One of the great jokes of our current political moment is that one side of the political aisle continues to insist that legacy media outlets are vital to our republic. With all the self-awareness of a one-day old sloth, the left constantly laud the necessity of outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post, treating them as some kind of sacrosanct, fourth branch of government.

In reality, these rags are worthless. To the extent that they do any real reporting these days, it’s all things that could have been done, or in some cases were already done, by others. Take the Times’ recent reporting on Andrew Cuomo’s nursing home scandal. That was treated as a big piece of “breaking news” last month. In reality, The Daily Caller had reported on the seminal facts of the case nearly a year earlier. Only when it became politically expedient did the Times “break” the story and attempt to take credit for it.

Today, perhaps the worst example yet of media malpractice was revealed (see The Washington Post Quietly Corrects Months-Old Propaganda About Trump’s GA Call), and by the end of it, I can’t help but hold the position that The Washington Post simply doesn’t deserve to exist after this.

Here’s a screenshot of the “correction” made regarding Trump’s phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s chief investigator just prior to the January 5th Senate run-off elections.

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"Trump did not tell the investigator to “find the fraud” or say she would be “a national hero” if she did so."https://t.co/PnQm0aJyOu pic.twitter.com/GEzAJmhWDY

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) March 15, 2021

What’s so egregious about this is just how impactful this lie was. Did The Washington Post make up the quotes? Given they are refusing to out the supposed source that fed them bad information, I can’t help but suspect they did make it up out of whole cloth. Yet, even if they didn’t, it is their responsibility to verify what someone is telling them. Instead, the Post ran to print with a highly damaging story with no care at all for the accuracy of what was being reported. They had a single “anonymous” source and that was enough.

The Post’s claim spread far and wide, helping bolster the case for a second impeachment.

.@cammcwhirter tracked down the actual recording of the call which led to Wapo's correction (but not the other outlets yet). https://t.co/Gx9DbjqVQl

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) March 15, 2021

There are a lot of villains here. Obviously, the Post tops the list. They were either willfully negligent or willfully lied. This phone call and the “bombshell” claim that Trump had pressured investigators to “find fraud” was repeated thousands of times in the span of just a few days.

Of course, there’s also Brad Raffensperger, the Republican Secretary of State in Georgia. He became a Never Trump hero following the November presidential election as he continually dismissed any claims of voter fraud. Raffensperger had to have known what was said on the call as he was almost certainly listening in on the call when it took place. Why did he not speak out to correct the record when the Post made their claim?

Then there are House Democrats, who pushed a second impeachment using the false quote as partial justification. In reality, Trump never threatened anyone, nor did he urge anyone to make up anything. Some may still disagree with his tone in the now infamous January 2nd call, but that’s not grounds for impeachment. The entire system was turned into a joke, and a fake quote from the Post fed into that. It’s disgusting.

This is far from the only example, though.

Hey remember The Atlantic had an entire news cycle based on anonymous sourcing of things Trump supposedly said, then Goldberg said they had more reporting coming out, and none of that reporting ever came out? Weird!

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) March 15, 2021

CNN also repeated the Post’s false reporting, claiming to have independently verified the quotes. We know that was a lie, yet the liberal network only offered a meager “note” to their story on the matter despite it’s entire premise being shown to be a lie. But as Stephen says above, no one will be punished. There will be no firings and no reforms. Everything will continue to operate as it has.

This is our modern media. These outlets are not vital to the country and they deserve no special reverence. They are dumpster fires that make the tabloids look credible. Treat them accordingly.

(Editor’s Note: RedState’s Sarah Lee has the story of where the recording was found, and why that’s such a problem for the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.)