Now that President Obama has voiced his concern over the proliferation of slickly packaged yet fake news stories — for instance, the bogus claim that a YouTube video inspired the Benghazi terrorist attack — the best America can hope for is that, like so many of his priorities, he forgets all about it and moves on.
There is, or was, a list of “fake” news outlets posted online that has served as the basis for media reports, but the assistant professor who compiled it has taken it down, with the assurance that “a group of AWESOME librarians” is helping to flesh out the details of why each outlet was included. As long as the unnamed librarians are indeed awesome, we have no concerns.
We do have concerns about the New York Daily News and senior justice writer Shaun King, however. King, triggered by President-elect Donald Trump’s tweet saying that the theater should be a safe and special place, got busy posting several hate crimes and calling out Trump for not responding to each one.
So @ShaunKing is tweeting all the hate crimes done in celebration of Trump's victory that he has said nothing about, in contrast to Hamilton https://t.co/kLgnR9M2Z4
— Sarah Ryley (@MissRyley) November 19, 2016
Yeah he is. There are too many to list here, but if he hasn’t blocked you, check out his feed Saturday for 40 or so instances of alleged hate crimes since Trump’s election to which the president-elect hasn’t responded.
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/800019287436128256
Let’s hope that King and the New York Daily News aren’t put in charge of curating hate crime stories.
More than 700 "hateful harassment" attacks reported since Donald Trump's election https://t.co/SMxpmSqH5F pic.twitter.com/XOtAV39ns7
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) November 19, 2016
Wow, 700 is a lot. Note, however, that the Daily News uses as its source a report issued by the Southern Poverty Law Center. And where did the SPLC get its information? According to the Daily News, “It compiled its report by collecting direct submissions from its #ReportHate intake page, as well as through monitoring news articles and social media sites.”
But didn’t the president just warn us about trusting social media sites? And is the SPLC really counting user submissions on its own form? Yes it is, with the disclaimer that it “made efforts to verify each report but many included in the count remain anecdotal.” The same goes for many of the hate crimes King cites, which are anecdotes posted to Facebook.
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/797446240740982784
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/800028734489329665
Well, damn. While the victim files the police report so investigators can review footage from Walmart’s security cameras, maybe President Obama can say something about the homeless woman and person of color who was harassed for protecting Trump’s star on the Walk of Fame. There’s viral video of that incident. Maybe it was a hoax, but one that involved coordinating a whole lot of people.
Did President Obama address those who were physically harmed at Trump events in Minneapolis, Albuquerque, and San José? These reporters aren’t on the fake news list (yet):
Protesters push and spit on Trump donors at Minneapolis fundraiser https://t.co/lGIxxJFEsi pic.twitter.com/rH4UTnKhqq
— The Hill (@thehill) August 20, 2016
Incredibly scary watching one Trump supporter run for his life away from dozens of protestors trying to beat him up, and to see no police.
— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) June 3, 2016
Protest is moving pretty quickly. The guy in stripes just punched out, knocked a pregnant lady to the ground pic.twitter.com/kPFKtmJ5Oh
— Nicky Woolf (@NickyWoolf) June 3, 2016
What color was the pregnant lady knocked to the ground? That seems to be a relevant detail to some.
* * *
Related:
Trump tells his supporters who are harassing Latinos and other groups to 'stop it' #60Minutes https://t.co/LuuT6wNxU8
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) November 14, 2016
Join the conversation as a VIP Member