2016 was a red letter year for xenophobia and misinformation. From smears about Muslims to hostility over LGBT rights, media have had to push back against a torrent of lies and distortion. Here are 12 times the media rebuffed right-wing lies and deceit.
CNN's Anderson Cooper
Anderson Cooper Confronted Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi Over Her Hostility To LGBT Rights. CNN host Anderson Cooper challenged Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s self-proclaimed support for the LGBT community after she spent “years” saying in court “that gay people simply by fighting for marriage equality were trying to do harm to the people of Florida.” Cooper pointed out he has never seen her “talk about gays and lesbians … in a positive way until now,” after a mass shooting targeted LGBT Floridians in Orlando. From the June 14 edition of CNN’s CNN Newsroom:
[CNN, CNN Newsroom, 6/14/16]
NBC’s Katy Tur
Katy Tur Shut Down A Congressman’s Attempt To Explain Away Racist Birther Attacks On President Obama. During the September 9 edition of MSNBC’s Hardball, Trump campaign reporter Katy Tur corrected Rep. Jack Kingston’s (R-GA) claim Trump was not accusing President Obama of being an “illegitimate” president. Tur explained that despite Kingston’s claim that Trump has moved on from birtherism, he has “not backed away from this”:
[MSNBC, Hardball, 9/9/16]
CNN’s Reza Aslan
Reza Aslan Schooled A Trump Surrogate On The Bigoted Nature Of Trump's Proposed Muslim Ban. CNN host and University of California, Riverside professor Reza Aslan challenged Trump supporter and CNN commentator Kayleigh McEnany’s assertions that Islam is a “political ideology” because there are legal verses in the Koran.” Aslan also corrected McEnany’s whitewashing of Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims as “temporary,” pointing out that “the ban on Muslims is still on his website, it's still part of his platform … anti-Muslim bigotry as been the hallmark of Donald Trump’s campaign throughout.” The Muslim ban, to this day, remains on Trump’s website. From the November 18 edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360:
[CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, 11/18/16]
CNN’s Ana Navarro
Ana Navarro Called Out Trump’s Lawyer For Claiming Trump Never Called Mexican’s Rapists. Michael Caputo, Trump’s personal lawyer, appeared on the October 6 edition of CNN Tonight with Don Lemon to spar with CNN Republican commentator Ana Navarro about what she called Trump’s “attack[s on] Hispanics.” Caputo said her claim was “outrageous,” and that Trump did not call Mexicans rapists. Navarro corrected him, saying that “for you to go on TV and say what everybody has seen for the last 16 months [is] not true makes you seem insane. … The transcript is there, we know he said Mexicans are rapists.” Caputo complained that Navarro was unfairly calling Trump “a flat-out racist,” and Navarro said she’d “do it again … and do it in two languages. Es un racista. He is a flat-out racist.” From the October 6 edition of CNN Tonight with Don Lemon:
[CNN, CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, 10/6/16]
CNN’s Jake Tapper
Jake Tapper Repeatedly Pressed Trump To Explain His Racist Attacks On Judge Gonzalo Curiel. In a sit-down interview with the then-Republican presidential nominee, Jake Tapper on the June 3 edition of CNN’s The Lead repeatedly asked Trump about his racist attacks against federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel, whom Trump claimed could not be a fair judge in a Trump University case because “I’m building a wall” and “he’s a Mexican.” Tapper pressed Trump on the issue at least 12 times over the course of seven minutes, despite Trump’s multiple attempts to switch the conversation to Trump University or speeches by Hillary Clinton.
[CNN, The Lead with Jake Tapper, 6/3/16]
Actor And Activist George Takei
George Takei Warned That Trump’s Muslim Registry Is “A Prelude To Internment.” Star Trek’s George Takei, who spent several years of his childhood in a Japanese internment camp, sounded the alarm on Trump supporter Carl Higbie’s invocation of “the imprisonment of innocent Japanese-Americans as a precedent” for Trump’s discriminatory policies against Muslims. Takei recalled the “moral bankruptcy” of the internment, in which he and his family were “treated like the enemy, and imprisoned” simply because “we looked like the enemy.” Takei warned that “this is what's going to happen with a Muslim registry,” because “Registration of any group of people, and certainly registration of Muslims, is a prelude to internment.” From the November 17 edition of MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell:
[MSNBC, The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, 11/17/16]
Fox’s Shepard Smith
Shepard Smith Fact-Checked Trump’s Attempt To “Erase” His Iraq War Support “From The History Books.” Responding to one of Trump’s claims that he opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith said Trump “told Howard Stern he was in support of the war … very early in the [military] campaign.” Smith called out Trump for wanting the media to “erase that from the history books,” defiantly stating, “I’m not doing that. That’s insanity, and career suicide” for a respectable journalist.
[Fox News, Shepard Smith Reporting, 9/8/16]
NBC’s Chuck Todd
Chuck Todd Dismantled The Bigoted Claim That Immigrants Are Rapists Bringing In Crime. Chuck Todd, on the July 19 edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, “separate[d] fact from some of the fiction” about immigration spread by Trump and his campaign. Todd noted that “there is no evidence” to back up “Trump’s claim that immigrants are rapists and bringing crime to the United States,” and he noted that “the number of illegal immigrants is down” despite Trump’s claim that we have “no protection” at the border. Todd also noted that Trump’s plan to seal literally the entire border would not only be unnecessary, but also cost “$28 billion a year, roughly the entire budget of the Justice Department”:
[NBC, Meet The Press, 7/19/16]
CNN’s Brian Stelter
Brian Stelter Called On Media To Push Back On “Donald Trump’s Biggest Lie” That Election Is Rigged. During the October 16 edition of CNN’s Reliable Sources, host Brian Stelter rebutted the notion that the election system is “rigged,” reminding viewers that voter fraud is “rare” and investigated when it occurs. Stelter highlighted the dangers of Trump’s “biggest lie,” calling it a “propaganda technique” that “some of his supporters believe,” but noted some mainstream media journalists pushing back against the baseless claim:
[CNN, Reliable Sources, 10/16/16]
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer
Wolf Blitzer Fact-Checked GOP Congressman’s Conspiracy Claims Of Widespread Voting Machine Errors Flipping Votes From Trump To Hillary Clinton. During the August 20 edition of CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) alleged that “we know dead people across America are still voting” and that “one of George Soros’ companies have provided some of the [voting] machines … obviously Mr. Soros leans left.” Blitzer countered that this was an “unconfirmed rumor … that sounds conspiratorial”:
[CNN, The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, 8/20/16]
Actor And Radio Host D.L. Hughley
D.L. Hughley Called Out Megyn Kelly, Mark Fuhrman, And Fox News’ “Insulting” Comments On Racism And Policing. During the July 13 edition of Fox News’ The Kelly File, actor and radio host D.L. Hughley confronted host Megyn Kelly and the Fox News Channel for racism, noting that they were "insulting people." Hughley accused them of giving police officers who shot people a “benefit of the doubt” and “presumption of innocence” that they never gave to victims. Hughley concluded by pointing out “the only place racism doesn’t exist is Fox News and the police department.” From the July 13 edition of Fox News’ The Kelly File:
[Fox News, The Kelly File, 7/13/16]
CNN’s Christiane Amanpour
Christiane Amanpour Criticized The Media’s Double Standard On Covering A Qualified Woman. When Hillary Clinton fell ill at a 9/11 memorial event at Ground Zero, CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour criticized the resulting media "field day," noting that it featured “typical Clinton conspirac[ies]” about Hillary’s health. Amanpour sarcastically asked, “Can’t a girl get a sick day or two,” and lamented this latest example of “overqualified women having to try a hundred times harder than unqualified men to get a break or even a level playing field.” From the September 12 edition of CNN International’s Amanpour:
[CNN International, Amanpour, 9/12/16]
From Media Matters
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