While I was on vacation, The Atlantic ran an article full of confirmation bias, myths, and general falsehoods. Mostly about Elkhart, IN and the US economy in general. However, my name came up in the article. I wrote a response here debunking a lot of the nonsense in The Atlantic.
What was blatantly transparent was that The Atlantic’s Alana Semuels was misrepresenting what one of my listeners said about President Obama. Here’s the pertinent paragraph:
I’ve been in media long enough to know when someone is lying by omission to present people they disagree with as utterly feeble-minded. There’s no way a listener of my show, who is asked why they don’t like Obama, says his Army/Navy game attendance record first. Nor do they linger on the lapel pin. Both are extremely minor issues that aren’t in the forefront of the minds of Obama critics.
When I returned from vacation I brought this article up, and that I had suspicions The Atlantic cherry picked quotes from my listener. Eventually Andi Ermis (spelled correctly) reached out, and I interviewed her this week. As it turns out, Andi not only gave other answers as to why she wasn’t an Obama fan (Obamacare was the first thing she said), but the quotes about the football game and lapel pin weren’t even her quotes. They were quotes from another person being interviewed at the same time. She was quoted accurately about the Carrier deal.
This blatant dishonesty by The Atlantic’s Alana Semuels is the reason most Americans don’t trust the media. They manufacture false narratives to demonize those they disagree with instead of simply reporting the truth.
If the media is ever to regain its credibility, and live up to the foundational principles of journalism, people like Alana Semuels need to be swept aside, and run out of the industry altogether.
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