I just wrote to NPR over their coverage of Trump's NRA speech:
I was listening to the news podcast around noon EDT today (May 5th), and there was coverage of Donald Trump's speech at the NRA convention.
They played tape of his remark how he read about a London hospital with blood all over the floors from stab wounds. That presumably is an assertion that can be checked. Are there any reports of that, and if so, where are those reports? Are they credible?
Trump has a long history of claiming he saw things for which there's absolutely no evidence, such as his line about the Muslims in New Jersey dancing for joy on 9/11.
When someone has a history like that, you need to check whether his statements are grounded in fact. He long ago forfeited any benefit of the doubt.
If you don't have the time or resources to fact-check these statements of his, just don't play them.
"But the president said it - it's news."
No.
If the president is saying things that are not grounded in reality, and you repeat them without the fact-checking, that's not news, that's propaganda.
Be better.
It really was breathtaking, hearing them present his remarks without any seeming concern for whether they were true.
What is their job again?
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