Fake News from the White House
In the midst of a deadly storm, unverified information is shared casually on a verified account.
As Hurricane Irma slammed into Florida today, the real news media were on the scene. Reporters and anchors from local, network and cable news, The Weather Channel, and more, were all on the ground, bracing against the winds and rains, and dodging flying debris. In the midst of this deadly storm, Trump’s social media director and “assistant to the President” Dan Scavino (@Scavino45) shared what he later claimed was one of the 100s of videos and pics he was receiving from the public — and rushing to pass along, unverified, to the President, the Vice President, and the world.
No big deal, I might say. But then I think how many times Trump and his team have called the real news “fake.” I remember that, according to Gallup, only 14% of Republicans now say US news organizations “get the facts straight” (vs. the 52% of Republicans who trusted the media as recently as 1998, or two years after the birth of Fox News). I consider the way Rush Limbaugh told his 20 million listeners Irma was a “liberal hoax” (before high-tailing it out of Southern Florida ahead of the “hoax” making landfall).
I realize that even in the midst of this already deadly, still life-threatening storm, it wasn’t the mainstream media who were sloppy with the facts and demonstrating a casual approach to truth. No, the real media performed heroically today. The fake news was coming from the Trump White House.