Thursday, November 10, 2022

Fake News


Want to know what really makes me mad? Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. It's media bias and deception. As I was browsing the news online this morning a headline by AP on Yahoo! caught my attention. It read Fox Pushes Misinformation Post-Election. My initial thought was "Those SOBs. There they go again." So, taking the bait, I clicked on it. It turned out to be total BS. It mentioned a video clip showing a Wisconsin poll worker initialing ballots before they were given to voters. And even stated that it's normal procedure on election day, which it is. What happened was someone not associated with Fox News posted that clip to social media and claimed instead that it showed a Philadelphia election worker doctoring ballots. Of course it went viral. That fact is included in the AP story. The story further stated "It's an example of election day misinformation that reveals how misleading claims emerge and travel, and how innocent events can be spun into the latest viral election hoax." Yeah, but in this case it was AP doing the spinning by posting the misleading headline! Not once anywhere in the entire twenty-two paragraph story did it actually accuse or offer any evidence of Fox News suggesting there was ballot tampering by anyone. In fact, the only mention of Fox News in the entire story was the headline. 

Look. I am not of fan of Fox News. I do like Neil Cavuto, one of the few honest commentators on TV these days. I also believe Tucker Carlson is one of the worst. But in this case they were obviously smeared and I don't appreciate that happening to any person or organization. I call out corruption wherever I see it. And I see it a lot. So do you, if you're honest about it. 

Nearly every morning I take some time to catch up on the hot topics of the day. 


I check right and left but try to stay in the middle. It's getting harder and harder to do that. So I try to read between the lines and consider my sources carefully and with the understanding of any built-in biases. One site that helps me do that and that I trust is Ground News, which actually rates media bias. Here is a link if you're interested:  https://ground.news/

By the way, the person who wrote the Associated Press story is David Klepper. So if you see his name on any other news stories you may come across, or anything by AP in general, I suggest you keep on scrolling. They are not to be trusted.

Roger O'Dea    11/10/2022