Sullivan on how the media narrative keeps collapsing
Andrew Sullivan writes:
The news is a perilous business. It’s perilous because the first draft of history is almost always somewhat wrong, and needs a second draft, and a third, and so on, over time, until the historian can investigate with more perspective and calm. The job of journalists is to do as best they can, day by day, and respond swiftly when they screw up, correct the record, and move forward. I’ve learned this the hard way, not least in the combination of credulousness and trauma I harbored in the wake of 9/11.
But when the sources of news keep getting things wrong, and all the errors lie in the exact same direction, and they are reluctant to acknowledge error, we have a problem. If you look back at the last few years, the record of errors, small and large, about major stories, is hard to deny. It’s as if the more Donald Trump accused the MSM of being “fake news” the more assiduously they tried to prove him right.
Sullivan provides a long list of issues where the original reporting was found to be wrong later on. And that in basically every case the original reporting was hostile to conservatives.
- The Rittenhouse case
- The Steele dossier
- The Covington boys
- The Covid lab-leak theory
- The Jussie Smollett case
- The fake rape allegations at UVA
- The Pulse mass shooting motivation
- The Atlanta spa shooting motivation
- Responsibility for the increased attacks on Asian-Americans
- The Wi Spa exposure
- The source of the Hunter Biden e-mails
- Reporting on border crossings
- The denial of critical race theory being taught, when it permeates everywhere
Basically if a story fits a pre-existing belief or narrative of the media, they run it without waiting to check out the facts.