Media

Yahoo News Forgets MS-13 Gang So They Can Attack GOP Candidate

(REUTERS/Mike Segar)

Amber Athey Podcast Columnist
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Yahoo News sent an incredibly misleading tweet Thursday in an apparent attempt to attack Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie.

Gillespie ran an ad promising to rid Virginia of the drug-running, murderous MS-13 gang. One portion of the ad features heavily tattooed MS-13 members with their own motto, “Rape, Kill Control.”

But when Yahoo tweeted about the ad, they only identified those pictured as “heavily tattooed Latino men” and attributed the “Rape, Kill, Control” motto to Gillespie.

Twitter users quickly pointed out Yahoo’s apparent ignorance.

The article linked to in the tweet does mention that the “Latino men” featured in the ad are members of MS-13, but not until the 6th paragraph–and the first mention is in a quote from a Gillespie supporter, not from the author himself.

When the author does finally bring up MS-13, he accuses Gillespie of showing the gang members to stoke racial tension and anti-immigration sentiments.

“…it’s hard to imagine Gillespie running an ad like his MS-13 spot a few years ago, because for over a decade he’s been a leader of the Republican effort to bring Latinos into the GOP and tone down anti-immigration rhetoric,” Jon Ward, a senior political correspondent for Yahoo News, writes.

In the over-2000 word article, MS-13 is mentioned just five times, three of which are in quotes by other people. Meanwhile, the word “Latino” was mentioned nine times and “immigrant” and “immigration” are mentioned 11 times.

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