by WorldTribune Staff, May 24, 2017
Seems the many Trump haters in the mainstream media are willing to listen to – and believe – anything negative anyone has to say about the 45th president.
Several of them fell for a hoax report on a White House document purporting to show a list of some outrageous demands made by President Donald Trump of his Israeli hosts.
The document appeared on a joke Twitter account, @RogueSNRadvisor, which pretends to originate from a “rogue” senior adviser to the president.
Some of Trump’s “demands” on the list are so obviously fake “that the MSM’s swallowing of this hoax says a lot more about them than it does about Trump,” Rick Moran wrote for American Thinker on May 23.
The list on the Twitter account Rogue White House Senior Advisor included:
- Trump’s demand of roughly a metric ton of sugary and non-kosher junk food. (Yes, some in the MSM actually believed his demand of a “metric ton”).
- The demand that microwaves remain unplugged, a mocking reference to White House adviser Kellyanne Conway’s comment that the appliance could be used for spying.
- The request for 2016 electoral maps to be posted on the walls, alluding to Trump’s alleged tendency to play up his victory.
The Jerusalem Post’s Anna Ahronheim saw and believed the story was legitimate and tweeted it. Soon after, journalists from The Washington Post, NBC News, Business Insider, the Nation, and Mother Jones shared Ahronheim’s tweet.
After realizing they were had, the journalists deleted the tweet referencing the fake White House document, but the Washington Free Beacon kept the links for posterity.
From Joshua Holland of the Nation: “Do they need to don their tinfoil hats or something before plugging in the microwaves?”
From Amy Spiro, who covers pop culture for the Jerusalem Post: “There are also, of course, requirements for printed framed maps of his electoral victory in the suite. I mean OMG.”
Even the Washington Post “Fact Checker” Glenn Kessler fell for the hoax. He, too, deleted the original tweet.
Eventually, Ahronheim issued a correction, “but not before most of the MSM began to pretend they never fell for the hoax,” Moran wrote.
Ahronheim later tweeted: “Sigh, sorry to disappoint but @LahavHarkov says this came from a fake twitter account a few days ago. It seemed too good to be true.”
While the fake account’s motive remains unclear, “its shtick is to share shocking and outlandish ‘insider’ stories about Trump while providing no evidence,” the Free Beacon reported. “The account has never provided verification that it is actually run by a White House staffer.”
Meanwhile, American Thinker’s Moran noted, “the hysterical anti-Trump media exist in a cocoon where every Trump story is absorbed, embellished, and exaggerated. Nothing that the president does – or, in this case, never dreamed of doing – becomes a kind of confirmation journalism; fake news confirms the worst of what the MSM believe about Trump, which makes it easier to believe it’s true.
“Whatever sliver of credibility remained for the MSM before Trump took office has disappeared. Even some anti-Trumpers don’t believe most of what they read in the media anymore.”
Many in mainstream media fell for hoax report on Trump’s ‘demands’ of Israeli hosts added by World Tribune on
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