Americans don’t trust the media—and with good reason, as we learned earlier today. Take just the latest bit of fake news to have been cyber-vomited onto social media: according to Politico, Attorney General Jeff Sessions “joined” a “Lock her up!” chant started by a group high schoolers he was giving a speech to.
But that isn’t accurate at all. Sessions heard the chant, looked a bit confused, then bemused, and, finally, amusedly echoed—literally one time—the chant before continuing with his prepared remarks.
From the way the story was reported, however, one could be forgiven for thinking he had organized the speech purposefully so he could taunt a political rival and whip the crowd up into a frenzy to call for her arrest, all the while he’s leading it—evilly.
That just isn’t what happened. Seriously, they have to know this reporting (and other examples like it) is, at best, deliberately misleading and, at worst, unadulterated lying. What seems more and more evident with each passing day to more and more Americans is that they do know they are being dishonest, but they just don’t care.
That’s worrying—and, in a sane world, this story would be getting much more attention, and the media would get raked over the coals for it, further undermining whatever scant legitimacy they still possess anywhere other than elite, insular enclaves on the coasts and on university campuses.
Instead, because we have a media that is constantly stepping on rakes, own-goaling itself into risible irrelevancy—on Helsinki, on Judge Kavanaugh, on so many other things—this story will regrettably be lost to the flood of ever more ridiculous fake news.