1. The New York Times claims Israel bombed Gaza hospital
An Oct. 17 New York Times headline blared: "Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinian Officials Say."
One problem: It wasn't true.
And it wasn't even a single inaccuracy. Not only was an Israeli military strike not responsible for the explosion in question — the rockets, it turned out, had been launched by the terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad — but the blast didn't hit the hospital — only the parking lot — and the death toll was far lower than initially reported.
The "Palestinian Officials" cited in the story's headline also happened to be from the same group, Hamas, that had just launched a horrific terror attack on Israel.
In an editor's note published a week after the initial news broke, the Times admitted that "the report left readers with an incorrect impression about what was known and how credible the account was."
But the Times wasn't alone in buying Hamas' propaganda. Reuters, the AP, PBS, the BBC, and many other outlets raced to publish similar headlines blaming Israel in the immediate aftermath of the hospital blast.
2. Major media outlets say Trump backed an insurrection
Most media outlets swiftly termed the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol breach as an "insurrection," and few — if any — have reconsidered that terminology in the three years since.
Along those lines, it's been a kneejerk reaction for reporters at most establishment outlets to claim former President Donald Trump supported this so-called "insurrection" in a speech he gave earlier on Jan. 6 — a speech in which Trump told his supporters to "peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."
But the "insurrection" talk has now reached a fever pitch.
Earlier this month, President Joe Biden said that Trump "certainly supported an insurrection," and Maine on Thursday followed Colorado as the second state to bar Trump from its Republican primary ballot.
Those states, and others that hope to join them, have cited Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bans officials who engaged in "insurrection" from holding office. Numerous legal challenges are expected to be filed on all sides and the issue may ultimately come before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The focus has also led to the prosecution of Trump by special counsel Jack Smith on a quartet of election subversion charges.
Importantly, Trump has not been charged — never mind convicted — with "insurrection," a fact noted by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.
"Not one person has been charged with insurrection in connection with Jan. 6th. Not. Even. One," Lee wrote on social media platform X. "Libs STILL insist on keeping Trump off the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Even if he were guilty of insurrection — he isn't — that provision STILL wouldn't apply to him."
3. Politico tries to sanitize Senate gay sex tape scandal
When it emerged that a Senate staffer had been caught filming a graphic gay sex tape in a Senate hearing room, one of the premier political outlets in the country took a noticeably careful approach to its coverage.
Politico's only description of the video was that it "shows two men having sex," "was shared in a group chat with gay men in politics," and was "graphic."
In fact, Politico even doubled down on the latter description: "First off, please know, when they say 'GRAPHIC' they mean it."
Otherwise, readers had to follow a link to The Daily Caller's website to find out the dirty details.
The Playbook entry concluded: "Now on to more serious business."
4. CNN misrepresents Gaza deaths, likens Israeli response to Oct. 7 attacks
After Hamas terrorists murdered 1,200 Israelis in the surprise Oct. 7 attack, Israel stated that its goal was to eliminate Hamas from Gaza and began a deliberate ground invasion of the area shortly thereafter.
But in a November segment about the war on "CNN News Central," correspondent Ivan Watson cited misleading numbers about the number of Palestinian civilians killed and appeared to equate the terror attack with the response to it.
Watson told viewers that "14,800 Palestinian civilians" had been killed, citing numbers provided by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the West Bank. There are several problems with that statement, however.
First, the numbers reported by the Ministry of Health are largely supplied by the same Hamas terrorists controlling Gaza that Israel is trying to wipe out. The claims should not be taken at face value.
Second, given that few Palestinian terrorists wear uniforms, the matter of who is classified as a "civilian" can be a tricky proposition — especially when a high civilian death toll counts as a massive propaganda win for the side that's doing the counting.
Watson then added that "if the fighting resumes again, that slaughter of Palestinian civilians will likely resume again." Later, Watson also termed the Oct. 7 terror attack as a "slaughter," seemingly putting the brutal murders on the same level as a military campaign.
5. MSNBC host alleges Trump will 'execute' people if elected
Once upon a time in 2015, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough helped expand Trump's political profile, inviting Trump on his show countless times in the run-up to the 2016 election for interviews that were typically friendly affairs.
Times have changed.
Once Trump was in office, Scarborough began to oppose him, and the level of vitriol and hysteria he's leveled at the former president — who is also the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination — may have reached new heights in November, with Scarborough claiming Trump's revenge on his political enemies would include murder.
"Because he will do, he will get away with, he will imprison, he will execute, whoever he is allowed to imprison, execute, drive from the country," Scarborough said.
6. PBS asserts Hunter Biden indictment doesn't implicate Joe Biden
When Biden's son, Hunter Biden, earlier this month was charged with several tax-related felonies, "PBS NewsHour" cut right to what it seemed to believe was the heart of the matter: "The indictment does not in any way implicate President Joe Biden.
"So, let's start with the latest legal trouble facing Hunter Biden, with the important context that Hunter Biden's a private citizen," host Geoff Bennett said. "He is not seeking, nor has he ever held, public office. He does not work in the White House for his father in the way that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump did. And the indictment does not in any way implicate President Joe Biden."
7. Media claim there's 'no evidence' Biden engaged in wrongdoing
PBS stressed that Hunter Biden's tax-related charges did not "implicate" President Joe Biden.
"The View" co-hosts have largely dismissed the GOP impeachment probe that's investigating Joe Biden's involvement in his family's shady business dealings.
An Axios headline in September highlighted that the "GOP's own witnesses say no evidence to impeach Biden yet."
Yet, while Republicans have mostly been careful about declaring the existence of slam-dunk, smoking-gun evidence tying Biden to his family's questionable transactions with foreign countries — including U.S. adversaries — they've also been clear that compelling evidence to that effect has come out. This includes financial documents and testimony from some of those involved.
Moreover, three out of five respondents to a recent Harvard poll believe that Biden knew of his son's shady business dealings.
The survey, conducted by Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies, Harris X and The Harris Poll, revealed that 60 percent of respondents thought that Biden “helped and participated in Hunter Biden’s business.”
8. "The View" hosts accuse GOP of having 'planted' White House cocaine
"The View" co-host Sunny Hostin claimed in July that a bag of cocaine found in a West Wing cubby may have been planted there by Republicans.
"Maybe it was planted — or do I sound paranoid?" Hostin asked.
Co-host Ana Navarro speculated that the fanciful GOP spy op may have been undertaken "so that then they could advance the Hunter Biden narrative." Hunter Biden has had well-documented problems with narcotics, however, it's his eyebrow-raising business dealings that are the primary focus of Republican investigators in Congress.
This was just one of several whoppers from "The View's" co-hosts, who — this year alone — have also alleged that Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis used a body double in a campaign ad, blamed Republican opposition to so-called climate policies for bad weather at the Burning Man festival, and speculated that the GOP planted classified documents in Joe Biden's Wilmington, Delaware, garage.
9. Top outlets report antisemitism is not a problem, anti-Israel protests are peaceful
Anti-Israel protesters clashed with police in Washington, D.C., in November, injuring at least six officers.
On Nov. 5, Paul Kessler, a 69-year-old Jewish man, was killed by a pro-Palestinian protester in California.
And the violence was worldwide. In October, Pro-Palestinian protesters in Berlin also fought with cops.
But you might not know it if you've read much of the establishment media's coverage of the protests, which were spurred on by Israel's military response to the Oct. 7 terror massacre.
Most stories highlighting pro-Palestinian demonstrations have included descriptions of the protesters as "peaceful," and those that have mentioned some of the violent incidents typically take care to note that the majority of rallies are purportedly peaceful.
The New York Times categorized a pair of October protests in New York City like this: "Hundreds gathered without incident in Times Square, and Jewish Voice for Peace pulled hundreds more in Brooklyn to call for Palestinian rights."
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/media-lies-cover-ups/2023/12/29/id/1147645/
