A regular, low-information individual who relies on information being digested for them might look at Fauci, The CDC, The WHO, The Mainstream Media and Big Tech being on the same page, and conclude (or concluded for them) that a legitimate consensus exists and accept it. What they don’t consider is that this was a coordinated, lockstep propaganda arm aimed at protecting China and attacking President Trump.

Many gave credence to the idea that COVID came from a bat at a wet market which didn’t sell bats, let alone the horseshoe bat which COVID originated from that wasn’t native within hundreds of miles of Wuhan in order to make bat soup (a meme). Meanwhile, the Wuhan lab, which studied coronaviruses and gain of function, had documented safety and containment measure violations. Yet, the idea it could have escaped from the lab was deemed a fringe, right-wing conspiracy theory.

We reported when Japan’s Vice Prime Minister Tarō Asō labeled the WHO as the CHO (China Health Organization), when it appeared The WHO’s clear goal was to save face for China rather than investigate the pandemic. The WHO ignored Taiwan who handled the pandemic well from the beginning, in order to not offend China by giving Taiwan legitimacy.

We reported when Facebook’s “fact checkers” were connected to the Wuhan Lab and provided mere anecdotes for the basis of fact checking.

From our piece Facebook Fact Checkers Connected To Wuhan Lab:

“The claim that the Wuhan Lab had no biosecurity failures was written by the Wuhan Lab connected Danielle E. Anderson. In her reviewer response, she states:

‘I have worked in this exact laboratory at various times for the past two years,’ she said. ‘I can personally attest to the strict control and containment measures implemented while working there. The staff at WIV are incredibly competent, hardworking, and are excellent scientists with superb track records.’”

Yet, such an anecdote was in direct contrast with a Washington Post piece from 2018, which published cables detailing poor security and containment protocol, and raised concern for the potential of a new SARS outbreak. 

From the Washington Post article:

“What the U.S. officials learned during their visits concerned them so much that they dispatched two diplomatic cables categorized as Sensitive But Unclassified back to Washington. The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help. The first cable, which I obtained, also warns that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.”

Once this outbreak did occur, the Washington Post abandoned this earlier reporting entirely, to focus on placing blame on the Trump Administration.

Now, the Washington Post is being forced to confront what has always been inescapably true; that a leak from the Wuhan Lab is the most likely source of COVID-19. And yet, their motives in obfuscating that reality all this time remain transparent, front and center, even in their new reporting: They wanted Trump to be wrong.

In the new piece from the Washington Post:

“The laboratory leak theory also deserves more careful scrutiny. This is not to stigmatize Asians or to bash China, nor to embrace the Trump administration’s use of the laboratory leak theory to divert attention from its failures. The reason to investigate is the persistence of unanswered questions about research being carried out at the Wuhan institute under Shi Zhengli to modify viral genomes to give them new properties, such as the ability to infect a new host species or transmit from one host to another more easily.”

The Washington Post now acts as if they’ve always entertained this idea, which has remained in place through a process of elimination. This is the same Washington Post that wrote hit pieces on Senator Tom Cotton for even suggesting it.

The Washington Post last year:

“Now, we don’t have evidence that this disease originated there, but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says,” Cotton said. “And China right now is not giving any evidence on that question at all.”

In response to Cotton’s remarks, as well as in previous interviews with The Washington Post, numerous experts dismissed the possibility the coronavirus may be man-made.”

The Washington Post purposefully conflated the idea of a leak from the Wuhan Lab with the idea of a virus being “man made” in order to dismiss it, when Cotton’s comments implied nothing of the sort.

However, now it is becoming mainstream knowledge that the Wuhan Lab engaged in Gain of Function research, a process of altering viruses to study how they may mutate and spread in the future.

The Libertarian Republic previously reported on Job Listings at the Wuhan Lab specifically for studying Gain of Function, which were posted prior to the outbreak.

Last week, Fauci also changed his tune, stating that he was not convinced that the COVID-19 virus was naturally occurring.

From The New York Post:

‘“No actually. I am not convinced about that. I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened,’ Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, said, according to Fox News.

‘Certainly, the people who investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else, and we need to find that out. So, you know, that’s the reason why I said I’m perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus,’ he added.”

However, this is in direct contrast to comments he made last year regarding the Wuhan Lab Theory when it was raised by President Trump.

From CNN:

“If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species.”

At the time, he sounded rather convinced—enough so that CNN called it a takedown of President Trump.

It’s important to note that there hasn’t been any new evidence or information in the timeline between Fauci’s opposing takes on the Wuhan Lab. The only thing that has changed, is the presidential administration.

All of these forces worked in unison to protect China and attack Trump. It was never about the truth until it finally cost them no political capital to acknowledge it, and there was no more political capital to be made by denying it.

The post Wuhan Lab Theory Gains Traction, Drags MSM Kicking And Screaming appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Andrew Trunsky on April 28, 2021

Hunter Biden will be a guest lecturer at Tulane University for a course titled “Media Polarization and Public Policy Impacts” that focuses, in part, on “fake news.”

The son of President Joe Biden is one of nine guest speakers for the class, which focuses on “the current state of the media landscape in the United States and how media polarization, fake news, and the economics of the new business impact public policymaking in Washington, D.C.,” said Fox News, which first reported the story.

Other guest speakers include Dr. Deborah Birx, Fox News analyst Juan Williams, CBS anchor Margaret Brennan and New York Times columnist Bret Stephens.

In the weeks before the 2020 election, many media outlets labeled a New York Post story detailing how Biden helped arrange a meeting between his father and a Ukrainian energy executive as “fake news,” and social media platforms censored the company over the story’s perceived falsity.

Following the elder Biden’s victory, Hunter Biden acknowledged that he was under federal investigation, and that his laptop at the center of the Post’s story could “certainly” have been his, though he added that it may have been stolen or hacked by Russia to spread misinformation.

The post Hunter Biden To Lecture About ‘Fake News’ At Tulane University appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Shamelessly, wild narratives in Opinion Editorials being peddled as fact or universal truth have long existed. Legendary Progressive Rock Band RUSH learned this the hard way when a journalist attempted to sabotage their rise to fame following the release of their album 2112.

RUSH members included Geddy Lee (Vocals, Bass, Synthesizer), Alex Lifeson (Guitar, Backup Vocals), and Neil Peart (Legendary Drummer).

RUSH was attempting to rebound from their album Caress of Steel—an album that was ahead of its time but was a flop to audiences at the current time. Mercury Records was considering dropping RUSH from their label, but agreed to sign for one more album, given it would be more commercially friendly. 

The members of RUSH were angry and had other plans. And so 2112 was born. A grand experiment in Prog Rock that was a hit, with anger that fans could identify with.

Neil Peart, who was RUSH’s main lyricist, would write the lyrics to 2112. Peart credited the author and Individualist thinker Ayn Rand for the inspiration. That would be a No Fly Zone, where journalism was concerned.

A journalist turned a routine interview into a twisted Op-Ed, and labeled the members of RUSH as Proto Fascists.

The band recounted the incident in the documentary 2112/Moving Pictures

Geddy: Well he [Neil Peart] was a huge fan of Ayn Rand’s writing, and he introduced her writing to us.

Alex: Not exclusively that, he was a very very broad reader.

Neil: I had read certainly a lot of science fiction at that time and Samuel R. Delany was a big influence on me. And there around the same time I found a copy of The Fountainhead. I said, “Oh, all the smart kids at school used to carry that around.”

Geddy: We all liked the book Anthem, which is the thing that kind of inspired 2112.

Associate Professor of Intellectual History John Ridpath: Anthem wasn’t all that Ayn Rand wrote. I’d say 1939 to 1940 when she was in the middle of writing Fountainhead. And so Anthem is basically the story of a society taken over by a priesthood of totalitarian dictators who use mysticism to try and subdue all the people in a society, which is so collectivistic and so totalitarian that the concept “I” has been eliminated from people’s minds. They don’t even have the concept of “I” which means they can’t conceive of themselves as individuals.

Alex: That whole idea of the individual, and sort of Libertarian values played a big role in the way that album shaped up.

Neil: I dreamed up this story of music being invented against a dystopian, totalitarian society. I felt this great sense of injustice that this mass was coming down on us and telling us to compromise. And compromise was the word I couldn’t deal with. I grew up a child of the 60’s and I was a strong individualist and believed in the sanctity of “You should be able to do what you want to do,” you know, without hurting anyone. When I realized that the story was parallel in Anthem, I felt like I had to say something about the association with 2112, so at the bottom of the lyrics I just put ‘with acknowledgement to the genius of Ayn Rand.’ Well how that came back onto us afterwards…

Alex: Yeah we got in trouble with the NME in Britain around that time. We did an interview, and this journalist wrote it up like we were Nazis, ultra right wing maniacs.

[The article in NME (New Musical Express) written by Miles on March 4th, 1978 was republished in The Guardian on May 13th 2015. This republishing by The Guardian was right at the beginning of RUSH’s R40 tour, which would be their final tour. Strange timing. Definitely not on purpose.]

Miles, after guiding the interview from music to politics himself, offers the following narrative in print following their conversation:

“To me this is getting too absurd to answer, because the whole extreme-right position is so illogical and irrational.

The thing is, these guys are advocating this stuff on stage and on record, and no one even questions it. No one is on their case. All the classic hallmarks of the right-wing are there: the pseudo-religious language (compare their lyrics to the Ayn Rand quote at the head of this article), which extends right down to calling the touring crew – road masters instead of road managers. The use of a quasi-mystical symbol – the naked man confronting the red star of socialism (at least I suppose that’s what it’s supposed to be). It’s all there.

They are actually very nice guys. They don’t sit there in jackboots pulling the wings off flies. They are polite, charming even, naïve – roaming the concert circuits preaching what to me seems like proto-fascism like a leper without a bell.”

Geddy: Growing up as a son of Holocaust survivors, I found that… just… you know, so offensive.

Cliff Burnstein with Mercury Records: The connection with Ayn Rand was definitely a media turn off. There was certainly a, kind of an association with the 50’s, conservatism, the McCarthy years… All this stuff probably made the media think “Well, this is just not my kind of band.” 

Geddy: It’s about creative freedom. It’s about believing in yourself.

Neil: I did not think of politics and I did not think of global oppression. I was thinking, these people are messing with me.

Geddy: You can say what you want about Ayn Rand and all the other implications of her work, but her artistic manifesto, for lack of a better term, was the one that struck home with the three of us.

Where RUSH succeeded by refusing to sell themselves out is ultimately where Punk Rock failed after selling themselves out.

Punk Rock began to abandon their message of anarchy during the W Bush Administration. While the movement was correct in their anti-war sentiments, they embraced the Left Wing of the Duopoly. They sold their dreams for small desires and lost the race. No longer did Punk Rock have the unique brand that was pioneered by The Sex Pistols. The genre extinguished its own fire and suffocated itself into obscurity.

Ayn Rand’s literature was certainly one of the catalysts to the western Libertarian movement. However, fast forward to current day Libertarianism, and you’ll much more commonly see names like Hayek, Bastiat, Friedman, Mises and Sowell being discussed. I actually couldn’t tell you the last time Ayn Rand’s name came up in a discussion or was cited for anything.

Say what you will about Rand, like anyone whose work is fallible, but the ideas of individualism are a Far Cry from that of a Fascist totalitarian regime. In fact, the entire concept of 2112 is specifically bucking that concept of totalitarianism.

But no army can stop an idea whose time has come. 2112 was a success, and RUSH earned the right to write their own ticket, free from corporate influence. Their next album, Moving Pictures, would be their best selling album of all time.

Listen to 2112 below:

The post Flashback: Media Tried to #Cancel RUSH When They Were Rising Stars appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

As far back as Ben Shapiro’s famous book Primetime Propaganda, it can be observed that the industry has long been complicit in extensive political favoritism (and ostracism). Although it can be said that the media has had a bias for many decades, without a doubt it’s come to a head in recent years as rampant activity to confirm and conform to these prejudices has become commonplace.

In recent years, there are countless examples of this extending to social media platforms. A digital revolution, comrade! Sarcasm aside, these kinds of biases are near impossible to directly prove, making it extremely viable for personal interests (or even a collective group interests) to change the system for their political benefit. Countless examples exist of partisan deplatforming conservatives , and it can even be extended to blatant favoritism of certain types of content creators simply on policy, such as the two-way street of Twitch’s ban policy of the regular streamer versus that of, say, Alinity.

But it can even go beyond that, to fixing algorithms in favor of certain content, and especially suppressing the more “controversial” media or posts on their platform.

Even as far back as 2017, the phenomenon can be observed, with YouTube creator RazorFist especially bringing it to light (and was further discussed between us in this podcast from The Heartland Institute). It really can be seen that although some content will outperform the media’s status quo, suppression is real in spite of what ought to be a relevance-based search metric.

The trend that he found hasn’t changed. In fact, in a previously written article on Joe Biden’s goofs and gaffes, sourcing became incredibly difficult as clips that normally would be found by simply searching the quote returned nothing of the sort. Chiefly, the “North South Carolina” segment from one of Mr. Biden’s earlier campaign speeches was impossible to find by the aforementioned quote.

The underhandedness of such behavior is nearly impossible to prove sans the intervention of whistleblowers, the rare few taking notes from their predecessors like James Damore or Tim Pool. Media is a broad and nebulous concept, which by nature has a consumer base with likewise broad and nebulous opinions. Not that consumer revolt isn’t without its druthers, but generally it comes down to public notions as to whether or not something is “acceptable” if it meets these conditions, and only if it happens to be publicly revealed beyond any hushing attempts.

These digital media companies will seldom openly admit to these kinds of actions, especially since it often goes against their stated code of conduct or user guidelines. As with any social issue, the solution is a hardy level of due diligence, which is the only real way to enact change. Not only must consumers be vigilant in observing the practices of companies and those few on the inside speak out against deceptive bias, but there must also be some level of accounting for the problem whenever any of us read the news. Doing our best to detect these subtle changes is paramount to keeping our electoral actions safe, and not letting ourselves be duped by the whims of others.

The post Digital Electioneering: Shifty Media Practices During the 2020 Races appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

MAGA Hat Smirker

In January, the media reported that bunch of Covington high school kids surrounded a Native American and mocked him. One of the videos that was going around the internet was a 2-minute clip published by Vice. It didn’t take long for a longer video to surface, showing the full incident in context, including footgage of the Black Israelites insulting the Covington kids with racial slurs. 

Nathan Phillips: The Lies So Far

Jussie Smollett

On the last day of January, it was reported that two white Trump supporters attacked Jussie Smollett in the middle of the night in a polar vortex. It wasn’t until the second half of February that the media acknowledged the truth that the ‘attackers’ were two Nigerians who worked with Jussie Smollett previously and that Smollett paid them.

Police Confirm Suspects Arrested In Jussie Smollett Hate Crime Are Black Men

Russian Collusion

In March,The Mueller Report came out and Mueller’s conclusion was that Trump didn’t collude with Russia which completely contradicted the media’s 2 year hysteria and false allegations. 

‘Corrupt And FAKE’: Trump Blasts Media Over Russian Collusion Conspiracy Theory

Out of Control Amazon Rainforest Fire

In August, there was another huge internet “shitstorm”: The Amazon was on fire and the news wasn’t talking about it. Then the Mainstream news did talk about it showing their support for the Amazonia. However, the news turned sideways when it was discovered that the fires were in already deforested areas that are used in agriculture. And that Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s policy didn’t have much effect on deforestation because it’s been decreasing significantly. 

12 Year Old’s Dreadlocks Cut Off By Classmates

In late September, it was reported that a 6th grade student was pinned down and got her dreadlocks cut off and was called ugly. In a matter of days she confessed to tell the truth that it was fake.

Dire Threat of Mass Shootings at The Joker Movie

Also, in late September and early October, there were warnings about the Joker movie inspiring white supremacy and incels. There were also warnings that there would be mass shootings because of the film, like the one in Aurora, Colorado. Anyone who saw the Joker knows that he is not an incel, nor a white supremacist. No mass shooting happened and the previous mass shooting wasn’t inspired by the Joker. This was a debunked claim that had made a resurgence. In addition, there was a picture circulating of a sign in a theater, stating that individuals would not be allowed to attend the movie alone. And even I fell for it. I thought a theater actually banned single males from watching the Joker. It turned out to be a prank. I guess I learned my lesson that day. 

The Joker Isn’t an Incel Nor a White Supremacist

Video of Turkish Forces Slaughtering the Kurds

In October, ABC news published a video of the Turkish forces slaughtering the Kurds after Trump’s move to bring back the troops from Syria. Except for the fact that the video was of a Kentucky gun range show and that the video was edited so the lower part of the shot wouldn’t be seen. Whether they knew or not that the video was edited or whether they had edited it is unknown.

Collusion Round Two

Remember the Trump Russia collusion? It’s back. Now false allegations have come up that Trump is colluding with Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. And Hillary accused of Tulsi Gabbard of being groomed by the Russians. The media is throwing out the same debunked allegations of Trump working with Putin. The Quid Pro Quo stuff hasn’t been debunked but the allegations have been made with no proof. So it’s basically like debunking the Flying Spaghetti Monster. 

Trump’s Role in Home Alone 2 Was Cut for Political Reasons

In December, a story about Trump being edited out of Home Alone 2 was even shared by Donald Trump Jr to say that the libs  are so triggered they can’t even look at Trump without going on a rampage. Except that this was done even before Donald Trump was running for office. So Trump Derangement Syndrome isn’t at play here. On the contrary, it’s pro-Trump fanaticism that spread this fake news.

How Do We Stop Fake News?

Fake news can’t be simplified into just Trump Derangement Syndrome because it happens with both liberals and conservatives. In any case, the pattern is a photo or video without context, or purposely edited to change the context. Then everybody is talking about (and sometimes they talk about the fact that no one is talking about it even though they are). Then a ‘new’ piece of information comes out and the fake news dies down. The media makes a small time apology compared to the amount of time they spent spreading that fake news. Fewer people see that apology and keep thinking that the original news was true. 

We can all fight fake news. The solution to fighting fake news is to sit on the story. Wait before giving an opinion or rant. Look for the original video or the original context of the photo and spread it once you find it. For example, spreading the 1 hour video clip of the Covington kids. Many liberals I know personally (friends, family members, teachers) changed their mind after seeing the video before the mainstream news even made their apology. The way to stop the spread of fake news is not just by saying 

 It’s by spreading real news.

The post 2019: Fake News Year In Review appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Peter Hasson 

Vox founder and editor-at-large Ezra Klein capped off his year by spreading misleading information in a viral tweet Tuesday.

Klein tweeted out a nine-month-old Washington Post article stating counties that hosted Trump rallies saw massive spikes in hate crimes compared to counties that didn’t host Trump rallies. Klein’s tweet garnered more than 7,000 retweets and more than 14,000 likes by Wednesday afternoon.

But what Klein didn’t tell his 2.5 million followers was that the article was based on a study that was thoroughly debunked months prior by researchers at Harvard University.

When Lilley and Wheaton tried to replicate the original study, they found that “adding a simple statistical control for county population to the original analysis causes the estimated effect of Trump rallies on reported hate incidents to become statistically indistinguishable from zero.”

The criteria relied upon for the first study actually demonstrated that rallies for former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton “contribute to an even greater increase in hate incidents than Trump rallies,” they noted.

“Given how little scrutiny was required to reveal the flaws in the thesis that Trump rallies cause hate incidents, one cannot help but wonder whether its viral status was aided by journalists predisposed to believe its message,” the Harvard researchers added.

Klein has yet to delete his viral-but-misleading tweet, even after others pointed out that he was promoting a debunked study.

This article is republished with permission from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The post Vox Editor Rings In New Year By Spreading Fake News In Viral Tweet appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Audrey Conklin 

Facebook announced Monday an effort to “protect the 2020 U.S. elections” by clearly marking fake news posts, offering protections to politicians’ accounts and offering more transparency.

The effort comes after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg defended the social media site’s new advertisement policies, which will effectively allow political campaigns to release misinformation to voters, in an Oct. 17 interview with The Washington Post because he doesn’t think “tech companies” should decide what is “100% true.”

“Elections have changed significantly since 2016, but Facebook has changed too,” Zuckerberg said in a Monday conference call, according to The New York Times. “We face increasingly sophisticated attacks from nation-states like Russia, Iran and China, but I’m confident we’re more prepared.”

Facebook’s plan will include an increased effort to identify and combat “inauthentic behavior,” increase transparency and reduce misinformation, according to a Monday news release from the company.

The social media giant removed four state-backed networks Monday — three of which originated in Iran and one of which originated in Russia — that were engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” according to another Monday release.

The tech company will start labeling state-run media outlets and introduced a “U.S. presidential candidate spend tracker,” so people can see how much money specific candidates are spending on ads, the release reads.

It is also introduced a program Monday called “Facebook Protect” that candidates, elected officials, staff of elected officials and others “who may be particularly vulnerable to targeting by hackers and foreign adversaries” can enroll in to further secure their accounts.

The social site will make pages more transparent by “showing people the Page’s primary country location and whether the Page has merged with other Pages.” Some pages Russian operatives ran before and after the 2016 election that touted U.S. election material, for example, appeared to be independently operated even though they originated in foreign countries.

Additionally, the company will label information posted on Facebook that fact checkers determine false as such.

Some pundits and commentators argue that voters elected President Donald Trump in 2016 largely because Russian operatives had attempted to infiltrate various social platforms and spread disinformation or propaganda through tech giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google.

Representatives for Google, Facebook and Twitter attended three public congressional hearings on Oct. 31, 2017; Sept. 5, 2018 and Dec. 11, 2018 to discuss Russian election interference.

The House Intelligence Committee noted in 2018 that more than 126 million Facebook users could have been exposed to “organic content” between 2015 and 2017 published by pages owned by the Internet Research Agency (IRA) — a Russian “troll farm,” or a state-sponsored, anonymous online-news brigade.

Ads expressed support for and opposition to 2016 candidates including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, The NYT reported.

They also covered a variety of issues from immigration to LGBTQ rights to strengthening black communities, many of which appeared to mimic images and memes seen on other popular U.S. social media accounts.

This article is republished with permission from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The post Facebook Announces New Effort To Clearly Mark Fake News Ahead Of 2020 appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Chuck Ross

The co-authors of a new book about Brett Kavanaugh blamed New York Times editors on Monday for removing a key passage from an essay they published over the weekend that laid out a new, but uncorroborated, sexual misconduct allegation against the Supreme Court justice.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, Times reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly addressed the controversy over a New York Times Review essay they published on Saturday that previewed their book, “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation.”

The essay focused on uncorroborated allegations that Deborah Ramirez made against Kavanaugh in 1983, when they were both students at Yale. It also revealed that a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer named Max Stier told the Senate last year about another incident he claims involved Kavanaugh and another woman. Stier reportedly said that Kavanaugh had his penis out at a party at Yale, and that a friend grabbed it and thrust it in a female student’s hand.

WATCH:

But as Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway (who has written a Kavanaugh book of her own) noted, Pogrebin and Kelly’s book had additional information about the most recent allegation that was exculpatory for Kavanaugh. Buried at the back of the book was the revelation that the woman in question refused to be interviewed and that her friends said she did not recall the incident.

After backlash across the political spectrum, The Times eventually added a correction to the story on Sunday that included the full passage from the book.

Pogrebin, Kelly and the Times all came under heavy scrutiny over the omission. Jim Dao, the Times editor who handled the article, conducted a Q&A session with readers concerned over how the story was handled. But Dao did not address how the key passage from the book was left on the cutting room floor, or whether editors indeed decided to remove it.

“In your draft of the article, did it include those words that have since been added to the article?” O’Donnell asked the reporters.

“It did,” they both replied.

“So somewhere in the editing process those words were trimmed?” the MSNBC host asked.

Pogrebin theorized that the passage was cut because it also identified the woman who they alleged had the encounter with Kavanaugh. The reporter said that editors likely cut the full passage as they cut the name of the alleged victim.

“I think it was sort of an editing, done in the haste, in the editing process, as you know, a closing section,” she said.

Both reporters denied that they intended to mislead readers in the essay.

“There was zero intent to mislead anybody about the details of the incident,” Kelly said.

“We certainly never intended to mislead in any way. We wanted to give as full a story as possible,” added Pogrebin.

They also acknowledged that they took part in the discussions to add the correction to the Times story.

“I think we felt like there’s so much heat, everyone has been kind of seizing on various aspects of this that we certainly didn’t want this to be an issue anymore,” Pogrebin said.

This article is republished with permission from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The post NYT Reporters Say Editors Removed Exculpatory Information About Kavanaugh appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.