The purposeful deception of the mainstream media

I saw a headline from PJMedia.com this week. Actually, it was a question. ‘Why Does the MSM Keep Falling for Obvious Hoaxes?’ It was in reference to the Jussie Smollett hoax that he was the victim of a hate crime. Smollett is one of the stars on the Fox hit Empire. To answer the question of the headline we must first look at how many hoaxes the mainstream media have fallen for in the era of Trump.

Back in November of 2016, an openly bisexual student at North Park University in Chicago claimed to be the victim of hate notes. She told NBC News, “I just want them to stop.” Turns out she was the one writing them.

Jussie Smollett on Good Morning America

A woman in Philly took to Facebook with the claim that some Trump-supporting men pulled a gun on her at a gas station saying, according to her, that they were glad they wouldn’t have to deal with ni**ers much longer. When her story went viral (of course) she claimed the men had been caught by the police. Turns out the police had no idea what she was talking about.

Remember the church that was spray-painted with a swastika and anti-gay slurs? Turns out it was the church’s own Trump-hating organist.

Then in February of 2017 a Muslim student found anti-Muslim graffiti on his dorm room door, only he didn’t just find it. He wrote it.

A big one came in September of 2017 when racist notes were found at the Air Force Academy’s prep school. One note read, “Go home ni**er.” The general in charge of the school gave an impassioned speech about dignity and respect. It was all a big hoax.

There are examples all over the place of waiters and waitresses claiming to find racist notes that turned out to be written by them. And who can forget the recent media frenzy around the Covington Catholic school kids who were these white-privileged monsters taunting Indians and black guys until we learned from video evidence that the Indians and the black guys were the ones harassing them. In fact, the Indian guy at the center of that controversy has a history of making up “hate crime” stories.

So when I first heard on the news that a gay black man who stars in the TV show Empire was the victim of a hate crime in 12-below-zero Chicago by two white guys who put a noose around his neck and shouted pro-Trump slogans I knew immediately it was bovine scatology. Then, to get back to PJMedia’s headline question, why didn’t the mainstream media? 

I’m going to be bold in answering that question. They did know. They knew just like I did that the story couldn’t possibly be true. However, it made great anti-Trump copy. That’s more important than the truth. It doesn’t matter that it turns out to be bogus. It doesn’t matter that they know it’s bogus from the start. All that matters is it fits into the template. Trump is a racist, homophobic, anti-Semite who also hates Muslims. And his followers are just as bad. They go out and beat up the people Trump only wishes he could beat up. Then it all ends up not being true and where’s the story? Buried, if they run it at all.

Why does the mainstream media keep falling for obvious hoaxes? They don’t. They merely take them and amplify them as part of their propaganda against President Trump. And then feign outrage when he calls them fake news.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show. He's also the co-host of The PodGOATs podcast.