USA Today: Keeping America safe from “altered” images
Yesterday evening PatriotRetort.com got slammed with a tsunami of hits – all of which were heading toward three separate posts I’d done about Jill Biden. The influx was so intense, I almost changed the name of the site to SouthernBorderRetort.com. And what was the source of this unfettered flow of readers? USA Today.
Yup, USA Today, the newspaper made famous for doubling as a welcome mat outside hotel rooms.
You can imagine my surprise that a national paper like USA Today would have any interest in little old me. I’m as harmless as a kitten. But I was curious.
So I did a Duck-Duck-Go search on “PatriotRetort.com”+”Jill Biden” and limited the search to just Monday.
And there it was:
Yeah. Now I know how the Babylon Bee feels.
The “controversy” erupted because someone posted this “altered” image on Facebook where it then got “over 400 shares.”
Oh, the HUMANITY!!!
Here’s the “altered” image:
In case you missed it, this image was made for my post “Dear First Lady: The 80s called; it wants its fashion back.”
What was their first clue that the image was “altered?” Could it have been the PatriotRetort.com watermark?
The hardnosed USA Today reporter then broke the frightening news that “other altered photos of Biden have previously been shared on the site.”
Could you imagine racking up $100K in student loan debt to go to J-School all in hopes of becoming the modern-day Edward R. Morrow, and this is the job you land — fact-checking an agitprop image by Dianny?
What a come-down.
Instead of covering “news,” you get stuck writing an article at USA Today “proving” that the offending image was “altered” by “an opinion blog with a right-wing bias and is rated mixed for factual reporting because of a lack of sourcing.”
What part of “opinion” do you not understand, honey? This might come as a galloping shock to USA Today, but opinion writing is, by definition, not factual reporting; it’s opinion for crap’s sake.
In rating the obvious ‘shop image “altered,” this crack reporter from USA Today concludes by writing:
An image claiming to show first lady Jill Biden wearing a 1980s costume is ALTERED, based on our research. The photo originated on a satirical conservative site that mocked Biden for wearing patterned tights. The original image shows a model posing in a Madonna costume.
Not just altered, mind you, but ALTERED.
I got news for USA Today. Images can’t “claim to show” anything. An image just sits there on the screen quiet as a church mouse.
Facebook has even flagged this Dianny Image with a warning:
You’d have to be a slacked-jawed idiot to think this image was an attempt to “mislead” anyone. Honestly, is there nobody on the Left with a sense of humor?
I admit, I’m a little offended. This USA Today reporter had one job, and didn’t even get it right.
According to this fact-check, all I did was add Jill Biden’s head. But that’s not all I did. I also added the chest and arms of an old woman — complete with wrinkles and liver spots. Any dope with a photo editing feature could add her head. I go the extra mile. And, by golly! I deserve credit for that.
Want the kicker? USA Today even “reached out to the Facebook user for comment.” Heaven’s to Betsy, what a clown show.
Odd that nobody from USA Today reached out to me. Though, to be fair, if they had, I probably would have laughed myself silly. As it is, I laughed myself silly.
This much-needed USA Today fact-check was then picked up by msn.com and Yahoo News – which only goes to show the American news media is starved for something to do.
The upshot of this hard-hitting scoop is PatriotRetort.com has gained thousands of new readers who still possess a sense of humor.
Plus, it tickled me to no end.
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