As we've come to see all too often, MSMers who are supposed to be the gatekeepers of the truth in reporting instead print misleading headlines to drive traffic to their stories that in the end only contradict their own story. Case in point: GOP VP candidate Rep. Paul Ryan told so many distortions in his speech in Tampa that it forced fact checkers to be a bigger event than the speech itself.
And yet, less than four weeks since being introduced as Mitt Romney's running mate, Ryan has given rise to a furious fact-check revolution, with analysts warning his claims -- about everything from Health Care reform to his best marathon time -- could imperil what many had painted as his cardinal virtue: Honesty.
Bill Clinton gave a rousing speech Wednesday night that was met with high acclaim by many pundits, bloggers, ordinary people and the Commentariat. Conservatives quickly played the backlash politics game that they created decades ago and charged liberal bias, complaining that the MSM didn't bother to fact-check BIll Clinton like they did Ryan. And then the fact-checkers replied that Clinton's claims about the GOP rang true.
On Thursday night President Obama took to the stage in North Carolina to accept the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party and to deliver his speech. It was a good speech, not his best certainly, but still, the early polls indicate he has received an approval bounce, while Mitt Romney's numbers remained flat.
Conservative fact checkers were laying in wait for Obama, just hoping to catch him in some Ryanesque storytelling so they could play the equivalency game. Now we come to Reuters. Let's look at their front page headline read all day Friday:
The headline slyly refers to the fast and furious scandal that Republicans have been ginning up for months now. Was that just an editing decision on what they thought sounded good or was it purposefully used to influence people leaning right or who wouldn't even read the article?
Here's the first paragraph of the article.
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama delivered a 40-minute, 4,458-word speech at the Democratic National Convention, and a fact check shows that most of his references were accurate. But there were a few caveats.
Say, what? Reuters hinted, prodded and slanted this headline to make it appear that President Obama was indeed playing a deadly game of mendacity in his big speech that rivaled Republicans mounted attack on the FBI, but lo and behold, he was HONEST!
I think Reuters needs to explain itself on this editorial choice. Was it based on conservative criticism and a major right-wing talking point that could be levied against President Obama? I want to know.
