As Twitchy reported Thursday morning, the big news story of the day was from CNN, which quoted unnamed sources as saying that the Biden administration had inherited no COVID-19 vaccination rollout plan from the Trump administration and had to “build everything from scratch.” That myth was busted almost instantaneously.
This just isn’t true https://t.co/g6hPRECmAK pic.twitter.com/xXU5ojCGzQ
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) January 21, 2021
this is a lie.
CNN is allowing itself to be used as a PR shop to spin events in Biden's favor. if the admin meets its goal of 100M vaccines in 100 days, which we are on course to do anyway, they take credit. if they don't meet that goal, they can claim they never had a chance. https://t.co/5NvkR6O80x
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) January 21, 2021
Later in the day, Dr. Anthony Fauci held a press conference at which he said, “We certainly are not starting from scratch because there is activity going on in the distribution.” So is Fauci lying? We heard there weren’t going to be any lies from this administration.
Drew Holden got to work putting together one of his famous threads compiling all the people who jumped on CNN’s scoop and ran with it.
?Thread?
Today we saw the birth & death of a coronavirus news cycle suggesting – contrary to common sense – that the Biden Admin had to “start from scratch” on a vaccine rollout since the Trump Admin had done nothing.
Curious who bought the spin? I’ve got some thoughts?
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
@mj_lee broke the story today for @CNN, who has shared it countless times and mentioned it dozens of times on air, citing (you guessed it!) unnamed sources.
Only problem is, Dr. Fauci shot down the claim today at today’s press conference.
Seems he’s got a reason to know. pic.twitter.com/DKWwMMIlrs
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
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Of course, before the story was rejected outright by the most believable person involved in all this, lots of @CNN’s main voices jumped in about how big of a deal it was. This is what we call expectation setting.
Here we’ve got:@CNNSotu @AnaCabrera @jimsciutto and@cnnross pic.twitter.com/hmu9FuFzTO
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
But it wasn’t just @CNN. Other outlets and their reporters piled on, too. Because you see, if people believe this, Biden’s job gets way easier: anything tied to the vaccine is a success.
It wouldn’t be a chance for anti-Trump spin if @maddow and @MaddowBlog weren’t involved. pic.twitter.com/PVeIdvOwry
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
She wasn’t even alone in her own program. Here we’ve got @kylegriffin1 doing the same thing.
Again, the Biden WH has every incentive for you to believe this. It means that any future failures are on Trump, not Biden. pic.twitter.com/2X5DTwOOSg
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
The problem with these types of stories is that you can’t unring a bell. Once the story is out there it’s going to find its way into the bloodstream, and even if it gets corrected or retracted after the fact, the damage will already be done. See @dailykos, @futurism. pic.twitter.com/9ug4IqfZao
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
And that’s even considering that some of these outlets are even trying to act in good faith.
I have long since ceased to believe that @joshtpm and @TPM are acting in good faith. Same for @RawStory. pic.twitter.com/5OkQhAmKLN
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
And it wasn’t just reporters. Here we’ve got @SpeakerPelosi picking up the unsupported, unsubstantiated claim and running with it – in front of the American people – as if it were true. pic.twitter.com/XLjkN0xzlT
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
You can imagine why this would be the sort of talking point that would resonate with Democrats. Here’s @JeffMerkley, joining @NewDay to do the same thing Pelosi did. pic.twitter.com/OfvXC70BRx
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
Perhaps you remember @HillaryClinton. pic.twitter.com/wMpocuA0az
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
And you can imagine that former campaign staffers, like @davidplouffe, would do something similar. It’s good news for the home team. pic.twitter.com/mls6YytO5B
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
This is how these stories that sound too good to be true always gather steam: flimsy reporting, amplified by self-interested politicians, and then folks with large platforms add fuel to the fire until its public record.@paulkrugman has basically made a career of this. pic.twitter.com/8vcT308QAJ
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
Naturally some of our usual suspects, like @johnpavlovitz, jumped onboard this narrative. pic.twitter.com/kf1BqQy8IV
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
And of course the folks who play doctors and public health experts on Twitter got into the mix. Because of course they would. It confirms their priors.
Here we have: @JeffreyGuterman @BarbaraBollier @ColdWarScience @RachelBitecofer (aka “The Doc”) pic.twitter.com/epIIG6KBk7
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
As a general rule, if a story that cites unnamed sources confirms your priors (from Netflix or otherwise) in a way that seems too good to be true, @AmandaMarcotte, it probably is. pic.twitter.com/Jd6T8d6teS
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
I simply don’t have the time and patience to get to everyone who did this individually – and this is driving at a broader point – so I’m gonna lump a bunch in together.
Here’s: @sarahw @grantstern @ryanlcooper @AmandiOnAir pic.twitter.com/aWDY6uVASt
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
I’ll be honest. I’m a little surprised that this passed anyone’s sniff test.
A new admin claiming that their predecessor (& opponent) did “nothing” despite administering the *same number of vaccines per day* that the new one is setting as a TARGET?
Doesn’t that seem ridiculous?
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
Apparently not to some.
And unfortunately I have a feeling we’ll have a lot more of these types of news cycles now that we’ve had a changing of the guard, and the people who are friendly with the media are back in charge.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
So buckle up, folks. After four years of disbelief, fears of misinformation and disinterest in flattering stories about the government, I have a feeling we’ll have a lot more less-than-true stories where this cycle came from.
And I’m here until they ban me to help unpack it all.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 22, 2021
So the Twitter account for Jake Tapper’s show, State of the Union, passed along CNN’s big scoop, and yet later in the day, Tapper himself retweeted this:
Fauci makes clear there are elements from what the Trump administration put in place re: vaccine distribution are being utilized. Notes there is a ramping up.
"We certainly are not starting from scratch."
— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) January 21, 2021
Will his bosses post a correction or a retraction? Will he or any of his colleagues? Or does the retweet cover it?
Related:
‘Story is officially dead’: Dr. Fauci comments torpedo CNN and ‘source’ for vaccine rollout hit piece https://t.co/n0ebNCG577
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) January 21, 2021
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