BRUTAL: Journo From NPR Humiliates Himself In WH Fact-Check Gone Very, Very Wrong

This is exactly the sort of low-effort hackery that makes the news media’s polling numbers hover somewhere around black mold and Chlamydia.

Trump threw out some numbers in his National Address on Wednesday night. We all know he has a habit of speaking in typaically Trumpian grandiose terms about any project for which he’s trying to drum up support. Examples he provides are as likely to be ‘directionally accurate’ in capturing the essence of the point he’s trying to make even if the particulars fall a little short of the grandeur he frames those key points.

Biden’s inflation, as an example, was at 9%. Trumps is somewhere in the 2-3% range, which is right around the target. It is fair to say that we are ‘way down’ from Biden’s inflation, while still raising a quizzical eyebrow at some of his ‘best ever’ claims about the current state of the economy.

In that context, a competent and respectable journalist might hear Trump’s claims in the speech — his gas price claims, for example — and ask himself whether those numbers are accurate or inflated for dramatic and persuasive effect?

An independent investigator, for example, might go to a few of the readily available public resources to see if he could independently verify Trump’s claims that some states were already reporting $2/gallon gas.

You probably even have an idea or two of how you would find out that information in just a couple of clicks and you don’t even ‘journalism’ for a living. Let’s see how our intrepid NPR ‘investigative reporter’ played his hand.

For proper context, here is the bio listed on the social media account of our ‘intrepid’ journo.

Ok, so far so good. Here is the question to which he wanted an answer. It is worth noting that WaPo journalist Matt Viser has already deleted the tweet to which this is given in response, in case you want some clue of how this exchange is about to play out.

I hope someone got a screenshot of Viser’s tweet to kick this exchange off, because I’ve checked internet archives and came up empty.

It must have been pretty rough if Matt Viser, ‘White House bureau chief’ for the vaunted Washington Post got shamed into deleting it completely.

[Begin Editor’s note: In fairness to Matt…
Although the note was deleted, it was later noticed that the missing tweet had been preserved by way of a screenshot with a correction. Perhaps he has more integrity than we’re accustomed to seeing from the outfit that chose not to return the Pulitzer they were given for reporting on RussiaGate.]

The screenshot:

[/ End editor’s note]

Undaunted, we soldier on.

Let’s look at his crackerjack journalism on display.

Ok. Well that’s a little anti-climactic.

But maybe the White House is citing an obscure trade journal or some high-level source that might not be immediately ….

Oh, there was a response? Let’s see it.

Oh. The popular app, ‘Gas Buddy’. When you check the links (at least, as of last night), those numbers hold up. Gas under $2 a gallon.

This, of course, is where it became fun.

Here come the replies. First we had a whole whack of photos taken at the gas pump with users telling us roughly where they were gassing up.

Next, we had open mockery.

And for the cherry on top?

Someone who did a little historical comparison and gave some value-added context to the conversation. You know, the thing that journalists used to do back before they were carrying water for the Democrat party full-time.

Remind me again why it’s the taxpayer’s responsibility to keep funding clowns like this to the tune of about 2 Billion?

At least WaPo’s clown was being ridiculous on Jeff Bezos’s dime, without sucking from the government teat.