Monday, December 25, 2017

Another hysterical anti-Trump headline disappears down the fake news bunny hole

Remember when Trumpenstein had his evil minions dictate to the Centers for Disease Control what words to avoid in their budget proposals? That Washington Post story from 15 December launched a thousand outraged op-eds.

Oh my God!!!... what's next in the barbarian's war on scientific inquiry?

Yes, the nightmare of 1984 is fully and finally upon us!


Or not.

You may have missed this headline from WaPo's sister publication Slate six days later; There is no ban on words at the CDC.

Oh, so what's the fuss then?

You would think that there are enough actual facts around with which to skewer the Trumpists without resorting to spinning scary stories based on hearsay from anonymous sources. This is the kind of misleading reportage that gives succour to those who believe our mainstream media outlets are shot through with "fake news."

Jon Cohen at Science counted the number of times the forbidden words showed up in the last three CDC budget proposals of the Obama admin compared to the 2018 Trump budget proposals. Based on his analysis, one could spin a headline about the exponential rise in the use of the words "fetus" and "entitlement" in the Trump era document.

You wouldn't be wrong, but your story would be just as misleading and irrelevant as that original Washington Post story.

If the MSM establishment want folks to stop squawking about fake news, they should stop publishing fake news stories.


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