I might be jinxing myself by writing this piece on December 27, 2017, because with the increasing frequency of the liberal MSM to manufacture outrage, publish completely fake news and create mortifying moments, there is a good chance that with four days left in 2017, the media may force me to update this if they manage to top their previous antics.
With that said, while we will not even attempt to rate what was bad versus what was worse, we are going to try to highlight some of the most astounding and humiliating moments for the mainstream media, in their Media Rage of 2017.
'OUR JOB' TO CONTROL WHAT THE PEOPLE THINK
Topping this list is Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski, who in February 2017, said that she was worried that Trump could undermine the media's message and "control exactly what people think" before looking down at her notes and stating "that is the... that is 'our job'."
I started with that one because in my opinion, that is the basis for every humiliating moment that we have witnessed from the mainstream media since the 2016 election, where Hillary Clinton, the candidate that CNN's Chris Cuomo so idiotically admitted recieved a "free ride," saying "We’re the biggest ones promoting her campaign," lost the election, and with that loss, MSM personalities, television talking heads and newspaper writers, collectively seemed to have lost their minds.
FAKE NEWS DOMINATED THE HEADLINES
From Washington Post's viral article about Russia hacking the U.S. power grid, then two days later publishing a story that did not go viral asserting Russia did not hack the power grid, to the New York Times being called out in front of Congress by former FBI director James Comey, on a Russia related story being "not true," with a further assertion by Comey saying that almost all Russia related stories using anonymous sources were "dead wrong," there is no shortage of misleading, and outright fake news coming directly from the mainstream media in 2017.
This is not just the opinion of an Independent Media writer, but the majority of Americans, including 80 percent of Republicans, 60 percent of independents and 53 percent of Democrats "say the mainstream press is full of fake news," as reported by The Hill in May 2017.
Russian collusion has to take the award for the most hyperbolic headlines, where for the first six months of Trump's presidency, the MSM across the board blared headlines about Trump/Russia collusion in regards to the 2016 presidential election, yet on hidden camera, a CNN producer and another commentator admitted the entire Russia business was a "nothing-burger" and complete "bullsh*t" for ratings. (Note - Wapo reporter also admits there is no evidence of any actual collusion.)
One of the most extreme cases was ABC News when Brian Ross reported that Michael Flynn was going to testify that as a "candidate" Donald Trump ordered him to make contact with Russia. The real news was that Flynn was charged with connecting to Russia after the election, when Trump was the president-elect, which made such contacts a normal part of the transistion process. That report tanked the stock market, which saw an immediate 350 point drop, and resulted not only in ABC News issuing "clarification," then corrections, but also suspending Brian Ross for a month without pay. When Ross returns he is also no longer allowed to report on stories about President Trump.
Exactly one week later CNN ran with a story claiming "multiple" sources confirmed that Donald Trump Jr. had received an unsolicited email which included an encryption key to a Wikileaks data dump on September 4, 2017. Other networks including CBS News and MSNBC, also claimed they independently verified that date of September 4, 2017. The problem for all of them is their "sources" either collectively had bad eyesight, or they directly lied to those networks to get them to report "fake news," because the actual date on the email in question was September 14, 2017, which was a day after Wikileaks publicly released the data in question, making CNN's entire "exclusive" a giant and colossal screw-up.
CNN gets a category all of its own because perhaps nothing was more predictive of the what would happen in 2017, as when Donald Trump as president-elect, refused to answer a question by CNN's resident attention whore, Jim Acosta, finally telling him that he wouldn't take his question because "You are fake news." It appears that CNN has worked hard to make that completely true ever since.
In June 2017, CNN offered another exclusive report stating that former FBI director James Comey would "refute" President Trump's assertion that Comey had told him on three separate occasions that he was not under personally under investigation. The report was headlined "Comey expected to refute Trump," and cited unnamed sources. The CNN journalists on the byline were Gloria Borger, Eric Lichtblau, Jake Tapper and Brian Rokus.
Borger went on television and reiterated that claim, stating "Comey is going to dispute the president on this point if he’s asked about it by senators, and we have to assume that he will be. He will say he never assured Donald Trump that he was not under investigation, that that would have been improper for him to do so."
Then Comey's prepared statement was released and in it, he acknowledged that he had informed President Trump on three separate occasions that he was not under investigation.
CNN then rushed to change their headline to "Comey unlikely to judge on obstruction," and offered a note which stated ""CORRECTION AND UPDATE: This article was published before Comey released his prepared opening statement," it reads above the original Tuesday story. "The article and headline have been corrected to reflect that Comey does not directly dispute that Trump was told multiple times he was not under investigation in his prepared testimony released after this story was published."
Another fake news story CNN perpetuated and is still pushing the false narrative to this day, is about the unverified Kremlin sourced Trump dossier. The dossier was funded by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, created by Fusion GPS. Fusion GPS was first hired by a Republican donor for normal opposition research totally unrelated to the dossier, which ended when Donald Trump secured the nomination, which was when Clinton and the DNC (and maybe the FBI) started funding them, then they hired a former British spy that compiled the salacious dossier.
Perhaps the most mortifying moment for CNN wasn't in their never-ending examples of "fake news," but rather their own actions after President Trump tweeted out a comical meme, created by a random internet user, of a WrestleMania clip where Vince McMahon's face had been replaced with the CNN logo with Donald Trump beating up on him.
Let the manufactured outrage begin!
CNN was so upset by that meme, claiming it would incite violence against the media, that they used their massive resources to hunt down the random internet user, writing an article titled "How CNN found the Reddit user behind the Trump wrestling GIF," and proceeded to threaten to reveal his name should he once again engage in "ugly behavior."
Another day, another controversy for CNN as it continues arguably its toughest public relations stretch in its 37-year history.
Today’s Exhibit A is an implied threat by the network to reveal the identity of a guy who created a comical video showing the president “wrestling” a CNN logo using old footage of Trump making a cameo at a WWE event in 2007.
“He [the video creator] is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again,” the story, titled “How CNN found the Reddit user behind the Trump wrestling GIF,” reads. “CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change,” it adds.
The last line that basically says, “If you cross us again we’ll tell the world who you are,” and it led to #CNNblackmail being a top trending topic on Twitter on Wednesday. This appears to not be criticism breaking down by party lines, either.
Then it got worse for CNN as 4chan and reddit users declared war on the network, which became known soon after as the "great meme war of 2017," where hundreds of memes were created mocking CNN, many far worse than the original they took such offense to. A few days later CNN employees started running scared and locking down their social media accounts when internet users decided sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander and started hunting #CNNDirt.
The latest manufactured outrage is once again over something the President retweeted from a fan thanking him. The image the Twitter user, oregon4Trump used was of the president sitting in a car, on the phone and on the bottom of his shoe was a squashed bug, clearly shown with two eyes, and the CNN logo in the middle.
The media outrage machine went nuts. Then again, some might say that is the purpose of many of the president's tweets, to literally drive the media into meltdown mode. If so, it appears to work every single time. In the meantime, President Trump continues to march forward, implementing his agenda, while the media obsesses over his tweets.
BOTTOM LINE
Mika Brzezinski's comments about how it is the media's "job" to "control exactly what people think," explains clearly why the mainstream media has raged throughout 2017. During the 2016 election cycle the MSM lost control of the narrative, they saw their influence in telling the public who they should vote for and what to think, completely wiped out.
A look at the reactions on the part of the media on election night 2016 after Donald Trump won the election, while entertaining for some as a flashback, should also have been a good predictive indicator of just how unhinged they would continue to be during his first year as President, with no regard for the truth, just attacks and manufactured outrage over every word president Trump says or tweets and every action he takes.
