Politico, Axios, NBC News, and MSNBC slander Justice Clarence Thomas


Last Thursday, the Supreme Court announced that it would not be hearing a case challenging New York's vaccine mandate. The petition was filed by health care workers in 2021. 

Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito released a dissenting opinion.

Thomas wrote the following:

"Petitioners are 16 healthcare workers who served New York communities throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. They object on religious grounds to all available COVID–19 vaccines because they were developed using cell lines derived from aborted children."

It is obvious that Thomas was referring to the perspective of healthcare workers and not his own.

Thomas could have been more explicit about referring to the beliefs of the healthcare workers and could have worded his statement as follows:

“They object on religious grounds to all available COVID–19 vaccines because of their belief that they were developed using cell lines derived from aborted children."

News outlets such as Axios, NBC News, MSNBC, and Politico deceptively attributed the beliefs to Thomas instead of the healthcare workers.

https://twitter.com/axios/status/1542618970573922304

Axios provocatively headlined their piece “Clarence Thomas suggests COVID vaccines are made with 'aborted children.” The headline was amended to "Clarence Thomas suggests COVID vaccines are created with cells from ‘aborted children.”

The Axios piece added an editor's note that “The headline and lead of this story have been updated to note Thomas was referencing cells of ‘aborted children’ in his dissent."

The article began with a lie “Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote Thursday in a dissenting opinion that coronavirus vaccines were developed using cells from "aborted children."

The article proceeds to provide the details about the petition however there was no unambiguous mention that the religious beliefs were that of the healthcare workers and not Justice Thomas.

https://twitter.com/KnightLAT/status/1542679800535363589

The next was NBC News.

NBC's headline was “Justice Thomas cites debunked claim that Covid vaccines are made with cells from 'aborted children” The word "debunked" was eventually removed from the headline with no editor's proving their reasoning.

https://twitter.com/abedelman/status/1542553641734881280

Their article began with the claim that Thomas supported a misleading claim that all COVID-19 vaccines were made with cells from “aborted children.”

The third paragraph clarified that “Thomas, citing the plaintiffs, wrote that the health care workers “object” to the state’s vaccine mandate “on religious grounds to all available COVID–19 vaccines because they were developed using cell lines derived from aborted children.”

Some reactions on social media were caustic.

https://twitter.com/MichaelJStern1/status/1542634862351470593

https://twitter.com/gntlmnking/status/1543674065323532293

The next was MSNBC.

MSNBC’s Steve Benen based his column on the NBC report, the was headlined “Clarence Thomas cites misleading claim about Covid vaccines”

The piece stated the following:

“The Supreme Court’s standing as a credible and respected institution has already suffered greatly. The more justices cite misleading claims, the more it further tarnishes the court’s reputation.”

"Pfizer and Moderna used fetal cell lines early in their Covid vaccine development to test the efficacy of their formulas, as other vaccines have in the past. The fetal tissue used in these processes came from elective abortions that happened decades ago. But the cells have since replicated many times, so none of the original tissue is involved in the making of modern vaccines,"

The MSNBC piece issued an update that “This post has been edited for clarity and accuracy.”

Finally, there was Politico.

Politico’s article was headlined "Clarence Thomas suggests Covid vaccines are developed using cells of ‘aborted children.’ The headline was amended to "Clarence Thomas cites a claim that Covid vaccines are ‘developed using cell lines derived from aborted children.'"

Politico was the only among the outlets to issue an explicit correction that reads as follows:

"An earlier version of this report misattributed the claim that Covid-19 vaccines were 'developed using cell lines derived from aborted children' to Thomas. The headline and article have been updated to directly state that Thomas was referencing petitioners’ claims."

https://twitter.com/politico/status/1542962580326649857

So did these edits and corrects help?

The amendments to the headlines and the texts of the articles were meaningless because the articles were rooted in falsehoods. The only apt remedial action was for the headline and body to be replaced by a plainly worded correction reflecting the facts.

But that didn’t happen. The amended article still leads readers to believe a total untruth. Also, social media posts continue to reflect the earlier incorrect version of the articles.

The lie traveled around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots. Perhaps that was the goal, to begin with.

Since the overturning of Roe Vs Wade, the conservative Supreme Court justices have become a target of the left.

The ‘protestor’ wing has been deployed to ‘demonstrate’ and shout threatening obscenities before the homes of the conservative justices. The media assassins have been tasked with smearing conservative justices and undermining the credibility of the Supreme Court.

The question remains, could the publication of obvious lies have been prevented?

Yes, it could have if the newsroom has practiced diversity.

The HR divisions of the news outlets in question will base their diversity on attributes such as race, gender, nationality, LGBT, and religion. However, the diversity of opinions, perspectives, ideologies, and political affiliations is forbidden.

This 'diverse' group, is liberal Democrats who subscribe to groupthink on all issues. The only diversity that exists is probably left, far left, and socialist.

They not only disapprove of but scoff at conservatives and consider them to be the equivalent of Nazis, hence their opinions are deemed to be inferior, vile, and unworthy.

A conservative team member of the editorial team who respects Justice Thomas would have fact-checked the article and stopped its publication. But there are no conservatives in these newsrooms.

When they read a report such as Justice Thomas’s statement, they are so overcome by the desire for it to be true that they abandon all due diligence and skepticism. This applies to authors, fact-checkers, and the editorials team who approves publication.

Social media firms are also part of this Democrat echo chamber. Hence the tweets related to the articles were not labeled for promoting false information and the users who spread the lies weren’t suspended.

The same social media firms and the news media worked with the Democrats to kill the Hunter Biden story until the 2020 Presidential elections.

These are unrepentant propagandists who think they are at war with conservatives. Since it is a war, they have convinced themselves that fairness is not needed. In their minds, their job is not to inform about facts but to influence and brainwash with propaganda. They have developed a loyal consumer base who tune in every day only to have their biases confirmed. Inconvenient facts have no place in this echo chamber.

This is why there is little hope of course correction in the near future.

Viewers and readers have no choice but to assume that the news they consume is false until proven factual.

Also appears on American Thinker


 

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