I mentioned a couple weeks ago that USA Today fact-checked one of my Dianny ‘Shop images and determined it was “altered.” As if it wasn’t blazingly obvious. But it turns out, if anybody knows about altering things, it’s USA Today.
At the end of March, USA Today invited Sore Loser Rerun Abrams to write a screed against Georgia’s new election law.
In the op-ed, Abrams refused to rule out the use of politically-motivated boycotts saying “Until we hear clear, unequivocal statements that show Georgia-based companies get what’s at stake, I can’t argue with an individual’s choice to opt for their competition.”
In other words, Abrams wasn’t exactly opposing the use of boycotts as a means of political extortion.
Then the MLB yanked the All Star Game from Georgia, and the news broke that black-owned businesses would be hardest hit.
And without anybody knowing, Rerun’s USA Today op-ed was quietly “altered.” Several paragraphs were completely rewritten to give the impression that Abrams was always opposed to economic boycotts — including this stealth edit:
Instead of a boycott, I strongly urge other events and productions to do business in Georgia and speak out against our law and similar proposals in other states.
USA Today didn’t even include an editor’s note pointing out that Abrams had altered her op-ed. Instead, they just let it run with the alterations as if nothing had changed.
So the same publication that worked itself into a lather over my “altered” Jill Biden dressed like Madonna image let Abrams quietly alter her op-ed so she could cover her own ample ass, then didn’t say Word One about the fact that the op-ed was altered.
What’s the old saying? “People in altered glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
Last week, Twitter (which is not a publisher) left a publisher’s note among the “trending” items claiming that a “fact-check” proved that Stacey Abrams didn’t encourage boycotts over the Georgia Law – and what proof did this “fact-check” use? Why Stacey’s quietly altered op-ed.
It wasn’t until after people began pointing out that Rerun rewrote her editorial to absolve herself of any involvement in the economic damage that USA Today publisher Gannett admitted the editorial was rewritten and finally added an “editor’s note.”
Gannett’s excuse for allowing Rerun to rewrite history is laughable.
“We regret the oversight in updating the Stacey Abrams column. As soon as we recognized there was no editor’s note, we added it to the page to reflect her changes. We have reviewed our procedures to ensure this does not occur again.”
Well, I suppose writing “We got caught” would’ve been too on-the-nose.
“To reflect her changes?” Are you kidding me?
Rerun made these “changes” because people were pointing out that this woman caused real economic damage to black-owned businesses in a state she allegedly cares so much about. So Rerun, being a self-involved narcissist had to cover her tracks.
And USA Today let her.
Why would a reputable newspaper permit someone to quietly revise an op-ed in order to shield herself from criticism? Clearly USA Today is more interested in providing cover for a reckless, stupid political hack than it is in honestly reporting the news.
And yet somehow my “altered” image of Jill Biden was too big a story for USA Today to pass up.
We truly are living in a clown world.
Hat tip Fox News.