How much does the media feel they have to carry Joe Biden’s water for him? A new Reuters fact-check shows just how deep they are digging.
Multiple people made joke videos about Joe Biden being attracted away from a speech that Jill Biden was given by the sound of an ice cream truck. They are pretty funny.
When you hear that oh so familiar sound 🎵🎶 pic.twitter.com/8TQkDG912m
— @stevenvoiceover (@stevenvoiceover) September 10, 2021
When your MKUltra trigger is ice cream truck 🎶 pic.twitter.com/5To9ZhRS1e
— . (@grumpfuk) July 28, 2022
Anyone with even one brain cell would know that the videos were a meme. Not even a particularly vicious one, just a take-off on his well-known love of ice cream. Media has gone ga-ga over his ice cream choices in the past.
But Reuters still found it necessary to “fact-check” these videos and declare them fake. If you notice, two of them now have “manipulated media” tags under them by Twitter that then link to the Reuters story. Imagine taking the time to fact-check obvious memes. They note in their story that when they checked the C-SPAN tape that there was no ice cream truck or music.
The original video was posted on C-SPAN (here) on Sept. 10, 2021 with the caption: “President Biden and first lady Jill Biden spoke at Washington, D.C.’s Brookland Middle School about the coronavirus pandemic and keeping children safe. The president urged parents to get their children vaccinated if they were eligible.”
At around the 01:35 mark, Biden can be seen walking out of the frame and returning a few seconds later, but no ice cream truck can be seen in the video nor can any music be heard.
What a shocker! They claim that they check based on if the issue can cause “real-world harm.”
"Our choice of material to fact check is broad, and is based on the following criteria:
Could the material potentially cause real-world harm, if it is inaccurate?"
😬https://t.co/3fp6LwjDWs https://t.co/V9qbSpNI8E pic.twitter.com/hARpaJTvDG
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) August 1, 2022
Just exactly what real-world harm could these memes cause, apart from mocking Joe Biden? That’s what this is about — to them, mocking Joe Biden is “harm.” If that’s the case, they’re going to be very busy fact-checking all the memes that are dragging Biden. Plus, that’s some timely journalism. The joke video is from September 2021.
Why are they checking it now? Think of all the “harm” it’s caused without the tag in the meantime!
Meanwhile, how many of Joe Biden’s lies have they not fact-checked? Leaving aside the question of the ice cream truck music (which is hilarious), why is Biden just wandering off in the middle of this speech? Maybe if they were truly fact-checking they might answer that question, as that’s a bit odd.
Maybe that’s why they’re fact-checking it. It’s completely believable that Biden might just wander off in the middle of a speech.
If you want to know why supposedly reputable media organizations are fact checking internet memes, it’s because even they find the fact that Joe Biden would wander off like this plausible.
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) August 1, 2022
That’s the real problem here — everyone knows Joe has issues and they don’t want anything that even jokingly raises that possibility.
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