Fake News Kills: Tracking the Evolution of a Mis-reported Stat Into a Battle Cry
On Wednesday January 6th, during the Capitol breach, a woman named Ashli Babbitt died. She was attempting to enter one of the doors and, in a moment of confusion, she was shot nearly point blank in the neck. She fell back, spoke a few words and died. Babbitt was a big fan of Donald Trump, attended events for him, reposting his tweets. She also parroted the opinions of FOX and NewsMax personalities who claimed the election outcomes were fake and the win was stolen from Trump. Enraged, encouraged by friends, and driven by what she thought was necessary for her country, she traveled to DC and would not return.
Lies sent her there. Lies about the election, lies about the possibility of a “Pence-card” interruption of elector tallies that would somehow hand Trump a second term, lies about the rioters’ ability to stop a democratic process. These lies murdered Ashli Babbitt. They used her political leanings, her sense of right and wrong, her own personal ideals and they manipulated those emotions with falsity, exaggeration, and the omission of facts. These liars used her for clicks and views and likes, they sold her t-shirts and flags. They used her up. Ashli wasn’t a traitor or a terrorist, she was an audience for stories and the people who created those fictions are the real killers. Here’s how just one of those lies was created and the people who helped it become a story that drew people to DC on January 6th.
In the first days of 2021, my uncle sent me articles outlining the so-called evidence meant to prove Biden and the evil Dems had stolen the election. The article 5 More Ways Joe Biden Magically Outperformed Election Norms was published in the Right-leaning Federalist on November 23rd.
I noticed a pretty big problem right away. “Do you notice how there’s no #3 on this list?” I write to him, “Go back and look.” So that made me curious. I checked and The Federalist actually had to issue a correction which is noted at the bottom of the article, the stats used for point number 3 have been updated. That didn’t matter though because every major right wing outlet repeated it for many weeks without checking the math themselves or noting the correction, and none of them have corrected their reporting since.
In this article, point number three used to say “#3 Joe Biden underperformed Hillary Clinton in every major metro area around the country, save for Milwaukee, Detroit, Atlanta and Philadelphia” Here’s why that point has been erased:
Nov. 5
A data journalist named Richard Baris claimed, “Joe Biden underperformed Hillary Clinton in every major metro area around the country, save for Milwaukee, Detroit, Atlanta and Philadelphia.” Although votes were still being counted in many states, Eric Trump tweets it as fact.
Nov. 8
A D.C. think tank called the Democracy Institute promoted Baris’s claim, publishing an article called, “Yes, the 2020 Election Looks Like it Was Stolen.” The think tanks’s Director Patrick Basham quotes Eric Trump’s tweet in the Sunday Express
Nov. 14
Gateway Pundit cites Basham’s quote from the Sunday Express
Nov. 15
Pollster Rasmussen tweets out the Gateway Pundit piece, with the tweet earning more than 33,000 likes.
Nov 16
The corrected numbers finally come in. With all votes tallied the numbers show not only did Biden not underperform Clinton in every metro area except four, but that he actually also overperformed her in 31 of 36 urban counties. This was confirmed across the political spectrum from National Review, USAToday, WaPo, and the New York Daily News.
Nov 23
The Federalist published the article my uncle sent “5 More Ways Joe Biden Magically Outperformed Election Norms,”citing Basham’s quote as one of his five examples, without checking that the final numbers matched the Baris’s numbers. The Federalist is forced to correct its piece but doesn’t for 9 days. So in the meantime it’s spreads to —
Nov 27
Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs quoted that portion of the Federalist’s piece and urged Trump to “Never Concede.” It got 15,000 likes.
Nov 30
Fox News’s Sean Hannity cited the Federalist’s piece saying, “Get this: Joe Biden actually underperformed Clinton in major liberal cities across America, including New York, Chicago and L.A. But he outperformed Clinton in swing-state cities Milwaukee, Atlanta, Detroit, Philly. How convenient!”
Dec 1
One America News did a full piece on the Federalist article that included the debunked claim.
and finally
Evening Dec 1…
Trump promotes the OAN piece
The rest of December
It continues on from Jeanine Pirro to Guilliani to NewsMax and then back to Trump who promotes it again.
I compile the information and send it back to my uncle. “These people aren’t interested in telling you the truth because — and this is true — they just say shit to outrage you and keep you watching through the next pillow commercial. Every right wing nut job repeated this lie to people who will believe it and are currently packing guns to go to DC on 1/6 and ‘hold the Democrats accountable’.”
I’m not mad at it because it’s a point of view I disagree with, I’m mad at it because it’s garbage journalism with the word “News” in their lower third. It hurts people, it will kill them. Ashli Babbitt thought she was getting news from these voices she trusted like Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, and even the President himself.
It’s time we talk about how we allow people to present news in this day and age. It should no longer be allowed to let primetime opinion rants passing along dangerous rhetoric speak with the word “NEWS” in the corner of the screen. I propose we legislate to label Opinion programming as such clearly and caveat each program with text showing which shows abide by journalistic standards and which do not.
We are not just sending people to their deaths, we’re ripping apart communities, pitting neighbors against each other, driving people farther into the arms of extremists on both sides. We must get ahold of this and we can start by holding liars accountable.
This article was compiled in part using excellent research from Aaron Blake and Ella Lee.
