Did you miss The Great Pie Controversy? Then sit down, children, and hear the tale…
It all began when White House spokesperson Sarah Hucklebee Sanders posted a photo on Thanksgiving showing a pecan pie she baked for Thanksgiving. Above is the 2:40 p.m. tweet. The next day, American Urban Radio Networks Washington bureau chief April Ryan tweeted her doubts that the pie was real, implying that Sanders was a liar. She needed to “show it to us on a table,” Ryan demanded, and had to see “folks eating it and a pic of you cooking it.”
Now, let us pause and ponder what would make someone react like that to a simple declaration that someone had baked a pie for Thanksgiving. Why would anyone set out to embarrass and impugn an individual’s honesty over something so innocuous, based on no evidence or good reason at all? This isn’t journalism. It ‘s just meanness, motivated by sheer bias and hate. Conduct like that is so contrary to the Golden Rule that it constitutes tarnish.
And, of course, Ryan’s demands were also stupid and unreasonable. How would Sanders, where she so inclined, produce photos of guests eating a pie after it had been eaten?
Never mind. This example of disgusting and gratuitous reporter enmity was quickly picked up by the anti-Trump journalism establishment as an actual news story.
The New York Daily News posted a fake news headline claiming that “No one believes that Sarah Huckabee Sanders baked this pie.” The Daily News claimed that Sanders had posted a pie image which was “stolen from PBS.” This is also idiotic. If I used an existing web photo of the same kind of pie I had just cooked to tell my followers and friends that I had cooked the pie, that wouldn’t be evidence that I hadn’t cooked a pie.
However, the image was not in PBS’s archive.
A Daily Caller reporter tweeted that “A reverse image search did not find any other pictures of the pecan pie that Sanders posted.” One reporter had the decency to apologize to Sanders for piling on.
Yet the abuse continued. An L.A. Times reporter tweeted, “#piegate is the latest example of the Trump administration’s credibility being called into question,” wrote that “only White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders can answer” whether she baked the pie or not. She answered that question when she said she baked the damn pie. Since there was absolutely no reason to doubt her other than that dictated by ant-Trump bias by partisan, unprofessional hacks like April Ryan, she was obligated to answer to nobody.
She had told Fox News’s Todd Starnes, “Of course I made the pie. I make it for every holiday family gathering and have for years.” Later she tweeted, “Don’t worry @AprilDRyan because I’m nice I’ll bake one for you next week.” She is nice. Ryan deserved no better than “Up yours, April Ryan. How about if I bake a crap pie and stick it down your pie hole?”
But that would have been uncivil and unprofessional. Like April Ryan.
Ryan then responded exactly as a hate-mongering, biased, partisan hack would be expected to. Did she apologize? No. Did she acknowledge that she had treated Sanders miserably? No. She tweeted this:
Gee, I wonder why.
Today the news came that Ryan has not been invited to the White House Christmas party. I think that’s petty, but isn’t unjust. The White House wouldn’t be obligated to invite a hostile journalist who pushed a pie in Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ face, nor a journalist who spread slanderous rumors about White House employees. The White House shouldn’t have to include Ryan in press briefings either. her conduct was unprofessional, hateful, unfair and biased, and the White House has no obligation to cooperate with unprofessional, hateful, unfair and biased partisan masquerading as reporters. An ethical news organization would apologize to Sanders and discipline Ryan. American Urban Radio Networks is apparently not an ethical new organization.
You can guess the next part, can’t you? Oh, come on: I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count. Now some are reporting that Ryan is being snubbed because she is black. Of course.
April Ryan is being left out of the party because she was absurdly disrespectful, unfair and insulting without cause to a White House employee, and has neither acknowledged her wrongdoing nor apologized for it. Her behavior, and the Great Pie Controversy, epitomizes the unconscionable hate and bias routinely polluting new media coverage of this President and his administration.
ADDENDUM: Here’s a headline from progressive website Wonkettte: “Go Fuck Yourself, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, You Debased Redneck Motherfucker.”
_______________________
Pointer and Facts: Newbusters
Ethics Alarms 
By any means necessary. Throw big punches AND rely on death by a thousand cuts.
That
is
all
that
matters.
>The White House wouldn’t be obligated to invite a hostile journalist who pushed a pie in Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ face
I don’t know why, but this whole delicious story makes me want to share a video of Jeremy Clarkson from the BBC getting a pie to the face.
Have a tasty banana cream or chocolate pecan filled day everyone.
Just think, by claiming to bake a pie for her family, she’s teaching young girls they may have to give up their bodies to men to get a job in the future.
#nobaking
Am I right that this story flew under the radar, or had you seen it?
Never saw it.
Then I’m sorry I inflicted it on you.
April Ryan really is a blight on the scene. i was going to let it go until I saw the bit about her being dinged from the Christmas Party, and Newsweek implied racism.
No infliction. It’s always good to call out petty attacks. It’s ok to ignore them if they don’t get off the ground. But since enough other media outlets latched on to the attack, it can only be good to add it to the litany of actions deriving from Trump derangement.
I saw it but I thought it was just too dumb to think about. Tucker Carlson talked about it.
jvb
Unaccustomed as I am to tooting my own horn…
https://ethicsalarms.com/2017/11/26/ethics-quote-of-the-month-politicos-matt-latimer/#comments
November 27, 2017 at 9:54 am
”The traditional, mainstream media are toast”
Oh Ye of little faith! There unfolds an earnest attempt to restore confidence in a 4th Estate that sorely needed something…anything…to steady the Media Freighter that had been listing dangerously, and to no one’s surprise, aport.
Salvation has emerged in the form of an issue of monumental impact, #piegate #fakepie, the contrivance of Mensan Brain Trustee April Ryan, et al, whose staggering imbecility continues apace.
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tom-blumer/2017/11/26/april-ryan-leftists-beclown-themselves-over-sarah-sanders
Yet again, Lefties (most, not all) effortlessly clear the lowest possible bar.
“Beclowning” is my new favorite verb. It’s just perfect for what seems to be happening daily or hourly.
It’s too mild for the likes of April Ryan.
But it’s so festive and silly. Where these dopes are heading. Toward irrelevance.
Talk about pie-in-the-sky kerfuffles!
CNN said it wasn’t going to send anyone to the White House party, anyway, so why are they surprised? If I openly declare before your invitations go out that I am not going to your party because I have been very critical of you, why should you upset when I don’t send you an invitation? Sounds petty and unprofessional to me, but that is where the media are (is?) these days.
jvb
April Ryan is a political hack trying to fabricate stories out of thin air, kick her out of the White House permanently.
Personally I think the White House should close the press briefing room, get the press out of the White House, and televise the daily briefings, take no questions. Schedule a one hour off-site question and answer sessions once a week.
I told my husband the same thing. If there are questions to be asked let them be asked by reporters remotely as was done for a while at the beginning of this administration. The reporters who are attending these press briefings are just mean and hateful who cannot stand Sarah because she will not back down from them. She has more patience than I because I would have ready told them all where they could put their stupid questions.
Yeah, I saw this. Some internet commenters have decided to go with the progressive obsession of treating everything a conservative says literally by accusing Sanders of claiming the picture of the pie she tweeted is the actual pie she baked and not a representation of the pie.
You mean this post was not satire?
Oh, my God.
So this is what passes for news, journalism, and scandals these days? Picking a random statement a public figure makes on social media about their personal life, and belligerently declaring, “pics or it didn’t happen”? #sad #seekhelp
This is why I don’t use Twitter. There’s not enough space to say anything meaningful, and that gets people in the habit of thinking tiny thoughts (thoughtbites, if you will).
I cannot disagree with this post in the slightest.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a lying hack, but take one look at her and you can tell this lady knows how to bake a fucking pie. I wouldn’t spit on her if she was on fire, but I would eat the shit out of any baked good she made for me. I would then ask for the recipe, and once she gave it to me, I would then ask for the pee tape.
In all seriousness, this makes my side look incredibly petty, and was ridiculously unprofessional of this reporter. For the first time I agree with you on the idea of a reporter being denied access to the White House; Ryan clearly isn’t fit for the job.
You passed the non-partisan rationality test!
I just don’t even understand how any liberal thinks this is a convincing argument. She’s a stereotype of a caricature of a parody of a Southern woman! Of course girl knows how to bake a fucking pie! This is brain-poison!
Jack grades with a generous curve, but I for one am glad we’ve found a line so far bonkers that even you won’t cross.
There are many lines I won’t cross, and many times I have agreed with Jack that reporters have been unfair to the Trump administration.
“but take one look at her and you can tell this lady knows how to bake a fucking pie.”
You should be ashamed of yourself. What’s wrong with you?
“I wouldn’t spit on her if she was on fire,”
Unjustifiably malevolent.
I agree. The whole post seemed like satire, considering he ended the rant with “In all seriousness, this makes my side look incredibly petty…” but such is the state of the left in the Trump administration.
I’m sorry you hate comedy, Tex.
Oh, I love comedy.
You should learn how to write it.
Last time you said a joke of mine wasn’t funny, tons of other commenters chimed in to say it was. I never thanked you for the indirect ego boost.
I’m curious what will happen this time.
Chris wrote, “Last time you said a joke of mine wasn’t funny, tons of other commenters chimed in to say it was.”
Comedy is in the eyes and ears of the beholder NOT the deliverer. If a person says that they don’t find something funny, accept it and move on regardless of whether others say that they do find it funny.
Chris wrote, “I never thanked you for the indirect ego boost.”
Now you’re just being an asshole.
Chris wrote, “I’m curious what will happen this time.”
Well here’s what has already happened; someone disagreed with your “humor” and you immediately discounted their opinion, then you intentionally project that your an asshole, then you imply that just because others might find this delivery to be humorous then the person that thought before and thinks this time that your “humor” is not humorous is somehow wrong.
Guess what Chris; you are the one that’s wrong and you just showed a lack of character by writing your December 1, 2017 at 10:13 am reply. Grow up Chris.
“tons of other commenters” (bolds mine)
That’s S_I_Z_I_S_T!!!
I’d tell you I’ve lost weight, but you’d say ”look…um…behind you, you’ll find it…”
Now that you mention it, Paul, I realize tex’s outrage at my comment may have been because he mistakenly thought I was making a fat joke.
I wasn’t. My joke was about Sanders being a stereotypical Southern woman. I should have probably said “Listen to her talk once and you can tell she knows how to bake a fucking pie” instead of “take one look at her,” which had implications I did not intend.
Tex, I am sorry for being unclear. I should have written that joke better. Did you read it as a fat joke? If so, I’m rather embarrassed.
”he mistakenly thought I was making a fat joke.”
How…um…big of you to concede that.
“Sanders being a stereotypical Southern woman.”
Do tell!
“Listen to her talk once”
“Talkism?” The Next Big Thing?
My best X-Chromosomal pal makes a damn fine Sweet Potato Pie a coupla times a year for my nonagenarian parents.
Were anyone, and I mean ANYONE, to ever question her ability to crank out a delicacy that positively defies description?
I’d not let that go unchallenged.
I can see how the all-white background and top-down angle makes it look like a stock photo. People don’t normally take pictures of food like that.
Still a ridiculous thing to get upset over.
It’s an awfully professional photo, but she has access to people who could take such a photo. If the issue was the really trivial one of whether that was a photo of the actual pie rather than a photo of the same kind of pie, the question could have been (foolishly asked) “Is that really THE pie, and who took the photo”? But Ryan questioned whether a pie was baked at ALL, which is a pure, hateful insult.
If it was a stock photo, we would know by now. That on-line reverse image checker is great.
Jack your next smartphone will likely do a picture like that nearly automatically. Just saw it done during thanksgiving, you can do several different backgrounds with the new portrait features.