report. That “17 intelligence agencies” line was repeated ad nauseam.
The AP and the New York Times eventually were forced to backpedal on those exaggerated claims, admitting that only three agencies (FBI, CIA, and NSA) had reviewed the intelligence, which was then issued by a fourth, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. AP issued a correction that it had spread a false number in four separate articles: “Not all 17 intelligence agencies were involved in reaching the assessment.” Interesting math, that. Less than one-quarter equals “not all.”
Trump eventually left it to the Republican National Committee to post his list of the most flagrant fiascoes. They had plenty more to add to the bonfire of fake news:
• Time reporter Zeke Miller falsely tweeted that a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. had been removed from the Oval Office. It turns out Miller’s view had been obscured by a door and a Secret Service agent. Nor did he ever bother to confirm the alleged absence of the MLK bust with anyone in the Trump administration. It was apparently “too good to check.” Miller quickly apologized and said it shouldn’t reflect on the magazine. Which of course it should.
• Washington Post political scribe Dave Weigel tweeted out a picture of an empty theater, mocking a rally in Pensacola as “packed to the rafters,” but the picture was taken hours before the crowd arrived. He deleted it and apologized and said it shouldn’t reflect on his newspaper. Which of course it did.
• Newsweek wrongly reported that Polish First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda did not shake President Trump’s hand in Warsaw despite videotaped evidence to the contrary. They opted for this all-caps blaring headline: “WATCH DONALD TRUMP HANDSHAKE REJECTED BY POLISH FIRST LADY IN HILARIOUSLY AWKWARD EXCHANGE.” The story began, “On Thursday, the world was once again blessed with an unusual, albeit hilarious, apparent slight, this time involving Trump and the first lady of Poland.” There was no snub. The Polish first lady had passed by the president to shake hands with the American first lady—and then came right back to Trump.
• CNN deceptively edited a video to make it appear that President Trump bumbled into overfeeding fish during a visit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “Trump Feeds Fish, Winds Up Pouring the Entire Box of Food into a Koi Pond,” one CNN headline read, as if he had dumped it out of cultural ignorance. In the original video put out by CNN’s Twitter account, the camera zoomed in tight on the President while he threw food to the fish with a spoon before he dumped his whole box into the water. What wasn’t in CNN’s video? The Japanese leader dumping his box of fish food first, before Trump followed.
Some of these “scoops” were tiny thimbles on a scale of newsworthiness but still were intended to keep the tone of Trump’s news as negative as possible. Anywhere. Any time. And any way.
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