Anytime the media and politicians and fancy-pants blue-checks wind up with egg dripping from their sad but smug little faces, count on Drew Holden to be there will all the receipts.
And once Jussie Smollett was found guilty on five of six counts, Holden got to work organizing all those receipts into another one of his trademark blistering threads:
🧵THREAD🧵
We’ve got to talk about the Jussie Smollett case.
I know it can seem easy to laugh or shrug off. But it’s instructive in why so many people don’t trust the corporate press and the Dems & commentators who help drive it.
So let’s revisit ⤵️
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
You had to know it was coming. https://t.co/q8oOzZRoNN
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
We knew it was coming.
And boy, are we glad it’s here. Now it’s your turn to read it and be glad, too:
First, a reminder on the original details. Actor @JussieSmollett alleged that two white men wearing MAGA hats out for a stroll at 2 AM in Chicago in -20 degree weather recognized him & beat him up yelling racist and homophobic slurs. Luckily, he fought them off, supposedly.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
Supposedly.
The press quickly jumped on the story despite the relatively inconceivable nature of the allegations, asserting that surely this had happened as Smollett describes.
Here’s @CNN reporting this as not something they was alleged but that definitely happened (multiple times). pic.twitter.com/RFOs8q6hzB
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
There were plenty of voices within @CNN, too, who leaned in on this one, including @donlemon (peep the reference), @brianstelter (“we may never know what happened on that street in Chicago”) and @keithboykin (sheesh) pic.twitter.com/8ekep60ElZ
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
Even the outlets who weren’t at the forefront of pushing the story bought the idea that the two most racist, homophobic Empire fans might’ve been waiting around a bone-chillingly cold Chicago night to dole out violence.
Here’s @nytimes without a caveat to be found. pic.twitter.com/kMO2iC5N1M
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
Maybe no outlet did more to promote this hoax than @ABC.
For weeks they covered every undulation of the “brutal attack” and – like the Times, CNN & most places – always framed it as a foregone conclusion that the details were true.
Now we know they were all lies. pic.twitter.com/9xYrlcAvAV
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
And even given the opportunity to push on the really implausible details of the story, instead @ABC went so far as to develop their own graphics quoting how upset Smollett was at his “doubters” pic.twitter.com/Qup369uYpH
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
And it wasn’t just ABC who did the latter. Plenty of outlets not only pushed out everything Smollett had to say but served as conduits for his (and his allies’) outrage that anyone would dare question his story. Here’s @AP. pic.twitter.com/n7qDGHDhtr
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
It wouldn’t be a thread without a mention of @MSNBC. No surprise that they were all too happy to pile on for this one, including leading conspiracy theorist (and person who has me blocked) @joyannreid. pic.twitter.com/dNK0s1NCg5
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
@Yamiche of NPR helped lead the charge, parroting the ridiculous claims made by Smollett and his family, including the allegation that Smollett was the victim of the kind of “‘domestic terrorism’ happening to people across the country” (?!) pic.twitter.com/cdqT8qh0Sr
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
Again. There was A LOT of this, even after the story started to unravel. I don’t have space for every outlet but here’s:@GMA @VanityFair (I mean cmon guys really?)@latimes @CBSNews pic.twitter.com/uUFROsTjqU
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
A lot of folks have wondered why Smollett would do something like this.
My hunch is that the expected outpouring of supportive news must’ve factored in. And @Variety, @HuffPost, @etnow and @NYMag were among the outlets happy to deliver. pic.twitter.com/IZ6vXVkJR9
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
Of course, it wasn’t just the media.
Both now President @JoeBiden and Vice President @KamalaHarris put out moving statements attesting to Smollett’s character and how awful America is, which haven’t exactly aged perfectly.
Remember “an attempted modern day lunching”? I do. pic.twitter.com/2Vgq7aR2ep
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
In particular, @RepMaxineWaters went out of her way to blame Trump for the hoax, claiming that he was responsible “for emboldening racists” like Smollett’s attackers which…hasn’t aged well, either, I don’t think. pic.twitter.com/qROQD2Ketk
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
But of course she wasn’t the only one. We had some whoppers from @RashidaTlaib, @ericswalwell (go figure) & @AOC.
Perhaps if things are as bad as you claim, you wouldn’t have to rely on blatant hoaxes to make your point?
And AOC, can you see now the value of news caveats? pic.twitter.com/0NcDqL9dTV
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
There were tons of Democrats who went all-in on this one. I don’t have space for all of them but here are a few more: @repmarkpocan @RepJimmyGomez @harrisonjaime @SenSanders pic.twitter.com/bRLQG9DQRg
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
Also worth pointing out that President Trump, who I don’t believe is on Twitter, bought the Smollett hoax, too. pic.twitter.com/s2UxyefSSb
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
Or he at least had to act like he did to keep Dems and media off his back over it. But regardless of the reason, Donald Trump got sucked into it, too.
And naturally the lefty blue check brigade drew a lot of very definitive conclusions from the supposed ordeal, particularly around Trump. I won’t have room for all of them but here’s a few egregious ones:@KarenAttiah@mindykaling @kevinnadal (a perfect tweet, retrospectively) pic.twitter.com/s6ilIPcT88
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
We saw the truly fake news promoted by many people who are, supposedly, very worried about disinformation and how it spreads on the internet, like @MSignorile and @cmclymer. pic.twitter.com/6QWcIq6e2c
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
And a number of once-credible organizations decided this was a hill worth dying on, including @ACLU and @ADL (and @JGreenblattADL).
Perhaps next time they’ll be more discerning about unbelievable stories. pic.twitter.com/Vw7FEnpcWF
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
Now, shockingly, no one wants to talk about it.@CharlesMBlow of the Times captures that duality well: when the story confirmed someone’s priors, it was worth talking about. As soon as it turns out that it never did, the refrain was ‘why do we bother talking about this?’ pic.twitter.com/h6ajtGsBBy
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
And of course the usual grifters were plenty happy to jump onto the bandwagon.
That includes @TheRevAl, @democracynow and @mmpadellan. Not that any had credibility left, but you would at least think they could avoid spewing more disinformation. pic.twitter.com/3I49H26htM
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
They can’t avoid it if it’s a compulsion.
All of this happened because the preposterous story Smollett spun checked too many boxes (about race, sexuality, Trump) to be worth asking a few journalism 101 questions.
If you’d like to know why trust in the media is at an all-time low, look no further.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
The corporate press loves to wax poetic about the terrible role of disinformation in society, and yet they race against each other to be the first to uncritically share an absurd hoax.
Maybe the real problem isn’t a meme your grandmother shared on Facebook.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
Smollett is only the latest in a long series of stories pushed by the corporate press that never materialized – from Covington Catholic to Russiagate and beyond.
If the press wants to rebuild trust, they can start by not uncritically promoting lies.
I’m not holding my breath.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 10, 2021
Neither are we.