USA Today goes to embarrassing lengths to cover for Biden’s mental malfunctions
Jack Elbaum
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President Joe Biden made yet another embarrassing gaffe on Wednesday while answering a question regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine. He said Putin “is clearly losing the war in Iraq. He’s losing the war at home, and he has become a bit of a pariah around the world.”
But, surprisingly, the most ridiculous part of this story is not what Biden actually said. Rather, it is the Orwellian way in which one of the most-read publications in the country covered it.
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In a tweet, USA Today only quoted part of the statement. The caption for the article read, “‘He’s losing the war at home. And he has become a bit of a pariah around the world,’ Biden said of Putin.”
This elision in the caption may be justifiable if the immediately preceding sentence was at least included in the article itself. But, alas, it was also omitted there. In other words, a major publication intentionally did not include a bizarre statement from the president of the United States in an article specifically about an answer he gave that included that very statement.
If an average person saw the article and tweet, he would have no idea that President Joe Biden had thought, even if just momentarily, that he was talking about the Iraq War. That seems like the kind of thing the public should at least be aware of. After all, more than two-thirds of voters already believe he is too old to serve.
This is open dishonesty by USA Today, a breach of journalistic ethics, and it came from the White House correspondent at a well-regarded paper.
The job of journalists is to give readers a clear window into the world around them. When doing one’s job properly, the reader will trust the writer to do just that. However, when journalists begin to lie, mislead, or distort, reader trust will dwindle quickly. This is exactly what we have seen happen over the past decade or so as trust in the media has plummeted.
But the results of dishonesty go beyond trust. It also means readers will not be able to see the world as it is. This has terrible consequences when considering politics. It means that those in power get a free pass. And even though the Washington Post is often chided for its self-congratulatory and pretentious slogan “Democracy Dies In Darkness,” it does not change the fact that the statement itself is true.
I admit that this example is small in comparison to legitimate corruption (which too much of the media also covers up), but it is worthy of note due to the principle at stake here.
The media should probably focus on regaining the trust of the public through honest reporting rather than playing propagandist for the exact people it must hold to account.
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Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.