Presidential debate bias & doctored evidence, ABC News (x2) is on a roll

Two recent cases show that the mainstream media’s penchant for misinformation, disinformation, and fake news remains, involving both ABC News’ (American and Australian). Looking over the recent debate in the US, it was difficult not to notice the lack of moderator fact-checking and challenges to Vice President Harris’ many inaccuracies and lies in contrast with President Trump’s treatment, and now it is clear why. Reported in the Los Angeles Times: “[ABC News moderator] Davis, wearing pink glasses while speaking to The Times over breakfast at the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia, said the decision to attempt to correct the candidates was in response to the June 27 CNN debate between Trump and President Biden, whose poor performance led to his exit from the race. “People were concerned that statements were allowed to just hang and not [be] disputed by the candidate Biden, at the time, or the moderators,” Davis said. Muir and Davis divided up the topics to study, and Davis fully anticipated that Trump’s erroneous abortion claim would come up when she questioned him on the issue.” Source. Despite such thorough preparation, the fact-checking only went in one direction, with many false statements by Harris being “allowed to just hang”. In light of accusations that Davis and Muir were “piling on the former president and letting his Democratic opponent off easy”, “Davis acknowledged that she and Muir could not nail every misstatement.”

Okay then.

Across the Pacific, major (and state-funded) news outlet ABC News Australia is in a spot of bother after rival news outlet 7NEWS reported that the former “literally added extra gunshots” in footage from Afghanistan, with the apparent aim of portraying former soldier Heston Russell as a war criminal. Source. Video length and editing also played a role in what can only be seen as utterly deceptive conduct: “A 15-second snippet of this footage would be used to paint a different picture of the day. ABC’s claimed soldiers were shooting at unarmed civilians in the footage.” Makes you wonder what else these organisations are getting wrong and even outright lying about. Like the jabs they love so much. Source. The same jabs whose effectiveness and safety were highly exaggerated, which are potentially negatively effective, and which have been linked in the scientific literature to excess deaths.

Okay then.