Are the mainstream media even paying attention any more to what they are reporting? Last Thursday, it was noted in this space that The Washington Post in a story on Facebook’s ban of extremist leaders had branded Louis Farrakhan “far-right.” This is the same Louis Farrakhan who in April declared “I am Jesus, sent here to bring about the end of the civilization of the Jews.” The same Farrakhan who is a friend of the Democrats despite his virulent anti-Semitism.
As Ben Bowles wrote in his piece on the Post’s blunder, the paper got wind of its error before the day was out and appended a “correction” to the article.
Not so CNN, which made the same ludicrous claim a day later, never bothering to correct it. As NewsBusters’s Kristine Marsh writes, “New Day” host Alisyn Camerota reported briefly on the controversial move by the social media giant:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
So Facebook is banning several far-right extremists from its services because it considers them dangerous. This includes the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Also banned, Paul Nehlen, an anti-Semite who ran unsuccessfully for Congress, along with fringe personalities, Milo Yiannopoulos, Laura Loomer, and Paul Joseph Watson. [Emphasis added]
Interestingly, Camerota took the error a step further by neglecting to mention that Paul Nehlen “became persona non grata” among Republicans after appearing on a white supremacist podcast, according to The Guardian, and issuing several anti-Semitic tweets. Conservapedia notes that “the Wisconsin Republican Party … condemned Nehlen’s candidacy on the premise that his views “have no place in the party.”
To compound its mistake still further, CNN ran a chyron with a photo of Farrakhan above the caption “Facebook bans far-right extremists from its service.”
Is CNN so content with reporting fake news that it can’t be bothered with trifles such as incorrectly labeling creatures like Louis Farrakhan and Paul Nehlen far-right, or is the problem that its opinion of the Right is so distorted by its own liberal bias that it naturally assumes that anyone despicable must be a conservative?
