As Twitchy reported earlier, some big names in media fell for completely fake text messages that were put together as satire by a Democratic college student. No, Rudy Giuliani wasn’t texting back-and-forth with Ivanka Trump, but the mere idea intrigued people like Rachel Maddow and Stephanie Ruhle.
Caleb Hull has a pretty long, exhaustive list of all the blue-checks in media who went ahead and retweeted the fake text messages, and among them was Politico Magazine contributor David Freedlander, who reported that Giuliani was “now being taken in by someone claiming to be Ivanka Trump but who is in fact the vice president of the College Democrats of Indiana.” Actually, no: The texts were fake; Giuliani never received any of them. It was a Photoshop.
Among those reporting on the blue-check frenzy to retweet the fake messages was Politico Magazine contributor Adam Wren.
Verified journalists shared fabricated text messages written by @nickroberts, the VP of @CollegeDemsIN.
He has Guiliani's number, he told me, but says this was a joke. "Most people knew it was fake initially but more national people picked up on it and didn’t question it." pic.twitter.com/gVXsICVdB0
— Adam Wren (@adamwren) October 21, 2020
Good on Wren for looking into it, but his follow-up tweets? We should all do better? Who’s “we”? We’re not sure why, but this tweet was deleted while we were writing this post:
I mean, props to @nickroberts317 for playing a bunch of coasties. He has a bright future in politics.
— Adam Wren (@adamwren) October 21, 2020
Hey, it was all just fun and games, right guys?
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How have people not learned?
— Cole Douglas Claybourn (@ColeClaybourn) October 21, 2020
Really bad joke to pretend they were real.
— TW Polk (@twpolk) October 21, 2020
That’s pretty awful for national media.
— Jake (@UCCowboy) October 21, 2020
YOU GUYS ARE A JOKE.
— BΣΛПZ ? (@Inspectah_BEANS) October 21, 2020
Imagine that, a Politico hack telling us “it’s all fake. Nothing to see here!”
Guess what Adam, not this time
— Conservative_JohnWick777 (@CJohnwick777) October 21, 2020
Key phrase: "didn't question it."
You make-believe journalists question nothing that helps Dems.
And if it hurts Democrats, you murder it in the crib.
You're much worse than Trump.
I say this as a fan: I LOVE that you're all destroying your industry. Salt the fucking earth.
— Eric Stratton (@totter777) October 21, 2020
In an age of fighting disinformation and outright lies from conspiracy groups, it's not only not funny, it's reckless and harmful. You should apologize. Not to Rudy…to everyone else. If you are running parody, create that sort of account.
— JoAnna (@Jo_Anna_1) October 21, 2020
Will @twitter @TwitterSafety @jack be locking their accounts?
— Grandville (@GrandvilleOR) October 21, 2020
Given the @nypost has had their account locked for 7 days. I guess @Twitter will also lock all these accounts?
— UKForUSA (@UKForUSA) October 21, 2020
Why aren’t they getting locked out of their accounts like conservative journalists? @Twitter
— Tony ‘Free Speech’ Soprano (@nephewchristofa) October 21, 2020
@jack why do the rules only apply to conservatives
— Julie ?? (@JDee810) October 21, 2020
Idiots. This is not a one off.
You’re the same people who peddled the Russia hoax for three years and now the Russia disinformation bs.— Carolina Brew ✏️✏️✏️ (@deeplens) October 21, 2020
Lolol……nice try.
— Conservative_JohnWick777 (@CJohnwick777) October 21, 2020
LOL, that college kid sure was clever to put something over on a bunch of liberal journalists, but we should all try to do better “in the homestretch.”
Related:
Texts between Dem activist pretending to be Giuliani and Ivanka Trump are fake (but that did NOT stop these ‘journalists’ from running with it) https://t.co/R9lJH4HKgs
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 21, 2020
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