Cathar1950 wrote:
We shouldn't be surprised.
Accuracy in news is no more reliable the what we find in ancient writings.
You bring up a good point. We all know of the crazy stuff in the news that turns out to be "pants on fire" fabrications, and yet millions of people believe it. For example:
Statements we say are Pants on Fire!
Chain e-mail
E-mail is based on six fabricated quotes
Accuses President Barack Obama of making contradictory claims about efforts to kill Osama bin Laden in 2008 and 2011.
Mitt Romney
Wrong before, and even more wrong now
"A few months into office, (President Barack Obama) traveled around the globe to apologize for America."
Sarah Palin
Math doesn't add up
"We're going to be looking at $8 billion a day that we're going to be pouring into foreign countries in order to import that make-up fuel that we're going to need to take the place of what we could have gotten out of the gulf."
Mitt Romney
Marx wouldn't be happy with the U.S., circa 2011
"We are only inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy."
Crossroads GPS
Long explanation for a whole lot of nothing
"Unions don’t have to comply with Obamacare."
Chain e-mail
No light bulb police
Next year, "you will be mandated by federal law to get rid of your existing light bulbs."
AmeriPAC
Belied by light bulbs now on Home Depot shelves
"The Democrats have already voted to ban our conventional light bulbs ... in favor of dangerous fluorescent light bulbs."
Nancy Pelosi
Calculations shift responsibility for one debt-heavy year from Obama to Bush
Promotes a chart saying that Barack Obama has "increased the debt" by 16 percent, compared to George W. Bush, who increased it by 115 percent.
Mitt Romney
The claim lives on
President Obama’s health care law "represents a government takeover of health care."
Donald Trump
Kuwait paid $16 billion in war costs, U.S. paid $7 billion
After the U.S.-led military alliance ejected Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait in 1991, the Kuwaitis "never paid us."
Donald Trump
One poll (misidentified) conducted before he delved into birth certificate issue
"CNN did a poll recently where Obama and I are statistically tied."
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
Don't break open the piggy bank!
"Seniors will have to find $12,500 for health care because Republicans voted to end Medicare."
Reince Priebus
Off by a factor of 10
"We’ve lost 26 million jobs … since (Obama’s) been president."
Michele Bachmann
One wrong statement
"One. That's the number of new drilling permits under the Obama administration since they came into office."
WorldNetDaily
GAO found nothing of the sort
"A U.S. Government Accountability Office report says Planned Parenthood Federation of America cannot find some $1.3 billion given to it by the federal government from 2002 through 2008."
Rick Santorum
Disagreement on abortion taken to an extreme
"Any child born prematurely, according to the president, in his own words, can be killed."
Glenn Beck
Misinformed outrage
Says Michelle Obama has 43 people on her staff; Nancy Reagan had just 3.
Chain e-mail
Claim stems from satire, not fact
Says that in a hearing, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords suggested to Gen. David Petraeus that the Army "put more emphasis on less environmentally damaging methods, like stabbing or clubbing enemy forces in order to minimize the carbon output."
Donald Trump
Plenty of classmates remember Obama
"The people that went to school with (Barack Obama), they never saw him, they don't know who he is."
Chain e-mail
No, the communists won't be living in foreign trade zones
Foreign Trade Zones allow U.S. "land to be inhabited by Chinese communists -- communists straight from China! They are to set up little towns and live here."