Sure.
The broadcast of ABC’s “Good Morning America” chose to blur out the portion of Donald Trump’s podium that showed a number for supporters to contact and donate to the former president’s 2024 campaign as he was condemning his indictment by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg.
The number on the podium was also blurred out in a video of the segment on the show’s Twitter account and in a video on the network’s YouTube account.
Nice. But it’s all right, because ABC sources explained to the partisan “Daily Beast” that the blurred podium was attributable to a “misunderstanding.” As in “our Democrat and Trump-Deranged employees didn’t understand that they aren’t supposed to openly sabotage politicians they don’t support so obviously”? That must be it.
Then the Beast—boy, it has descended into complete leftist propaganda now—quickly pivoted to “Republicans pounce!” mode:
Nevertheless, many conservatives saw the incident as an example of media bias against the twice-impeached and now indicted former president. Right-wing media personalities latched onto the footage Wednesday evening, writing online that the alteration amounted to “election interference,” among other things—and pointing to past instances where the network hadn’t blurred out similar messages from Joe Biden’s campaign podiums.
I see. So only Republicans and conservatives interpret obvious interference with Republican candidates and messages by the news media as bias. What’s wrong with them? The good people—you know, progressives, Democrats,Marxists, the people who want to get Trump in jail one way or the other, ABC News—all understand that sabotaging Trump and that fascist Republican Party is completely justified and what any responsible news organization should do.
From this point on, any commenter here who writes that “mainstream media bias” is a “right wing conspiracy theory” will be summarily banned for life.
ABC’s claim of innocence is nicely debunked by the speech delivered byTom Wilkerson (as British barrister Richard Rampton) in “Denial,” the film about Holocaust denier and fake historian Richard Irving’s defamation lawsuit against American historian Deborah Lipstadt. (I have quoted it before, and will again, in this context.) in the process of excoriating Irving to the court where the case is being tried, says in a memorable speech,
My lord, during this trial, we have heard from Professor Evans and others of at least 25 major falsifications of history. Well, says Mr. Irving, “all historians make mistakes.” But there is a difference between negligence, which is random in its effect, and a deliberateness, which is far more one-sided. All Mr. Irving’s little fictions, all his tweaks of the evidence all tend in the same direction: the exculpation of Adolf Hitler. He is, to use an analogy, like the waiter who always gives the wrong change. If he is honest, we may expect sometimes his mistakes to favor the customers, sometimes himself. But Mr. Irving is the dishonest waiter. All his mistakes work in his favor.
“His” in this case, is Joe Biden’s, the Democrats, and the corrupt mainstream news media that is rotting our democracy.
Oh, we understand.
Ethics Alarms 
Note the wording in the URL for an NPR piece on Trump “Russian Collusion”:
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/24/706385781/mueller-report-finds-evidence-of-russian-collusion
Now note the title of the actual article on the website:
Mueller Report Finds No Evidence Of Russian Collusion
See any word missing from the URL? Just another coincidence, surely.
OMG! Someone corrected a typo in the original title! Send in the Marines!
How would you know that’s the way it occurred? In any case, they’ve had four years to correct the UR (it’s a 2019 piece), which is what people see when the link is copied and pasted, as usually happens unless someone goes through the HTML gymnastics of creating a self-titled link.
Occam’s razor. News websites only care about links on social media these days, which would likely show the full title and an image. Way fewer people are going to read the url than the headline. It wouldn’t accomplish anything to intentionally mislead in the url and not the headline, so it’s most likely a stupid mistake. (The mainstream media of course has a left-wing bias, this just isn’t a good example of it. The segment in Jack’s article is a much clearer example.)
I thought of that, even to including the “Occam’s Razor” reference, but I was typing on a phone, which is tedious for me. I would actually agree on the likelihood that the original error was just that, although I wouldn’t entirely discount the possibility that a certain bias might have caused an unconscious temporary blindness to the mistake. That it remains after four years of the hoax being prominently batted around in the news, on discussion boards & etc. doesn’t exactly add to my inclination to cut them slack on the issue.
I like URLs that (accurately) preview the subject and source; they often affect my decision on whether to click through rather than just assume that nothing of importance would be added by the detour. I’ve seen some provide links where it appears they haven’t actually read the article, as it didn’t support what they thought the headline implied.
I think it’s perfectly appropriate to blur the phone number, website address, etc. of a political candidate from a news story, If a candidate wants a commercial, he (in this case) can pay for it. It’s the disparity in the treatment of candidates that’s the problem.
I disagree. It involves doctoring an image. I would think that is bad journalism. The same could be said about bleeping swear words, but that is a government regulation, so it does not surprise me that they capitulate on that point.
But, if it is okay to blur the text line, would it be fair to bleep the text line as well. I recall Biden famously advertised his text line (incorrectly); should that be bleeped?
-Jut
The Twitter video has been deleted, and the YouTube video is now private.
But the internet is forever.