Just days after the mainstream media blamed “fake news” for the rise of Donald Trump, the totally objective non-partisan in no way in the tank for Hillary Clinton mainstream media decided to engage in some “fake news” of its own.
This morning, Trump Chief of Staff Reince Priebus joined Chuck Todd to discuss the widely misunderstood “Muslim registry” being pushed by the Trump camp. Here’s that clip:
Priebus’ words: “Look I’m not going to rule out anything,” Priebus said. “We’re not going to have a registry based on a religion. But what I think what we’re trying to do is say that there are some people, certainly not all people… there are some people that are radicalized. And there are some people that have to be prevented from coming into this country. And Donald Trump’s position, President Trump’s position is consistent with bills in the House and the Senate that say the following: If you want to come from a place or an area around the world that harbors and trains terrorists, we have to temporarily suspend that operation until a better vetting system is put in place.”
Here’s how NBC News chose to tweet about it:
Reince Priebus on Muslim registry plan: ‘I’m not going to rule out anything’ https://t.co/YN2EIWJmdd
— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 20, 2016
I don’t know about you, but to me this looks like NBC News is intentionally cutting off the most relevant section of the quote in order to mislead readers into believing that Reince Priebus is saying that Muslim Americans will have to join a registry. But that’s not what he’s saying at all. Priebus instead rules out religious registry, shifting to the very common sense notion of vetting and perhaps registering visitors and immigrants from so-called terror hot-spots, an entirely reasonable and entirely constitutional proposal.
So this looks like that “fake news” the mainstream media warned us about.
Predictably, intelligent conservatives let them have it:
Purposely cutting off quotes to scare people is why the media has been losing credibility https://t.co/qd2vI0jCxk
— Carl Paulus (@CarlPaulus) November 20, 2016
.@NBCNews cuts off a full quote to get clicks and scare Muslim Americans, but please tell me more about the scourge that is fake news.
— Carl Paulus (@CarlPaulus) November 20, 2016
This is dishonest. Full quote: https://t.co/Mj6d3uJXwf https://t.co/RJodoAyq5Z
— Shoshana Weissmann (@senatorshoshana) November 20, 2016
This is the opposite of what he said. This tweet from NBC is literally fake news https://t.co/c1k4DCdTCY
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) November 20, 2016
Look, it’s very simple: The so called mainstream media is just as partisan and agenda driven as the so called new, partisan media, and the average news consumer now prefers sources that are honest about this bent. They were completely invested in a Hillary victory, just as now they’re completely invested in a Trump failure, and it is so transparent that even the most ignorant news consumer can see it. As the Federalist’s David Harsanyi put it:
In fact, it’s possible one of the reasons voters are more easily taken in by fake news (and I see no proof that it’s more likely today than it was in the past) is that they have solid reasons not to believe the media. The way media covered the 2016 race, acting as Trump had absolutely no chance of winning, probably reinforces this perception among many Americans. This post-election coverage is not going to change anyone’s mind.
