Torchde Team | January 25, 2021
We’re ending January with our picks for the worst stories of journalism. These cursed headlines made the list because the publisher, network or journalist promoted the stories full blast despite overwhelming evidence of the contrary. The common thread – lack of research and inability to fact-check results in stories chock-full of mistruths. We’ll focus more on recent journalistic failures by major networks, limited to stories within the last few years. Here’s our list for the 6 most disgraceful stories in journalism.
ABC News
Airing Fake Syria Bombing Video
In 2017 ABC News featured a report called “Slaughter in Syria.” Weekend anchor Tom Llamas reported the story while a video appeared on screen showing a massive gun battle with explosions. The news crawl also read: ‘Crisis in Syria, ISIS prisoners escape as death toll rises in attack.’
ABC used the footage again on “Good Morning America” the next day. Another correspondent, Ian Pannell stated to viewers: “This video obtained by ABC News appears to show the fury of the Turkish attack on the border town.” The video however, was actually taken at a Kentucky gun range.
ABC News apologized for airing and misrepresenting the footage. This was a huge controversy with CNN and New York Times (also on our list) weighing in. Brian Stelter called it “a big black eye for ABC News.” The New York Times noted that “ABC News did not specify how the error had occurred.”
New York Times
Parody Twitter Account Mistaken for The North Korean Government
In July 2017, reporters at NYT inaccurately assigned a tweet mocking a joint American and South Korean military act to the North Korean government. Journalists at NYT were quick to publish the comment “Imbecilic Americans drunkenly fire missiles into East Sea of Korea, demonstrating near total ignorance of ballistic science.” This tweet was actually posted by an account run by two Americans that were spoofing North Korean news. One creator of the account had this to say about the media: “But seriously, one Google search reveals us instantly.” He further stated: “To be honest, I have no idea why the media keeps falling for it at this point, outside of the obvious answer of lack of fact-checking.”
The Sun UK
Prejudice False Article on Britain’s Muslims
The Sun UK isn’t considered a reliable newspaper by far but their prejudice coverage on Muslims was a new low. A specific article titled: “One in five British Muslims” was printed by the Sun right after the 2015 terrorist attacks on Paris by Isis. The Sun’s front page displayed the results of a “shock poll” which said one in five British Muslims sympathizes with Isis.
It was discovered that the question in the poll only asked if Muslims sympathized with those who travelled to “join fighters in Syria”, not specifying Isis. The Sun only admitted that the Britain Muslim story was ‘significantly misleading’ instead of blatantly false. Miqdaad Versi, an assistant general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, has been fighting to correct inaccurate reports. He stated: “This has real-life consequences as far-right extremists share such false stories, leading to rising hostility towards Muslims.”
CNN
Trump’s Fake Financial Involvement with Russia
Many false stories involving the former president Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia emerged from multiple outlets. One false story in particular “Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials” resulted in CNN having to retract and remove three journalists involved in publishing it. Conspiracy theorists and many in the public are still linking Trump to Russia based on these baseless reports.
Rolling Stone
College Sexual Assault Fabrications
In 2014, The Rolling Stone ran an article about several University of Virginia students who reportedly raped a woman as part of a fraternity initiation. The story “A Rape on Campus” was proven to be false. The source fabricated her story. It was only after the story was published that the alleged events started to unravel. Other journalists investigated the article’s claims and found major discrepancies.
Rolling Stone issued many apologies and settled with the fraternity by paying $1.65 million in damages. Some payments were to be donated to charities dealing with sexual assault victims.
HBO and The Own Network (Oprah Winfrey)
Leaving Neverland
Technically, these are two different networks, but in 2019 they both were equally responsible for promoting the disaster flick Leaving Neverland. The two men making sexual abuse allegations against the late King of Pop had been thoroughly discredited online and in a court of law before the film aired.
What was the aftermath? Oprah Winfrey has ceased in promoting the film by removing clips off of her channels. The removal may have been influenced by the 100 million dollar lawsuit unleashed on HBO by the Michael Jackson Estate. Jackson’s estate took a major financial loss behind the film, with events dedicated to honoring the legend being canceled, amongst tons of negative media coverage.
Oprah’s journalistic reputation has been scourged, she received immense backlash. The lawsuit of one accuser, James Safechuck has also been dropped. Leaving Neverland is still available on HBO. The false information put out by HBO and Oprah Winfrey was never retracted or corrected by either party. Hopefully this status will change after the results of the estate’s lawsuit.