I have said it before, and will undoubtedly have many more opportunities say it: If you can’t find fair and factual ways to discredit Donald Trump, you really shouldn’t be in the journalism profession. Walmart beckons.

Today’s disgrace is ThinkProgress. I know that progressive reporters have long accepted the anti-journalism ethics philosophy of their “by any means necessary” political heroes, but even by the dismal standards of recent years, Judd Legum and his editors really abandoned all respectability with this one. The headline:

Muslim Woman Gets Kicked Out Of Donald Trump Rally For Being Muslim

This isn’t even deceit. The headline is an outright lie. The woman, Rose Hamid, was warned as she entered a Trump campaign event in South Carolina that any demonstration or disruption would be met with ejection. Nevertheless, she and a companion, complete with message t-shirts and symbolic yellow stars protesting Trump’s position on Muslim immigrants, stood up in their seats behind the GOP frontrunner while he was speaking. As promised, they were escorted out.

Hamid was not kicked out “for being Muslim.” She was kicked out for violating the rules of a private event. She stood up as a protest. It wouldn’t matter if she  was dressed in Islamic garb, in a Franklin Pierce costume, or in Scout’s ham outfit from “To Kill A Mockingbird.” She was protesting. Out. That was the deal. The headline is deliberately false.

So was Legum’s first sentence, though it directly contradicted the headline: “A Muslim woman was kicked out of a Donald Trump rally on Friday night for no apparent reason.” Continue reading →