It would appear as if the most powerful man in the world has a lot of free time on his hands these days, choosing to rail against the Gray Lady for what he considered to be “dishonest” coverage. And here’s the kicker: he full on alleged that one of our nation’s most venerable journalistic institutions founded in 1851 was — as he eloquently put it — “FAKE NEWS.”
We can be reasonably sure of course that Trump himself wrote the tweets considering the typos that appear in the second one. As we know, proper spelling was not as high a campaign promise as building that wall.
But it’s Trump’s big claims here that the New York Times, “actually apologized to its&
The Times has never apologized to its readers for the Trump phenomenon. It did, however, issue an poignant letter to its readers in mid-November from publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and executive editor Dean Baquet. “As we reflect on the momentous result, and the months of reporting and polling that preceded it, we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism,” Sulzberger and Baquet wrote on November 13th.
But apologize? No, not even close. In fact (and not alternative fact), Trump made this same ludicrous claim on the day of the Times letter:
PolitiFact called it demonstrably false, writing at the time, “Trump’s tweet is a distorted and over-the-top description of a Nov. 13 letter to readers from the New York Times’ publisher and executive editor.”
The Gray Lady is just the latest media organization to get the “fake news” treatment from the President of the United States; he battled CNN’s Jim Acosta before the inauguration at a press conference and used the same phrase to describe their efforts. “Fake News,” of course, was a phrase used to describe the litany of conspiratorial headlines that would often emerge on social media platforms last year, but it has been warped into a weapon of partisan rancor spearheaded by none other than POTUS himself.
Of course, the accusations of fake news didn’
So… how’s that whole pivot thing working out for ya?
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J.D. Durkin (@jivedurkey) is an editorial producer and columnist at Mediaite.