Media Outlets Issues Retractions
The Washington Post has published an astonishing retraction two months after a bombshell story about a phone call between then-US President Donald Trump and an elections investigator in Georgia.
The newspaper reported in January that Trump had spoken to Frances Watson in December, asking her to “find the fraud” in the state and that she would be a “national hero” if she did.
Numerous other US media outlets – including CNN, ABC News, NBC News and USA Today – all subsequently claimed that they had “confirmed” The Washington Post’s reporting. (Great work!)
But a newly surfaced recording – which had been deleted from Watson’s device and was only recovered by officials responding to a freedom-of-information request – has revealed the quotes attributed to Trump, and relayed to media by an anonymous source, were false.
The Washington Post added a lengthy correction to its original story today, admitting that it “misquoted” Trump based on “information provided by a source”.
“Correction: Two months after publication of this story, the Georgia Secretary of State released an audio recording of President Donald Trump’s December phone call with the state’s top elections investigator,” the note read.
“The recording revealed that The Post misquoted Trump’s comments on the call, based on information provided by a source. Trump did not tell the investigator to ‘find the fraud’ or say she would be ‘a national hero’ if she did so.
CNN also issued a correction today. Its original story included the same quotes, saying they came from “a source with knowledge of the call”.
As one media observer noted,
“There’s zero accountability in major corporate media any more, yet they continually insist they’re the ones holding the line on the truth. And always remember what should scare you about the media is what doesn’t get exposed.”
The false quotes made it all the way into official government records being included in House Democrats’ impeachment brief.
Just another reason to turn off the mainstreamm media.
