I am starting to see articles pointing out that if media outlets just quote Trump, they are not showing that he is not telling the truth. This applies to headlines and tweets.
Once again, a news feed injects an unadulterated lie into the political bloodstream, actively choosing to reward the liar for the original lie over informing its readers and viewers. https://t.co/ah1iS11Jog
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) February 11, 2019
The President has made 6000+ false claims and journalists are still writing “Trump said X” headlines? Really? https://t.co/A8buvcGOwc
— Brendan Nyhan (@BrendanNyhan) December 9, 2018
Keep in mind that this sort of headline divides the journalism world. The people engaged in this practice think it's fine. What the president says is news, we reported the news. But increasingly their professional peers who are on social media object, and wish they would stop. https://t.co/EgzeeSLeYi
— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) December 9, 2018
“I don’t know why journalists are still doing that! Why are we still publishing headlines that just quote a liar?” @brianstelter on simply citing Trump’s statements as news, on @ReliableSources this morning.
— Carlos Lozada (@CarlosLozadaWP) December 9, 2018
update 12/9/18
Stop doing this garbage. Add context to your tweets and headlines. This isn’t that hard. https://t.co/lC14g1Fw6n
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) December 8, 2018
Why is Trump writing your headline?
— Victoria Brownworth (@VABVOX) December 9, 2018
The headline is "Prosecutors name Trump as felon in Russia case." https://t.co/a8xODcxMPU
This happens *constantly* https://t.co/yN5UTYHptm
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) December 8, 2018
This headline, which borders on criminal negligence, is why Trump continues to tweet egregious lies. Fire the person who did this.
— Greg Olear (@gregolear) December 8, 2018
Go ahead news wires. Write headlines saying, “Trump says French are chanting ‘We want Trump!’” https://t.co/EEUwYKZBP0
— Borzou Daragahi 🖊🗒 (@borzou) December 9, 2018
STOP THIS, headline writers.
— Samantha Power (@SamanthaJPower) December 9, 2018
If you want to quote this president in a headline – in an age when many people read only headlines – you must write, “Trump (a proven, serial liar) says…”
But best not to quote him in a headline. https://t.co/spzVwONHCT
update 12/10
Great stuff from @ThePlumLineGS on an ongoing media failure. This strikes me as a problem that is very easy to solve — don't tweet Trump statements that are false without indicating as such — and yet they keep screwing this up. https://t.co/NPRrA8BZBk
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) December 10, 2018
Plenty of people have dumped on this & similar examples, but a point worth stressing is that the frequency with which these statements are issued is almost certainly a function of press willingness to parrot them in headlines like this. https://t.co/zUaVjQcOIN
— Julian Sanchez (@normative) December 10, 2018