Remembering the Worst Media Misses of 2023

By Brittany Bernstein

Monday, January 01, 2024

 

Welcome to a special year-end edition of “Forgotten Fact-Checks,” a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, as we begin a new year, we recap the biggest media misses of 2023.

 

Media Drop the Ball on Israel–Hamas War –- Again and Again

 

The New York Times published an editor’s note acknowledging that its editors “should have taken more care with the initial presentation” of the coverage of an explosion outside a Gaza hospital; the paper had been quick to run with the Hamas-backed Gaza Health Ministry’s claims that the blast was caused by an Israeli air strike that killed hundreds.

 

President Biden has since made clear that Israel was not to blame for the blast, which U.S. officials say killed between 100 and 300 people. The Israel Defense Forces have said the explosion was caused by a rocket misfire launched by Islamic Jihad, a conclusion that’s since been confirmed by video analyses conducted by the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal, and CNN.

 

“The Times’s initial accounts attributed the claim of Israeli responsibility to Palestinian officials, and noted that the Israeli military said it was investigating the blast. However, the early versions of the coverage — and the prominence it received in a headline, news alert and social media channels — relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified. The report left readers with an incorrect impression about what was known and how credible the account was,” the editor’s note said.

 

The editor’s note concluded: “Given the sensitive nature of the news during a widening conflict, and the prominent promotion it received, Times editors should have taken more care with the initial presentation, and been more explicit about what information could be verified. Newsroom leaders continue to examine procedures around the biggest breaking news events — including for the use of the largest headlines in the digital report — to determine what additional safeguards may be warranted.”

 

But when other news outlets issued a mea culpa for their overreliance on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry in reporting on the al-Ahli Arab hospital blast, the Washington Post doubled down and defended its decision to uncritically parrot the agency’s false claims that an Israeli airstrike hit a hospital, killing 500 civilians.

 

The Post then led its site with the health ministry’s claim that the Gaza death toll in the Israel–Hamas war has surpassed 10,000.

 

“Gaza Health Ministry: Death toll in Gaza surpasses 10,000 after four weeks of war,” a headline at the top of the site read.

 

The headline and underlying report ignore the fact that the health ministry is run by Hamas, but the paper’s editors did include a cursory disclaimer alongside the article to explain “Where we get our data about the Israel-Gaza war.”

 

“When we’re reporting on issues such as the death toll in the Israel-Gaza war, we use information provided from the Gaza Health Ministry (an agency of the Hamas-controlled government), the Israeli government, the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the U.S. State Department and other international agencies,” the disclaimer read in part.

 

And the major papers aren’t alone in passing off pro-Hamas propaganda as disinterested reporting: In a report on a bombing at a Gaza hospital being used as a Hamas terror base, MSNBC aired footage of a Palestinian social-media influencer who routinely demonizes Israel as “occupiers” and accuses them of intentionally targeting women and children in airstrikes.

 

Saleh Aljafarawi, who has more than 3 million followers on Instagram, even celebrates the firing of rockets toward Israel in one clip, grinning and shouting, “Allahu Akbar,” meaning “God is most great.”

 

Media Defend Joe Biden as a Loving Father

 

After New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote an essay criticizing President Biden’s decision to ignore his seventh grandchild, other media figures were quick to offer a defense of the president, claiming the situation was nothing more than a ginned-up controversy created by Republicans.

 

Hunter Biden’s daughter, Navy Joan Roberts, was born out of wedlock in 2018 after the younger Biden had an affair with former stripper Lunden Roberts. A 2020 paternity test proved he was in fact the father. Roberts initially sought to have her daughter take the Biden name but eventually agreed to drop her demand, while Hunter Biden agreed to give the girl a number of his paintings that have sold for a questionable amount of money.

 

President Biden claimed earlier this year that he has “six grandchildren and I’m crazy about them — I speak to them every single day; not a joke.” The comment ignored his seventh grandchild, Navy.

 

But for then-Meet the Press host Chuck Todd, the whole ordeal was just another case of Republicans trying to “exploit” Biden.

 

“It’s certainly kind of a tacky play here, but I mean look, this is as complex as it gets,” NBC’s Garrett Haake said. “The idea of trying to balance your family’s needs versus your political imperative is just ugly and unpleasant in politics as we’re going to get and we’re going to get way down in it.”

 

The New York Times published a story on the front page of its Sunday paper about “Hunter Biden and the Politics of Paternity in the Media’s Glare.”

 

“Both Hunter Biden, the privileged and troubled son of a president, and Ms. Roberts, the daughter of a rural gun maker, have allies whose actions have made the situation more politicized. There is no evidence the White House is involved in those actions,” the report suggests.

 

It goes on to quote former GOP strategist Stuart Stevens as suggesting Republicans are ignoring that former president Donald Trump is “under more indictments than two Super Bowl teams’ worth of players. But that doesn’t matter: You have Hunter Biden. It’s just anger in search of an argument.” Pollster Frank Luntz told the outlet it is a “waste of time” for Republicans to spotlight the Biden family’s scandals rather than pressing issues such as inflation.

 

Don Lemon’s Fall From Grace

 

CNN fired Don Lemon in April, weeks after Variety published an exposé that revealed the longtime anchor had a history of threatening his female colleagues and making provocative and erratic comments.

 

The exposé, along with Lemon’s offensive comments about Nikki Haley’s age, proved the final straw.

 

Lemon suggested Haley, 51, was not in her prime.

 

The comment came amid a discussion of Haley’s proposal that politicians over 75 years old should be required to pass mental-competency tests. Lemon said: “A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s.”

 

Co-anchor Poppy Harlow immediately pushed back on the comments saying, “What are you talking . . . wait . . . are you talking about ‘prime’ for child-bearing? Or are you talking about ‘prime’ for being president?”

 

Lemon spoke over Harlow to say, “Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just saying what the facts are. Google it.”

 

According to the Variety piece, Lemon reportedly had a history of terrorizing female coworkers, including his then-colleague Kyra Phillips when she was given a high-profile reporting gig in Iraq that he wanted for himself. While Phillips was reporting in Iraq, Lemon tore up pictures and notes on top of and inside Phillips’s desk in the news pod they shared.

 

Phillips reportedly received threatening texts from an unknown source after she returned from Iraq. “Now you’ve crossed the line, and you’re going to pay for it,” the text read, according to the report.

 

A human-resources investigation ultimately traced two threatening messages back to Lemon. He was then demoted from his position co-anchoring a weekday show with Phillips to a weekend show.

 

The ‘Nimrata Randhawa’ Attack

 

Lemon was hardly the only media figure to attack Haley when she launched her presidential campaign earlier this year.

 

Several other figures unearthed false claims that Haley goes by the name “Nikki Haley” rather than her given name, “Nimrata Nikki Randhawa,” as a way to hide her Indian heritage. However, Haley has been called “Nikki” since she was born. Her parents immigrated to the U.S. from India.

 

USA Today previously debunked claims that Haley had changed her name to “get ahead” in politics. “Nikki” is a common nickname that means “little one” in Punjabi. Haley is the former South Carolina governor’s married name that she adopted after she wed husband Michael Haley in 1996 — six years before she entered politics, according to USA Today.

 

Mary Trump, the niece of former president Trump, played into the name-shame game: “First of all, f*** you Nimrata Haley. Second, you are a racist, anti-American sell-out.”

 

The Recount shared a video of Haley saying, “Take it from me, the first minority female governor in history: America is not a racist country.” Jemele Hill, a contributing writer for the Atlantic, replied to the video: “So why did she change her name then?”

 

2023 –- or 2020?

 

This year saw the reemergence of Covid fearmongering, with medical “experts” returning to the airwaves to warn Americans they should return to masking amid a “summer spike” in the virus.

 

Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina went so far as to suggest people should even wear masks at home.

 

“Yes, you should wear, be wearing masks in crowded areas, especially during a surge,” Jetelina said during an appearance on PBS Newshour when asked by anchor John Yang to give her take on masks.

 

“But what about at home and when you’re walking on the street?” he asked.

 

She replied: “So, certainly, at home, it works, if you want to reduce household transmission.”

 

She had to draw the line somewhere, however. “I wouldn’t wear a mask when walking your dog. Just be distant of other people.”

 

White House Says ‘Jump,’ Media Ask ‘How High?’

 

In September, the White House sent a 14-page memo to editors at several mainstream news outlets asking them to “ramp up [their] scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies.”

 

CNN published a 2,300 word “fact check” of then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry announcement just one day later.

 

As Becket Adams reported for NR:

 

It’s remarkable because, despite CNN’s best efforts, the fact check failed to find any factual fault with what the speaker said. CNN can’t point to any specific falsehood or even a misstatement. The fact check merely posits, repeatedly, that no one has proven the allegations that have led to the impeachment investigation, which is a thing that everyone already understood given that the inquiry is for the purpose of investigating the allegations. . . .

 

“House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made several unproven claims Tuesday while announcing the opening of a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden,” the CNN story claims. “House Republicans have not presented any proof that Joe Biden ever profited off his son’s business deals or was influenced while in office by his son’s business dealings.”

 

The Associated Press “reported” that “since gaining the House majority, House Republicans have aggressively investigated Biden and his son, claiming without evidence that they engaged in an influence peddling scheme.”

 

The New York Times published an end-of-summer news quiz for its readers that included a totally unbiased question that read: “Republicans are obsessed with Hunter Biden. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy just announced an inquiry into . . .”

 

The correct choice was even more laughable: “Impeaching Joe Biden for . . . fatherhood.”

 

Media Turn the Other Cheek on Dems’ Abortion Extremism

 

During the first Republican primary debate, Florida governor Ron DeSantis told Democrats they are wrong for wanting to “allow abortion all the way up to the moment of birth.”

 

Democrats quickly stepped in to “fact-check” the comment.

 

White House press secretary-turned-MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki wrote in a post on X, “No one supports abortion up until birth.”

 

The argument was apparently still on her mind days later, when Psaki shared a clip on X responding to “Republicans’ misleading claims about late-term abortions.”

 

“The argument that Democrats are advocating for more late term abortions is completely misleading. I explain with lots of FACTS today . . .” she said.

 

Former Democratic senator Al Franken joined in to claim: “No one is trying to allow abortions right up to birth. You a******, DeSantis. #GOPDebate.”

 

Yet Franken himself cosponsored a bill in 2015, U.S. Senate Bill 217, that would have prevented states from restricting abortion at any stage of gestation. And several states, including California, Colorado, Maine, and New York, have passed laws in recent years that do not provide any specific week-based limits on abortion.

 

Katie Couric wrote in a post on X: “Worth noting that fewer than 1% of abortions occur in the third trimester. #GOPDebate. . . .”

 

But conservatives were quick to note that even 1.3 percent of abortions amounts to 10,000 to 12,000 babies each year.

 

Covenant School Shooting: A Tragedy for Trans People?

 

Several Democrats and trans-advocacy groups attempted to gin up empathy for Audrey Hale, a transgender-identifying school shooter who opened fire at the Covenant School in Nashville.

 

Hale, a 28-year-old woman who identified as transgender, killed three children and three adults. The victims ranged in age from nine years old to 61 years old. The shooter appeared to have meticulously planned out the attack with detailed maps and surveillance of the premises.

 

Still, many attempted to draw attention to the suffering of the transgender community, and even the shooter, rather than the victims and their families. The Trans Resistance Network suggested in a statement that the attack was “not one tragedy but two.”

 

“The first tragedy is the loss of life of three children and adults,” the statement said. “The second and more complex tragedy is that Aiden or Audrey Hale, who felt he had no other effective way to be seen than to lash out by taking the life of others, and by consequence, himself.”

 

“We do not claim to know the individual or have access to their inner thoughts and feelings. We do know that life for transgender people is very difficult, and made more difficult in the preceding months by a virtual avalanche of anti-trans legislation, and public callouts by Right Wing personalities and political figures for nothing less than the genocidal eradication of trans people from society,” the group said.

 

But it wasn’t just the Trans Resistance Network that chose to draw focus away from the victims.

 

NBC News published a piece titled, “Fear pervades Tennessee’s trans community amid focus on Nashville shooter’s gender identity.” And just days after the shooting, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the transgender community is “under attack.”

 

And, in a shocking turn of events, no well-resourced mainstream outlet has managed to get their hands on the shooter’s manifesto.

 

Progressives Can’t Help But Make Things about Race

 

Liberals started off the year strong with their tried-and-true tactic: Make everything about race.

 

When Republicans put forward Representative Byron Donalds (R., Fla.), a black man, as a candidate for House speaker, Democrats decided the move must actually be driven by the GOP’s racism somehow.

 

“Despite being Black, he supports a policy agenda intent on upholding and perpetuating white supremacy. His name being in the mix is not progress — it’s pathetic,” Representative Cori Bush (D., Mo.) said at the time.

 

MSNBC’s Joy Reid, who previously accused Senator Tim Scott (R., S.C.) of being a diversity prop for Republicans, blasted Donalds and the GOP over the nomination.

 

“Never mind that Donalds supports voter suppression efforts, which disproportionately hurt Black Americans, but since when do details matter? Any Black guy will do, especially one that is very nice, big in stature, and goes along with the program,” Reid said.

 

But it wasn’t just adult public figures who came in for racist smears.

 

Last month, a writer at Deadspin decided that the best use of his talents, such as they are, would be to attack a ten-year-old Kansas City Chiefs fan for donning a Native American headdress and painting his face black and red for the game.

 

Authored by senior writer Carron Phillips, the original story was headlined, “The NFL needs to speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in Black face, Native headdress.” The piece urged the NFL to publicly condemn the boy for being insensitive toward the minority groups.

 

Holden Armenta had “found a way to hate Black people and the Native Americans at the same time,” Phillips argued.

 

The best part: The boy has Native American ancestry; his grandfather is a member of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians.

 

As for the blackface charge, while the Deadspin article used an image which only showed the half of Armenta’s face that was painted black to substantiate the claim that he was wearing “blackface,” other images show that the other side of his face was painted red for the Chiefs.