The Washington Post just ran a story saying that Cumulus Media, the company behind hundreds of talk radio stations across the country, has ordered its on-air personalities to stop suggesting there was anything fraudulent about the 2020 election or they could be terminated.

According to the WaPo, an internal memo went out to people like Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino from Cumulus.

Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino’s employer, Cumulus Media, has told its on-air personalities to stop suggesting that the election was stolen from President Trump — or face termination “immediately”https://t.co/aMzP3nO7PV

— Emma Kinery (@EmmaKinery) January 11, 2021

Supposedly it said that “we need to help induce national calm NOW” and that Cumulus and its program syndication arm, Westwood One, “will not tolerate any suggestion that the election has not ended. The election has been resolved, and there are no alternate acceptable ‘paths.” And that if anyone went against that, that person would be terminated.

First, if in fact they did this, they would be done, because none of their viewers would tolerate these hosts being muzzled in this way.

Second, it’s not even clear that this story is true, which of course, would be typical WaPo.

According to Mark Levin, he never got any such memo. Moreover, he says, the WaPo never even called him to ask if he did or what his reaction was.

Levin told NewsBusters “I never received that memo, and my crew never received that memo. This story is done by a reporter who has never spoken to me – ever.” He said if he received that memo, “I would make sure the entire nation would hear about it.” He added “I would like a correction and an apology from the Post, but I won’t hold my breath.”

Is there anyone who doubts we would have been hearing Levin from now until next Christmas if they had in fact said that to him?

There’s another small problem with this. They’re not employees of Cumulus , as Jeremy Boering observed and Ben Shapiro retweeted. Ben Shapiro also never got such a memo. He also never said the election was “stolen.”

Cumulus is not Ben's employer and hasn't told Ben jack shit about what he can or cannot say on air.

Also, Ben never said the election was stolen.

That's at least three falsehoods in 280 characters or less, but pretty good journalisming otherwise. https://t.co/5h0VASqfHZ

— Jeremy Boreing (@JeremyDBoreing) January 11, 2021

While they contacted Cumulus, Cumulus hadn’t responded by the time they ran with their story.

So it looks like this story is completely bogus. So yeah, other than being completely wrong, great story you got there, WaPo!

WaPo is already backtracking with some corrections.

Adding this — the Washington Post issued a correction on its story to clarify that Ben Shapiro has not claimed the election was rigged pic.twitter.com/8TsPJvZ1gd

— Emma Kinery (@EmmaKinery) January 11, 2021

Whoops. Noting that your original tweet has some 29K RTs and is inaccurate, but is still up. Solid journalisming there. https://t.co/3mdJIUCjjq

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) January 11, 2021

Supremely ironic that they try to attack these conservative hosts for allegedly fake news while their own story is the actual fake news.