7 Worst Examples of Fake News from the Mainstream Media

Here are seven notable examples of fake news in mainstream media, according to Townhall.

1. Newsweek's blasphemy of the Koran

On May 9, Newsweek published an article saying that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay prison had desecrated the Koran. The newspaper said that this action could cause more trouble for the United States than the scandals that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Since the story was published, there has been a furious response from across the Muslim world. Protests erupted in Pakistan after Imran Khan, a former cricketer and now an opposition politician, read the article at a press conference.

Riots have broken out across Afghanistan, with mobs attacking government and aid agencies, killing 15 people. Anti-US protests have also taken place from North Africa to Indonesia.

After the Pentagon denied the story, Newsweek began to probe the details. It appears the outlet had doubts about the authenticity of the story from the start, and as a result, it was not published on its main page but as a short piece in its "Periscope" section.

In the May 23 issue, editor Mark Whitaker acknowledged that the source was questionable, saying, "We regret any misunderstanding and extend our condolences to the victims of the violence and the American soldiers caught up in it."

Even if Newsweek retracted the entire story, the damage would be done. Many Muslims would see it as a cover-up, reinforcing the view that America is at war with the Muslim world.

2. Rathergate

This is the case of the CBS program 60 Minutes airing a documentary, with the content talking about 6 rare documents criticizing the time of US President George W. Bush serving in the US National Guard. The problem is that these 6 documents are fake documents and the program did not bother to check them before making the scandalous film.

According to writer John Hawkins, "CBS was provided copies of documents by a mentally unstable man with a grudge against Mr. Bush, the source of which is unclear. Moreover, the documents, which he said were drafted on a typewriter in the early 1970s, have the same font as the Microsoft Word office software, which is present on half the computers in the United States."

According to Hawkins, in other words, "CBS wanted to help John Kerry win the US presidential election against Bush, so they were fooled by a story that even a novice could recognize..."

3. NBC and CNN lied about the George Zimmerman tape

On an episode of the Today Show, NBC edited a 911 call made by George Zimmerman, who shot and killed black victim Trayvon Martin. The edited recording made Zimmerman sound like a racist.

Here is the transcript of the recording that NBC aired:

Zimmerman: He looked like he was up to something. He was black.

And here is the actual recording:

Zimmerman: He looked like he was planning something bad or he was on drugs. It was raining and he was wandering around outside, looking for something.

911 Operator: Okay, is he black, white or Latino?

Zimmerman: He's black.

NBC isn't the only news network to shy away from over-refining George Zimmerman's alleged racism.

On the March 21 episode of Anderson Cooper 360, a CNN audio expert increased the volume of Zimmerman's 911 call, claiming that he used the derogatory term "coon" for black people while following Trayvon Martin. Reporter Gary Tuchman asserted, "I definitely heard that word."

But two weeks later, on the same program on April 4, CNN reviewed the recording with another expert. This time, the expert said that George Zimmerman was just cold and muttered the word "cold".

4. NBC's GM Truck Explosion

NBC's November 17 Dateline news segment featured a 57-second video clip of the gas tanks of an old GM truck catching fire and bursting into flames in a roadside crash.

After being notified, GM hired investigators, searched 22 landfills for 18 hours, and found evidence that exposed nearly every detail of the crash story. At a press conference held later, GM presented evidence that the fire had been staged, the cause had been misconstrued, the damage had been exaggerated, and other relevant details had been distorted.

There are two major holes in this story. First, NBC said the truck’s gas tank exploded after the crash, but X-rays showed otherwise. Second, NBC consultants detonated a small explosive under the truck seconds before the crash, but viewers were not told this.

NBC News President Michael Gartner had to apologize: “I feel terrible that almost every detail of this incident is fake. I know we have to apologize...”

5. The Jayson Blair Scandal at the New York Times

The New York Times can be commended for exposing Jayson Blair, the reporter who was found to have fabricated news stories, plagiarized ideas from other news organizations and lied about nonexistent trips or interviews.

But Blair’s missteps were the fault of the newspaper’s own executives. The Times had once offered Blair a place in an internship program that was then used primarily to help the paper diversify its news operations.

But the paper later promoted Blair to a staff writer, even though he had not yet graduated from college and had no professional journalism experience. Blair's writing was riddled with errors, and the Times printed 50 corrections to stories Blair had written.

Despite this, Blair's stories continued to make the front page, with the backing of editor-in-chief Howell Raines. Despite the warnings of a few courageous whistleblowers, top management continued to assign Blair to big stories in new departments without alerting the editors in charge of his past mistakes.

6. Rolling Stone's Rape Story

Rolling Stone crossed a line when it published a story about a sexual assault that occurred on the University of Virginia campus, even though it was not true. The newspaper paid the price for its mistake.

Last Friday, a jury found that Rolling Stone had defamed a former associate dean at the University of Virginia by portraying him negatively in its article “A Rape on Campus.” Wenner Media, Rolling Stone’s owner, as well as the author of the article, were both held liable.

The court also said that the author of the article, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, acted with "malice" - that is, intentionally writing things that she knew were false or without any regard for the truth of the story.

The article, published in November 2014, immediately attracted public attention for its graphic description of a multiple-person sexual assault on a woman at a Virginia school party.

The article also accused the school’s administration, specifically the former vice dean, of failing to handle the matter. The story was lauded, but the admiration was short-lived. Other journalists investigated and found numerous inconsistencies in the story. Rolling Stone had to issue a correction, and eventually retract the story.

7. Hands up, don't shoot

Milwaukee Police Chief David Clarke has criticized liberals for spreading fake news about the death of black victim Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014.

Liberal journalists and activists had previously spread the story that Michael Brown had his hands up before being shot by officer Darren Wilson, a story that helped spark the Black Lives Matter movement and eventually led to the Ferguson riots.

In fact, the above information was proven to be fake and the circumstances at that time allowed Wilson to shoot down Brown./.

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