However They do Just Make Shit Up

From "Media Matters" by Jameson Foser:

For the past 16 years, news organizations have been repeating an obvious falsehood about the 1992 Democratic convention. According to countless news reports -- in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, ABC, NPR, Time, Newsweek, CNN, MSNBC, The Wall Street Journal, and on and on and on -- then-Pennsylvania governor Bob Casey was denied a speaking role at the convention because he opposed abortion rights.

That's false. And it's obviously false.

This is really, really simple: if there were eight speakers at the 1992 convention who were "pro-life," then it cannot logically be the case that Casey was excluded solely because of his position on abortion.

Yet here's The New York Times, just last week: "Sixteen years ago, the Democratic Party refused to allow Robert P. Casey Sr., then the governor of Pennsylvania, to speak at its national convention because his anti-abortion views, stemming from his Roman Catholic faith, clashed with the party's platform and powerful constituencies."

No. That is not true. That cannot be true. It cannot be the case that he was not allowed to speak because of his views -- other people with the same views were allowed to speak. Forgive the repetition, but reporters at nearly every significant news organization in the country are inexplicably incapable of grasping this extraordinarily simple concept. And when Media Matters pointed out the error, did the Times run a correction? No. The Times apparently stands by its transparent falsehood. That is not a sign of a newspaper that gives a damn about the truth.