After an inquiry revealed one of its reporters had made up sources, USA Today, which social media platforms utilize as a “fact checker,” was compelled to remove 23 items from its website.
This is awkward, I guess.
Facebook uses the news organization to “fact check” stories published by other sites and devalues them in algorithms as a kind of soft censorship. The news organization has a whole part of its website devoted to “fact checking.”
But it seems like USA Today should have spent more money on fact-checking its own staff before publishing their pieces.
“USA Today acknowledged on Thursday that breaking news reporter Gabriela Miranda had made up sources and misappropriated statements for stories. After receiving a “external correction request” for one of its published items, the publication undertook an internal audit, according to Breitbart.
Stories on the Texas abortion restriction, anti-vaxxer content, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were among the 23 articles that were removed because they did not adhere to the newspaper’s “editorial standards.”
According to the New York Times, Miranda, who has since quit her job, “took steps to deceive investigators by fabricating phony evidence of her news gathering, including recordings of interviews.”
“USA TODAY reviewed Gabriela Miranda’s reporting after receiving a request for an external correction. The audit showed that some of the people cited were not connected to the organizations indicated and seemed to be made up. It was impossible to independently confirm the existence of the other people mentioned. Additionally, some tales contained quotes that needed to be attributed to others.
As we previously mentioned, after the newspaper claimed that pedophilia was “decided in the womb” using “science,” it was compelled to quickly delete a series of tweets that critics claimed amounted to normalizing the practice.
The publication came under fire from detractors for ‘fact-checking’ as “true” the notion that a Trump 2020 official t-shirt has a “Nazi insignia.”
The news organization released an opinion piece in February of last year criticizing Tom Brady for being “white” and for refusing to renounce his prior support for Donald Trump.
Hemal Jhaveri, the newspaper’s “race and inclusion” editor, was also let off when she incorrectly claimed that white people were responsible for the shooting at the Boulder Safeway.
In conclusion, USA Today has a serious bias issue and shouldn’t be relied upon as a neutral “fact checker.”
Originally Authored by Paul Joseph Watson of Summit News