Senator Jeff Flake attacked his fellow Republicans in Congress on Sunday, suggesting that they were reluctant to challenge President Donald Trump because they were afraid to lose their popularity — or worse, their seats.
Sen. Jeff Flake urges his GOP colleagues to “push back” against Pres. Trump: “The judiciary has stood up well, the press has stood up well, in terms of institutions… but the Congress has been lacking” #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/3NNO5zVclM
— ABC News (@ABC) June 24, 2018
On ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Flake championed the judiciary and the press because, in contrast to Congress, they have both “stood up well, in terms of institutions.”
But what Flake left out is the fact that the media didn’t exactly have a good week. (RELATED: Everything The Media Got Wrong About The Crying Girl On The TIME Cover)
Over the course of several days, multiple outlets shared the photo of a little crying Honduran girl, making her the face of the family separation issue at the U.S.-Mexico border. TIME magazine included the iconic photo as part of a cover story, alleging that she had been ripped from her mother’s arms.
A fact-check later revealed that everything about the photo was wrong.
There we go. Fixed it. #ImmigrationCrisis pic.twitter.com/2HOHHDdUnl
— Will Ricciardella (@WillRicci) June 22, 2018
When confronted with the facts, TIME and other outlets defended the use of the photo, saying it accurately represented the emotion tied to the situation. They then accused the fact-checkers of “weaponizing” their own false narrative to “attack media.”