Media Malfeasance: Press Overplays Hand After Buzzfeed’s ‘Bombshell’ Bait Story

January 20, 2019 in News by RBN Staff

Image result for buzzfeed

Source: clashdaily.com
Written by Wes Walker

If something SEEMS too good to be true, it usually is. If the Media(D) had anything resembling journalistic integrity, they would have realized that.

On Thursday night, Buzzfeed set the political world on fire with a supposedly ‘Bombshell’ news story alleging President Trump had illegally instructed someone to lie to Congress on his behalf. That witness was none other than the President’s own disgraced lawyer, Michael Cohen, who is now working with Clinton Flunkie, Lanny Davis.

The Media(D) could hardly contain their excitement.

Trending: Hey NeverTrumpkins: Did You Hear What DJT Has Promised To Veto?

When WE saw that story, we considered some facts. There was only ONE outlet reporting it. That outlet was BUZZFEED, who had already shown themselves disreputable when they published “The Dossier” that no self-respecting outlet would risk their reputation with. None of the usual Deep State leakers scrambled to their media contacts in the Press to play a personal role in ‘taking down’ the President with such damning news. And did we mention that it was BUZZFEED?

Our Spider Senses were tingling.

We weren’t even willing to touch that story with the weasel words ‘If True’. The story didn’t pass the sniff test.

We didn’t run it because WE at ClashDaily take both our integrity, and our readers seriously. We had no intention of selling out for a cheap clickbait piece — especially one with the political implications of a story like this.

We decided to wait a day or two to see whether the story actually checked out, or if it fizzled and needed retracting like so many OTHER hit pieces on Trump have done since he took office.

The same was not true of our Vaunted Free Press.

Examples:

Embedded video

Ronna McDaniel

@GOPChairwoman

The mainstream media has been biased against @realDonaldTrump since Day 1.

And this is what putting bias before facts looks like.

6,470 people are talking about this

The ‘Orange Man Bad’ NPCs came out in force certain that they had the smoking gun. Curiously, they were all reading from exactly the same script.

Ms. Anthropic🍫🤬❌⭐️⭐️⭐️@Melancholalia

Surely that post is satire… surely?

Rathdranalon@Daicheal

Who knows but I love how you can pick out the media matters drones by the language they use after all this went down. pic.twitter.com/zarW62leWW

View image on Twitter
See Rathdranalon’s other Tweets

‘Pulitzer Prize winner’, eh? So it HAS to be true, because the professionalism of someone who wins an award can never be questioned, right?

Have you heard of Dan Rather?

Anyway…

The internet was ablaze with the use of words like ‘Suborn’ and sly digs at the President’s ‘obvious’ guilt, and salivating wondering if THIS might finally be the time for Impeachment.

This completely uncorroborated story with unnamed sources had wall-to-wall coverage on the networks for the better part of a day, complete with endless speculation about both the President’s guilt and talk of Impeachment.

There’s no room for the presumption of innocence here, folks. But, after Kavanaugh, what did we really expect of them?

The party came to a crashing halt when Team Mueller Itself — MUELLER! — formally shot down the Buzzfeed Story.

BuzzFeed News

@BuzzFeedNews

UPDATE: A spokesperson for the special counsel is disputing BuzzFeed News’ report. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/trump-russia-cohen-moscow-tower-mueller-investigation?bftwnews&utm_term=4ldqpgc#4ldqpgc 

14.1K people are talking about this

WaPo Saturday: “Mueller’s denial, according to people familiar with the matter, aims to make clear that none of those statements in [Buzzfeed] story are accurate.”
Friday: “Impeachment” was said more than 200 times on CNN & MSNBC after each news org couldn’t confirm the story.

962 people are talking about this

Buzzfeed tried to save face and stand by their story anyway.

Ben Smith

@BuzzFeedBen

In response to the statement tonight from the Special Counsel’s spokesman: We stand by our reporting and the sources who informed it, and we urge the Special Counsel to make clear what he’s disputing.

18.2K people are talking about this

They stand by their story. Even after it got shot down by Mueller. Good luck with that.

Matt’s Idea Shop@MattsIdeaShop

TAKE THE QUIZ: Which debunked BuzzFeed article are you?

NationofJake@NationofJake

Buzzfeed should take their own quiz: pic.twitter.com/NJNWcOPgPB

View image on Twitter
See NationofJake’s other Tweets

Ryan Saavedra

@RealSaavedra

BREAKING: The Washington Post reports that Mueller’s statement about BuzzFeed’s report is aimed at the entire report, “to make clear that none of those statements in the story are accurate.”

6,394 people are talking about this

If you REALLY want to tie the words ‘suborn perjury’ and ‘President’ into one story, you can still get there, you just have to look for another story. Here’s some help for anyone disappointed they can’t use their shiny new word anymore:

Wes Walker@Republicanuck

“Suborn” @BillClinton

In the case of William Clinton, we had a President who lied repeatedly under oath, suborned perjury, and hid evidence. … He lied to the grand jury when his basis for doing so was to avoid admitting earlier acts of perjury.http://www.famous-trials.com/clinton/886-analysis 

See Wes Walker’s other Tweets

Activist ‘news’ site that they are, how does Buzzfeed double down after a story like that?

Chuck Woolery

@chuckwoolery

BuzzFeed Leads with Fake News ‘Collusion’ Story Hours After Refuted by Mueller http://bit.ly/2FHvNCe  via @BreitbartNews

BuzzFeed Leads with ‘Collusion’ Story Hours After Refuted by Mueller

Buzzfeednews.com led with a report on Democrats pledging to investigate its Russia collusion report after it had been debunked by Mueller.

breitbart.com

177 people are talking about this

What. A. Surprise.

And the ‘reputable’ news outlets, what was their reaction after Mueller put an end to their celebration?

Well, Don Lemon suddenly Didn’t want to talk about that Buzzfeed story, because it’s been talked about enough already. Awww. Poor Don was heartbroken. Buzzfeed led him on, but didn’t deliver on their promises. #unrequited

And now, suddenly, the media CARES about the reputations harmed by their running of a bogus story.

Embedded video

David Rutz

@DavidRutz

.@jeffreyToobin: People who will think of media as “a bunch of leftist liars” who are willing to lie to hurt the president … “It reinforces every bad stereotype about the news media.”@brianstelter: “They want you to think we’re all crooked. We’re not.”

1,398 people are talking about this

Whose reputations are they defending? Not the people that get slandered by their bogus news. No. Never that. They are rushing to the defense of their OWN reputations, of course.

Sorry chumps, you had a chance to do the same thing ClashDaily did. View the story with skepticism until it becomes adequately confirmed.

But thank you for showing the entire world that the so-called ‘Fake News’ New media has more integrity than the multi-millionaire TV talking heads.

Trump doesn’t have to convince people that you are Fake News. You’re doing a great job of that all on your own.

The Trumpinator: every time his rivals think they’ve got him down and out, he stands back up and keeps on coming.

They laughed when he announced his candidacy. They thought he was going to some circus act.

They couldn’t have been more wrong.

He survived the primaries and got the nomination. He knocked out Crooked Hillary.

He beat CNN at their own game, and their ratings are now circling the toilet.

Mueller and the Dossier aren’t just coming up empty, they’re exposing the misdeeds of Brennan, Comey, McCabe, Strzok and all the rest.

And Trump is still keeping promises, and getting things done.

The economy is doing exactly what he promised it would. #PromisesKept

And in 2020, The Trumpinator is gonna do it again.

He’ll be back.