Today Donald Trump claimed the the media is dishonest and "undercovers" terrorism stories. In other words, Trump claims the media doesn't cover news stories about terror attacks.
Since Trump's claim was a lie, Press Secretary Sean Spicer gave it a spin by saying that it wasn't that the media wasn't covering the terrorism stories, but that they weren't covering them enough. A few hours later, the White House released a list of terrorism news stories supposedly not being covered by the media. The list was so sloppy it even misspelled "San Bernardino" and "attack".
But then The Washington Post took a look at the so-called "undercovered" list and it found three things about it:
1. The list is bullshit. ALL of the stories were reported by the media. Specially the most violent ones, such as the Pulse nightclub shooting, the Paris attacks etc.
2. Some of the stories are weak at best. For example, the three stories of "terrorism" taking place in the United States had a grand total of ZERO victims and could hardly at all be considered stories worth more than an article because they simply had NO REAL IMPACT (we'll get to those later on).
3. Trump is releasing this list of terror stories not because they were truly under reported, but because he wants the media to keep repeating the list in order to justify his Muslim ban.
Well, it didn't work. The Washington Post only published links showing news coverage for the first 25 stories in the list was done. Then they stopped because they refused to take Trump's bait. I quote from the Washington Post:
This is a somewhat arbitrary point at which to stop, but there’s a reason for it.
There’s a concept in interactions with the press called “working the refs.” The idea is that it’s worth paying attention to trying to shape the coverage you receive before you receive it by offering criticisms that hopefully push the media where you want. Trump’s point about the media not reporting on terror attacks wasn’t necessarily that he thought the media was burying stories — though it very well may have been. Spicer, at least, was smart enough to understand that this was an opportunity to get the media to run with a lengthy list of terror attacks that, he hoped, would reinforce Trump’s broader message that terror attacks were a constant threat that demanded a strong response. Spicer, in other words, hoped to work the refs.
In short, the list's intent was "to turn Trump’s baffling remarks into an opportunity to make a broader point in service to Trump’s policies."
Or to put it another way, Trump wanted the media to start screaming Trump's bullshit.
It didn't work. And The Washington Post made it very clear they were not falling for that. In other words, The Washington Post basically called bullshit on Trump's list.
Oh, and before I forget: Trump's list only includes attacks supposedly perpetrated by Muslims. Not a single case of Christians attacking Muslims or other Christians, such as the recent Quebec Mosque shooting by a Trump supporter, are included in the list.
Now, let's take a look a the so-called "terrorism" stories Trump claims took place in the United States but got undercovered by the media:
New York, Oct. 2014. Deaths: 0
Some guy attacked some rookie cops in New York with an ax. There were no deaths. Well, there was one: The guy with the ax. The police shot him dead. No police officers died. But the part that makes this story a bullshit story is this: The guy with the ax was booted from the Navy in 2003 for drugs. In other words, he was a US citizen --not an immigrant-- who supposedly became a Muslim and wrote on Facebook he supported ISIS. So what we have here is an AMERICAN who attacked 4 rookie cops and then got shot dead for doing that. If anything, the story shows how American law enforcement does its job and keeps lunatics from attacking people without any Muslim bans.
Garland, May. 2015. Deaths: 0
Two US citizens tried to open fire with assault rifles at an art exhibit with cartoons of Muhammad in Garland, Texas. They were both killed by a single police officer with a gun. The irony here is the fact that one of the perpetrators was able to get his hands on assault rifles even though he was suspected of wanting to go to Africa to join Islamist militants. But since anyone can buy assault rifles without background checks, and Republicans refuse to approve guun control, that's the result.
Boston, Jun. 2015. Deaths: 0
This one wasn't even a terror attack. Federal authorities already had surveillance on a 26 year old man who was suspected of being radicalized by Islamic terror groups. One day a Boston police officer and an FBI agent tried to question the man while they spotted him on the street. He walked to them with a kife in his hands and, when he refused to drop the knife, the officers shot him dead. So here what we have is, once again, federal and local authorities doing their job and keeping potential threats from doing harms without having to use a Muslim ban.
If this is Trump's best shot at justifying his illegal Muslim ban, he has nothing. And the media is not falling for it.
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