Fake News: Media Screamed From the Rooftops Story of Muslim Girl Who Claimed To Have Been Assaulted by Trump Voters;
Curiously Subdued Now That She's Admitted She Made It All Up

You may remember this story -- it was the first, or at least one of the first, in the Rampage of the Deplorables storyline our network programmers conceived for this season's entertainment.

It was also a huge lie, and the "victim" may now face jail for filing a false police report.

Home Politics By Stephen Miller | 10:50 pm, December 14, 2016 Since Donald Trump's election night victory and at the direction of Hillary Clinton campaign operatives, social media users have been scolded and warned over the scourge of "fake news" from supposedly respected journalistic outlets, on the web and on network television. Clinton herself, just last week, even blamed her election loss partly on the dangerous spread of fake news....

Details of her hoax -- and the media's predictable reaction -- omitted.

[S]ince Donald Trump's election, social media users have been bombarded by a finger wagging media about a flood of fake news and misinformation spreading online which, the media claims. But the media isn't taking a long hard look at themselves and asking how and why "fake news" has gained the audience it has. With little to no discretion and all too eager to push anti-Trump narratives, these news organizations hit the publish button on Seweid's story with little to no hedging that, at that point, all they had was her account. And its faith in the story dies hard. When Buzzfeed published the story of Seweid's arrest on Wednesday, the headline read "Woman Arrested For Allegedly Making Up Story of NY Subway Attack by Trump Supporters", carrying more skepticism in the fact that she was arrested for fabricating the story, than Buzzfeed gave to its original report.

These editors, apparently not convinced that Donald Trump provides enough real life clickbait content, rushed off to prove their desired narrative of rampant Islamophobia and hate crimes. If newsroom editors want to lament the spread of fake news, perhaps they can start with how they and their journalists handled the Yasmin Seweid case.

The media's taught everyone a lesson about #FakeNews, too: #FakeNews works.

And if all the media from Buzzfeed to the Washington Post to the New York Times are doing #FakeNews, why shouldn't everyone else with an axe to grind?

More: The Daily Signal lists many of the media outlets that reported this #FakeNews; I don't wonder at all if they're giving news that she fabricated the incident the same prominent coverage, if any.

I'm sure most of them aren't.

The story had already been widely reported. "Muslim teen verbally attacked on NYC subway," reported CBS News. "Drunk Men Yelling 'Donald Trump' Attempt To Remove Woman's Hijab On NYC Subway," was the BuzzFeed headline. "Muslim Woman Harassed on Subway by 3 Men Who Call Her 'Terrorist,' Chant Trump's Name: NYPD," reported NBC 4 New York, while Slate wrote, "Three white men who were apparently intoxicated repeatedly yelled anti-Islam insults at a Muslim student in the New York City subway and no one did anything. The men, who yelled 'Donald Trump!' several times and even tried to pull off the terrified 18-year-old's hijab, also accused her of being a terrorist."

Katrina Trinko then notes the media still treats the biased pressure group SPLC as some kind of detached, impartial "expert observers" on racism and "hate."

posted by Ace at 11:18 AM

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