It was not a good year for the national press.
From the Chris Cuomo scandal to corporate journalists inventing stories about violent Border Patrol agents and Republican-led witch hunts, 2021 marked yet another lousy year in media credibility.
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Indeed, if 2021 proved anything, it’s that corporate newsrooms are perfectly content to burp out the same nonsense, make the same mistakes, embrace the same ignorance, overlook the same ethical lapses, and parrot the same partisan talking points that have made them about as distrusted as Congress.
The following is a list of the worst major media moments of 2021. For brevity’s sake, the list has been narrowed to just nine examples. To include all errors, blunders, and acts of outright media malfeasance would require thousands of additional words.
In no particular order:
1. The Washington Post’s Steele Dossier legacy
The Washington Post in November heavily amended roughly two years’ worth of reporting on the infamous Steele Dossier, an opposition research project that is almost certainly a work of total fiction if not outright Russian propaganda.
Don’t cheer. Had the Washington Post applied more scrutiny to its coverage of the dossier, especially its core claims with many that are absurd on their face, it wouldn’t have had to issue multiple corrections and editor’s notes. The dossier was a dubious piece of work from the get-go. The fact major newsrooms didn’t treat it as such is on them.
The since-amended Washington Post articles, some of which have had entire passages retracted, originally identified businessman Sergei Millian as a key source for the dossier.
However, it’s increasingly likely he played no role in the dossier’s creation. In fact, the source that fed the wildest and still-uncorroborated claims regarding then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump into the dossier was likely a Democratic Party operative with close ties to the Clinton 2016 presidential campaign.
The Washington Post’s corrections came after the Department of Justice indicted the dossier’s primary source, Igor Danchenko, who may or may not be in bed with Russian intelligence, on five counts of lying to federal investigators about how and where he got his supposed information.
Danchenko is accused specifically of fabricating his claim that he got some of his information from Millian.
In total, the Washington Post corrected and amended nearly a dozen separate stories.
No word yet on whether the paper plans to return the Pulitzer it won for its coverage of the Russian collusion dud, which includes the dossier.
CNN fired anchor Chris Cuomo in December after it was revealed he lied about the extent to which he worked behind the scenes to shield his brother, the disgraced former New York governor, from multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.
It’s a case of too little, too late. CNN should’ve fired Cuomo long ago for many separate ethical infractions.
Cuomo used CNN’s airwaves last year to stage a Lazarus-style resurrection in his home after he supposedly beat COVID-19, claiming his emergence from his basement marked the first time he left quarantine since contracting the virus. The entire stunt was a lie. Cuomo had already broken quarantine while supposedly sick with COVID-19.
Cuomo also transformed his evening program last year into his brother’s personal public relations shop amid the Empire State’s disastrous mishandling of its coronavirus response. This all happened within the context of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo quietly rerouting state resources to ensure Chris Cuomo and other family members were bumped to the front of the line for COVID-19 healthcare.
Then, there’s the fact CNN knew months before it fired Chris Cuomo that he had been working quietly as a spin doctor for the brother he promoted last year on the network’s airwaves.
Any of these episodes should’ve earned Chris Cuomo a pink slip from CNN. But the network didn’t fire him. It wasn’t until after the former anchor was found to have used his resources at CNN to dig up dirt on his brother’s accusers and warn his brother ahead of time about new sexual misconduct allegations and developments that the network decided it had enough.
Chris Cuomo, by the way, explicitly lied on-air about his efforts to protect his brother’s career.
There’s something to be said for “better later than never.” However, one can’t help but wonder, “What took so long?”
Honorable mention: MSNBC’s Katy Tur was discovered in December to have acted as an uncritical conduit for Andrew Cuomo’s office, repeating its spin “like verbatim” when news of the former governor’s sexual misconduct offenses first broke.
A jury found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty in November on all charges related to the fatal shootings of two men last year during the Black Lives Matter riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
The 18-year-old Illinoisan, who maintains he acted in self-defense after rioters attacked him while he was protecting property in Kenosha, walked a free man despite the national press’s best efforts to tip the scales against him.
Major media called Rittenhouse a murderer. It called Rittenhouse, who is white, a racist, even despite the fact the men he shot were all white. It called the judge who presided over the murder trial a right-wing fanatic, accusing him of rigging the trial in Rittenhouse’s favor. Major media even complained about the racial makeup of the jury.
The national press papered over the circumstances of the Kenosha shootings, treating the destructive Black Lives Matter riots that ripped the city apart as a neutral backdrop. It denied there were riots. It argued the riots were good and justified. It even lionized the looters and the arsonists, most especially the men who were shot by Rittenhouse after they attacked him.
Major newsrooms omitted or buried exculpatory evidence from their coverage of the trial, including when Gaige Grosskreutz, who was also shot by Rittenhouse, testified he was shot only after he charged at Rittenhouse and pointed his gun at him.
An NBC News producer was even caught stalking members of the jury.
Luckily, for Rittenhouse, jurors were not so easily cowed by the press’s obvious efforts to browbeat them into handing down a “guilty” verdict.
4. Red scare
When President Joe Biden’s nominee to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency withdrew her nomination in December, the New York Times claimed it was because Republicans had made an issue of the fact she was born in the U.S.S.R.
This, of course, is a lie.
Republicans lawmakers opposed Saule Omarova’s nomination to supervise an estimated 1,200 U.S. financial institutions because she wants to nationalize the banking system. They opposed her because she wants, according to her own words and policy papers, a complete federal takeover of all wages, gas, and food prices. They opposed her because she believes a single, unelected government bureaucracy should control all capital and credit.
Omarova’s on-the-record praise for Soviet economic policies and her stated desire to bankrupt the oil industry likely didn’t help, either.
At least five Senate Democrats joined Republicans in opposing Omarova’s nomination. Humorously enough, the New York Times didn’t accuse the Democrats of using her place of birth as a scaremongering tactic.
5. “How much does a gallon of milk cost?”
Few things demonstrate the cultural gap between the average consumer and the corporate media class so clearly as the cost of groceries.
Inflation hit a 39-year high in November, affecting the price of everything from food to utilities.
Boo-friggin-hoo, said the “professionals” who are paid handsomely to explain the news to the masses.
“Inflation and shortages of some goods are real issues,” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued. “But much of the economic discontent seems to be based on news reports and partisan leanings.”
“Why the inflation we’re seeing now is a good thing,” read the headline to an MSNBC opinion article.
When CNN aired a report documenting the financial woes of a Texas family that says the rising cost of inflation has taken a severe toll on its pocketbook, members of national media scoffed, especially when the matriarch of the family of 11 said, “A gallon of milk was $1.99. Now, it’s $2.79. When you buy 12 gallons a week times four weeks, that’s a lot of money.”
“Are these folks bathing in milk?” asked Reuters senior correspondent Chris Taylor.
Said Huffington Post editor Hillary Hanson, “Beyond the obvious hilarity of 12 gallons a week it’s so crazy to me that ‘cost of a gallon of milk’ is still such a reference point because I barely know anyone who buys ANY gallons of milk??”
Even the official New York Times Wordplay Twitter account got in on the action, tweeting, “I can’t do today’s crossword. I’m too busy carrying my 12 gallons of milk home.”
Twelve gallons of milk per week for a family of 11 translates to roughly two-and-a-half glasses of milk per day, per person. It’s not that complicated. Then again, no one ever said journalists were good with numbers.
6. 60 Minutes vs. Ron DeSantis
In April, the CBS show 60 Minutes promoted a left-wing conspiracy theory alleging Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had rewarded a grocery chain’s political contributions with an “exclusive” deal to distribute coronavirus vaccines.
It’s true Publix donated to the Friends of DeSantis political committee. But it’s also true CVS and Walgreens were given the vaccine in Florida before Publix. It’s also true that, like Publix, Walmart was similarly enlisted by the state to help distribute vaccines. CVS, Walgreens, Walmart were not mentioned anywhere in the final 60 Minutes report. Oh, also, Publix, which has donated to liberal causes, played a large role in the second phase of Florida’s vaccine distribution campaign because it was the first grocery chain that was ready to do so.
In producing the segment, CBS declined DeSantis’s offer to put them in touch with the self-described progressive director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, who vigorously disputed the “pay-for-play” allegation. DeSantis’s people likewise attempted to facilitate an interview between CBS and David Kerner, the Democratic mayor of Palm Beach County, who likewise said the allegations are complete nonsense.
CBS again declined the offer. DeSantis also personally provided CBS with a detailed explanation of the state’s arrangement with Publix. CBS responded by selectively editing the governor’s explanation and running with the loony left-wing “pay-for-play” allegation, providing zero evidence but a whole lot of insinuation.
CBS stands by its reporting, even despite its sloppy journalism, denials by multiple state Democrats, emails suggesting a calculated political hit job, and a mountain of evidence disproving the conspiracy theory.
CNN accused talk show host Joe Rogan this year of injecting himself with livestock paste after he contracted the coronavirus.
Rogan did nothing of the sort.
“Controversial podcast host Joe Rogan, who’s railed against vaccine requirements, says he has COVID and took a drug intended for livestock,” said CNN host Erin Burnett.
Rogan, said host Anderson Cooper, “acknowledged taking controversial treatment designed for animals.”
CNN’s Jim Acosta said, “And the podcast host Joe Rogan, he came down with COVID. He says he’s been taking the livestock dewormer ivermectin, as well as other treatments that people talk about on the internet and so on.”
It’s a lie, invented from thin air. Rogan took the human version of ivermectin, as prescribed by his doctor. CNN employees simply lied about it.
But don’t take my word for it. CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta himself conceded during a subsequent interview with Rogan that his colleagues were dead wrong.
8. Whip it
Biden this year vowed a robust investigation following news that U.S. Border Patrol agents had struck Haitian asylum-seekers flooding into Del Rio, Texas, with “whips.”
The only problem here is: Immigration enforcement officers didn’t use “whips” on anyone.
Rather, footage from the border revealed mounted border agents used their reins to corral the throngs of Haitian refugees swarming into Texas. In fact, the photographer who took the most commonly cited photo of the border incident even said no one used whips (also, border agents aren’t even issued whips).
This false narrative began on Sept. 19 when the El Paso Times published a report claiming a Border Patrol agent shouted at a group of Haitians crossing from Mexico into the U.S., “Let’s go! Get out now! Back to Mexico!”
The report then states: “The agent swung his whip menacingly, charging his horse toward the men in the river …”
From there, the fake story took flight, as outraged lawmakers and journalists protested the supposed brutality inflicted upon the Haitian migrants.
“It does smack of a bygone era of slavery aided by reports of people being beaten whether with a rioting crop or the reins, most likely,” said then-CNN host Chris Cuomo.
All this is because members of the press apparently don’t know the difference between whips and reins.
Oh, also, that investigation Biden promised: The Department of Homeland Security announced in November its inspector general declined to investigate the incident — probably because there is nothing to investigate.
The Biden administration this year retroactively destroyed one of the most damning news cycles of the 2020 election.
The New York Times reported last year Moscow had offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to attack coalition forces in Afghanistan. Worse, according to the anonymously sourced report, then-President Donald Trump was briefed on the bounty plot and did nothing about it.
The Washington Post claimed later it had independently “confirmed” the New York Times’s exclusive reporting.
Biden himself made the story a key talking point of his election, arguing it proved Trump’s unworthiness for office.
In April of this year, however, the Biden administration clarified the U.S. intelligence community only ever had “low to moderate” confidence in the bounty story.
“The United States intelligence community assesses with low to moderate confidence that Russian intelligence officers sought to encourage Taliban attacks U.S. and coalition personnel in Afghanistan in 2019 and perhaps earlier,” a senior Biden administration official said in April.
In layman’s terms, the intelligence community believes the story is, at best, unproven or, at worst, a pure fabrication.
This matches with what multiple intelligence experts and White House officials, including former national security adviser John Bolton, said at the time last year when they publicly disputed the New York Times’s supposed bombshell report. Unfortunately, their on-the-record pushback did nothing to cool the righteous indignation of the press.
“The reporting about the alleged ‘bounties’ came from ‘detainee reporting’ — raising the specter that someone told their U.S.-aligned Afghan jailers what they thought was necessary to get out of a cage,” the Daily Beast reported, citing a Biden White House official. “Specifically, the official cited ‘information and evidence of connections to criminal agents in Afghanistan and elements of the Russian government’ as sources for the intelligence community’s assessment.”
The Biden official continued, adding the “difficult operating environment in Afghanistan” makes it especially complicated for U.S. operatives to confirm what could be nothing more than a rumor.
In other words, the story that inspired so much election-year rage and political fodder is most likely a lie.
But how did the Washington Post independently “confirm” what the Biden administration this year claimed is almost certainly a hoax? The New York Times and the Washington Post didn’t speak with the same anonymous source without even realizing it, did they?
