You all know the good old saying: “There is no blind man worse than the one who does not want to see”. Impossible to reason with the one who insists on not wanting to know.
Even this year, despite providing the facts, linking and contextualizing, some continue to show stubborn resistance to making unsubstantiated claims.
NPR, the American public radio, had made “misinformation” the word of the year for 2019. Three years later the same observation could be made: the more things change in this respect, the more they are the same.
“LYING…”
The annual accounts always seem to me to vacillate between what is necessary and what is superfluous. Necessary to refresh our memory and allow us, in good faith, to learn from the good and not so good movements of the news.
Superfluous and repetitive because you rarely learn anything new. From time to time, however, reminders are worthwhile. The Washington Post has been offering its list of the year’s “biggest lies” for fifteen years, as Glenn Kessler, the fact checker for the largest daily newspaper in the American capital, found week after week.
Kessler uses a system of one to four “Pinocchios”, only one of whom has played around with the truth; four “Pinocchios”, which means to have plainly and simply lied. Once again this year we find embarrassing beads, even infamous ones, especially among public figures who millions of Americans follow with awe.
FOUR “PINOCCHIOS”!
Absolute record, Donald Trump occupies a place in this unworthy list for the eighth year in a row. No wonder, given that the Post’s fact checker counted 30,573 false or misleading allegations during his four years as president, an average of 21 a day!
In fact, the presidency appears to be encouraging counterfeiting and ultimately deceiving citizens. So Joe Biden does not give up his place with two spectacular entries in the list of the “Four Pinocchios”, including a 160-fold unrealistic exaggeration.
On the right, conspiracy theories continue to wreak havoc, with conservative politicians and commentators resorting to gossip to construct divergent alternate realities.
A naivety – or bad faith – that Russian propaganda was very good at using.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson has fallen into this trap more than once. For example, in March, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Carlson unashamedly passed on a wave of Russian indoctrination that Hunter Biden, the president’s son, had funded a bioweapons program in Ukraine.
Absolutely wrong! That Carlson corrected in the end? No way. Moreover, according to the Washington Post, what unites these big liars is this: Right and left, from one White House to the other, we let the lie run wild. All badly placed to give lessons!
The Big Liars of 2022 or The Washington Post’s “Four Pinocchios”.
Donald Trump (a record for the eighth time in a row!)
An endless stream of misleading allegations of alleged 2020 presidential election fraud and conspiracy theories regarding his supporters who attacked the Capitol in January 2021.
Joe Biden
Atlanta, January 11, 2022
The President likes to claim that he was arrested at different times in his life trying to defend civil rights: as a teenager standing next to a black couple, or in South Africa’s Soweto after trying to meet Nelson Mandela Prison. Unfounded allegations according to the Washington Post Fact Checker.
Wash., Aug. 10, 2022
The Chips and Science Act frees up $53 billion for research, development and manufacturing of semiconductors in the United States.
Joe Biden reiterates that this will create a million jobs. In fact, according to an industry report, the law will only create 6,200 jobs. The White House has never corrected the President’s statements.
JD Vance – April 29, 2022
The Ohio Republican senator-elect claimed that Biden intentionally authorized the distribution of drugs like fentanyl “for the purpose of killing Trump supporters” in the heartland of the United States.
A claim that is not supported by any facts or precise data. As the Washington Post notes, “Fentanyl seizures have increased, not decreased, under Biden; Overdose deaths have risen sharply under Trump; African Americans and Latinos lost their lives to opioids more often than whites.”
Vladimir Putin – Moscow, February 21, 2022
To justify the Russian invasion, the Kremlin chief began with a long and cunning description of Ukraine as a recent creation, born of a conflict between Lenin and Stalin.
In fact, the Ukrainian language and culture have existed for centuries, and as early as the mid-19th century a Ukrainian nationalist movement opposed Russian hegemony.
