This fake story made me feel sympathy for Donald Trump

Guest Post by Will Heaven

There was a great commotion in central London last night. A police helicopter hovered over The Spectator‘s office making a din, police sirens sounded and thudding music rattled the windows. I found out why when I left the office and walked via Parliament Square to Whitehall.

There was an anti-Trump protest outside Parliament – #stoptrump was the theme – coinciding with the (non-binding and pointless) debate inside Westminster Hall, about President Trump’s state visit to the UK later this year. The protest was a very slick affair. There was a massive TV screen broadcasting anti-Trump videos, and speeches blared out over a speaker system. But there was just one thing missing: a crowd to match the scale of the event.

In the square itself, there were hundreds of people – maybe a couple of thousand tops, I thought. (By the way, the Metropolitan Police, who I rang to check, say they don’t give out estimates of crowd sizes, and instead rely on the organisers to give them a number.) But there were very few people on Whitehall. By the entrance to Downing Street, I saw just two people lamely holding placards, outnumbered by bored-looking police by about 10 to one. The police helicopter circling overhead, as I tweeted at the time, seemed completely over the top for such a small protest (costing the taxpayer about £850 an hour). It wasn’t like I was pushing through crowds: I was walking along quite empty pavements.

Imagine my shock, then, when I got home and saw a report from The Hill going viral on Twitter. It began: ‘Hundreds of thousands of protesters rallied outside the British Parliament, as the governing body debated whether it would invite President Trump for an official state visit.’ It went on: ‘About 300,000 protesters had gathered at Parliament Square on Monday…’

300,000?! There was no way around it: this was fake news breaking in front of my eyes. What irony that it was about an anti-Trump crowd size. But this was not a marginal error. The report was wrong by a factor of about 100. (The Hill’s report cited CNN, though it’s not clear if that was another error from The Hill – or if CNN got the number wrong first.)

Suddenly, and to my surprise, I felt a surge of sympathy for Donald Trump. Is this what he’s talking about? Journalists who are so eager to overstate the opposition to him that they are either willing to make stuff up, or sloppily overlook such an obvious error. Just to be clear, this was not a detail buried low down in the story. It was the intro (the lede, as American journalists call it) – the whole point of publishing the thing.

As well as getting the crowd size wrong by, oh, about 298,000, it’s also utter nonsense to say Parliament’s ‘governing body’ was deciding whether President Trump should have a state visit later this year to the UK. Yes, the debate involved members of parliament and was the result of two petitions – one against the state visit, which received 1.85 million signatures, and one in favour of it, which received 311,000.

But it was in Westminster Hall, not the chamber of the House of Commons. It was an opportunity for MPs to vent and grandstand, not vote. The Prime Minister’s invitation to Donald Trump for a state visit is not going to be rescinded in a million years. The Queen will host the President of the United States in 2017.

Later, even when The Hill’s story had been corrected to say ‘about 7,000 protesters’ had been in Parliament Square – still an exaggeration in my opinion – there was no apology, or explanation of the massive error in reporting. Just a sterile little note: ‘Updated 5:50pm’. The Hill’s tweet, referring to hundreds of thousands of protesters, is still live today as I write this. The article still refers wrongly to the ‘governing body’ debating ‘whether it would invite President Trump for an official state visit’.

No wonder Donald Trump is making fake news a key theme of his early presidency. When he says he is unfairly treated by the US media, he has a point. If he doesn’t have a point, how do you explain The Hill’s story?

 

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monger
monger

even local news is like that, case in point, lady was nabbed by ice for deportation, and a small protest occurred, cops outnumbering protestors, like 100,200 people between the protestors, law dogs and media, it was a “huge” protest according to the shills…

hardscrabble farmer

It was a misprint. Originally it read “Hundreds OR thousands…”

kokoda the deplorable
kokoda the deplorable

Great catch, but IMO it was purposeful.

The main key to influence the people is to get out the Lie quickly and not care about the real news. Retractions, when they occur, are usually buried within the publication but the Lie is front page.

Linda Ballard
Linda Ballard

ha ha that is what they always say 🙁

Anonymous
Anonymous

The more the leftist controlled world hates Trump, the more I like him.

Southern Sage
Southern Sage

I was in London last week. Every cabbie I spoke to – every one – was a Trump supporter. They despise their so-called “elites” as much as we do and for the exact same reasons.

overthecliff
overthecliff

Sage, interesting.

Westcoaster
Westcoaster

I’m seeing the fake-ness swing both ways. For example, last night it was reported on KTLA CH5 the killer of the Whittier cop and prior to that murdered his Cousin and stole his car, was NOT part of the early release program, he had served his time for the crime and was released. This morning Breitbart news had it the other way with the entire story revolving around how “early release” was blowing up in Moonbeam’s face. BTW CH5 interviewed the killer’s Aunt who said he “should never be released from prison”.
Fake news is getting to point where you must double-check the facts on everything, regardless of the source.

Anonymous
Anonymous
Flashman

A hundred wealthy elite globalists.
A thousand hard core marxists.
A million dupes.

Never forget the Athenian saying:

The strong do as they will.

The weak suffer what they must.

I do not debate the left. No individual can be reasoned out of a position they were never reasoned into. Instead, I choose to harden my heart and gain strength. Time is short

Chuck
Chuck

Funnily enough, not an Athenian saying. Was used to describe the situation when the Athenians invaded the island of Melos.

Flashman

I stand corrected. TY I fear age continues to creep………….

Hollow man
Hollow man

You cannot trust the news at all. They are bought and paid for just like the politicians. It seems to me the commies have the most money. Seems strange as they are opposed the the capitalism that made them so very rich so they could purchase the power they have. If they don’t get what they want the next move will be to collapse the USA financial wise. The world divesting from the dollar makes that reality become closer everyday

PatrioTEA
PatrioTEA

Why is that toxic garbage allowed to be alive??? Oh yea, it’s Moonbeam La La Land. Get that state our of our Union.

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