Opinion

MEDIA CRITICISM: Media Headlines Misleading After Comey Testimony

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Will Ricciardella Social Media Strategist and Politics Writer
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The establishment media’s bias was on full display following James Comey’s congressional hearing Wednesday. Headlines focused on Comey’s testimony that President Donald Trump “lied,” concealing the more pertinent and shocking revelations exposed during the hearing.

Comey’s testimony exonerated Trump from allegations of obstruction of justice, and vindicated his claims about Comey telling him three times that he was not, personally, under investigation.

So, what does the establishment media decide to report: that Donald Trump “lied” about why he fired James Comey.

With the establishment media so heavily invested in Comey’s testimony destroying the president, they were easily seduced into focusing on the one claim they could use to mislead readers. Comey, referring to an NBC interview in which Trump claims Comey was fired for being a “showboat” and a “grandstander,” while overseeing an FBI that has been in “virtual turmoil,” oh-so shockingly, called them “lies.”

Sounds like sour grapes from a former employee that got the boot to me.

That didn’t stop Salon from running a headline reading “James Comey Says Donald Trump Lied, ‘Plain and Simple.'” NBC lead with the same quote, but in a effort to be a tad bit more honest, added “about firing” at the end. Thank you, NBC.

Kind of odd to lead with that headline when Comey just revealed that Loretta Lynch, Obama’s acting Attorney General, in an effort to “align”campaign rhetoric with FBI matters, didn’t want the Clinton email investigation called an “investigation,” instead insisting Comey call it a “matter.”

Comey even admitted to leaking his own memos of private conversations with the president, which could lead to a criminal investigation of his own.

Why then, does The Washington Post‘s headline read “Comey: White House lied about me, FBI?” Perhaps their focus should be on correcting the record after reporting the false information their sources close to Comey were feeding them, claiming Comey didn’t tell Trump he was under investigation:

The winner for most egregious headline and article came from Salon, calling the Comey testimony Trump’s “I am not a crook moment” and declaring that “Now it’s the cover up, not the crime.” The article is dedicated entirely to tying the Donald Trump Russian allegations to the Watergate scandal, after admitting, explicitly that not a single law enforcement agency or media outlet have found “any evidence” that the president or anyone in his campaign “colluded with the Russians.”

If there is no evidence of Russian collusion, how can you compare allegations to actual criminal activity?

The establishment media clearly did not get the news they had hoped for from the Comey testimony, leading to an array of “lying Trump’s a lair” headlines, instead of an honest and accurate reportage of the facts.

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