CNN’s Jim Acosta deliberately took a sentence by the press secretary Kayleigh McEnany out of context to make her look anti-science. Other outlets then repeated the lie.
Ms. McEnany addressed the issue of children going back to school. She said was, “The science should not stand in the way of this.” But she continued, “The science is very clear on this…the science is on our side here. We encourage our localities & states to just simply follow the science. Open our schools.”
Acosta reported that she only said, “The science should not stand in the way of this.”
Long after everyone knew that she didn’t simply say “the science should not stand in the way of this,” Chuck Todd decided to repeat the lie of omission — twice.
Jonathan Turley let Todd have it.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley blasted NBC News’ Chuck Todd after he aired the truncated clip.
“Chuck Todd on Meet the Press decided to play the misleading clip not once but twice on Sunday. It was not just running an overtly misleading clip but defiantly doing so after other journalists have challenged the erroneous impression left by the clip,” Turley wrote on Sunday. “The misleading quality of the clip clearly was not the problem but the appeal for Meet the Press.”
WORSE THAN ACOSTA [CAN’T GET WORSE THAN THAT]
Turley wrote that Todd’s decision was even worse than Acosta’s. He had already called out Acosta.
“As bad as that incident was, it is not nearly as bad as Chuck Todd ignoring the controversy and the correction to repeatedly air the same misleading quote,” Turley wrote.
“NBC was fully aware that the clip was not just misleading but that it conveyed the opposite of what actually was stated in the press conference.”
Turley added. “Todd shows a clip of people denying the need to wear masks and says that Trump is just ignoring the risks to push to open schools. He then shows the clip of McEnany that is edited to cut off her reference to scientific data, making it sound that she was saying that the science was not important. The clip was played a second time later in the show,” Fox News reported.
Turley called NBC News’ decision to run the clip “another example of how the echo-journalistic model not only undermines the faith in the media but actually undermines the effort to fully inform the public on the pandemic.”
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