even, dare I say it, Fox News, while their commentators lie through their teeth every day in outrageous ways, the straight news division, while biased, generally tends to report facts. The real problem with Fox News Channel is that the line between commentary and reportage has become so blurred most people don’t know or can’t tell the difference. Which is why people who watch Fox News are literally less well informed about current events than people who watch no news at all.

So here is my challenge: Find a straight up, factual untruth from any mainstream media. I dare you. Don’t watch PBS news hour because you feel it has a left leaning bias? OK find me one, just one, thing they reported as true that was not. You can’t.

Now obviously, the President lies and PBS, as well as the major network news divisions, report what he said. That is not a lie because they are reporting what he said, not telling a lie. The same is true for people other than the president. The reporter’s job is to report what the person said. The truth is that they said it.

And obviously, everyone makes mistakes. What separates the mainstream medias here is that when they make a mistake, they issue a retraction. They admit it, along with some kind of explanation as to why they got it wrong, and then they print the truth. This is not a lie. It’s a mistake.

Frankly, I’m sick of this openly untrue line of rhetoric that “the media” lies. And this lie, not the media, is destroying American politics. People have their own personal set of “facts” which are not facts at all, but just that which we believe is true because it conforms to our belief system. People I used to think of as normal, even intelligent, still believe that Hillary Clinton had people murdered and or committed treason and that the “media” is lying about it to cover it up as some sort of evil cabalistic plot at world dominion. If one believes nothing, one can believe anything. This is why we need fact-based reporting. The biggest open secret in America is that we already have it.

So, find me a lie from ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, or any, any major city newspaper. I dare you. Post it in the comments section. I’ll show you why you are wrong, or I’ll admit you are right. Be prepared though, because you’re wrong.