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The Top 10 Hoaxes The Propaganda Press Peddled In 2024
By: Shawn Fleetwood... View MoreMedia
The Top 10 Hoaxes The Propaganda Press Peddled In 2024
By: Shawn Fleetwood
December 30, 2024

Image CreditCNN/YouTube
In no particular order, here are the biggest hoaxes and misinformation campaigns run by corporate media hacktivists this year.

Shawn Fleetwood
Visit on Twitter@ShawnFleetwood
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Americans who have lived through Donald Trump’s political career are no strangers to legacy media disinformation. From the Russia collusion hoax to the “very fine people” Charlottesville lie, the litany of dishonest info ops from left-wing activists masquerading as journalists is too long to count.
And despite Americans’ waning trust in their ability to report news accurately and fairly, these Democrat Party yes-men show no signs of stopping.
Like years before it, 2024 saw no shortage of media hijinks. Whether it was their coverage of the 2024 presidential campaign or participation in Democrats’ war on the Supreme Court, America’s propaganda press maintained its ethically bankrupt reputation.
So, in no particular order, here are the biggest hoaxes and misinformation campaigns run by legacy media hacktivists this year.
1. Bloodbath
Taking Trump’s remarks out of context is one of legacy media’s favorite pastimes — and March’s “bloodbath” nontroversy was no exception.
Speaking to rallygoers in Ohio, the former and soon-to-be president warned that the U.S. automobile industry would face an economic “bloodbath” if Democrats won the White House in 2024. Media acolytes quickly jumped on the former president’s comments, which they distorted to make it appear as if Trump was threatening a literal bloodbath if he lost his reelection bid.
Left-wing outlets such as NBC News, CBS News, The New York Times, and others ran headlines using this dishonest framing.
“Trump says country faces ‘bloodbath’ if Biden wins in November,” a March 16 Politico headline reads.
2. War on SCOTUS
While Democrat mouthpiece ProPublica kickstarted a media war on the Supreme Court last year with smear attacks on Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, The New York Times took its hysteria to a whole new level.
In May, the outlet fabricated a controversy about an upside-down American flag flown at the Virginia residence of Alito and his wife, which the outlet claimed was a symbol adopted by “some” “Stop the Steal” protestors on Jan. 6, 2021. Justice Alito told the paper that he “had no involvement whatsoever” in flying the flag, but that it was placed there by his wife to protest a neighbor’s profane yard signs.
Despite claims of ethics violations from so-called “experts,” The Federalist’s Legal Correspondent Margot Cleveland — who researched judicial ethics rules as a law clerk for years — noted that the Gray Lady’s “effort to smear Justice Alito as unethical based on the flag incident cannot withstand scrutiny” and “[t]he calls for Alito to recuse from [Jan. 6-related] cases have no basis in sanity.”
America’s “newspaper of record” wasn’t done attempting to tarnish Alito, however. A few days later, the Times ran another hit piece against the justice over an “Appeal to Heaven” flag flown at one of his homes. While well-known and originating from the Revolutionary War, the Times attempted to gin up controversy over the flag by claiming it represents “a push to remake American government in Christian terms.”
3. Hiding Biden’s Cognitive Decline
If you’re looking for an example of how the media interfere in our elections, look no further than their concentrated effort to hide Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.
When videos showcasing Biden’s senility went viral on social media over the summer, media hacktivists adopted the White House’s baseless claim the clips were “cheap fakes.” Only after the president’s disastrous, lie-filled debate performance against Trump did the media realize they could no longer hide this massive scandal from the public.
Of course, their subsequent acknowledgment of Biden’s faltering health clearly had nothing to do with the republic’s well-being and everything to do with their concerns it could harm Democrats’ prospects of holding the White House in November.
4. Project 2025
It didn’t take long for the media to make The Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” their go-to bogeyman during the 2024 campaign.
Developed to provide a conservative roadmap for the incoming Trump administration, the plan became the subject of hyperbolic articles and Democrat speeches designed to brainwash voters into believing it would destroy the country as we know it if Trump were to get elected. In actuality, Trump has repeatedly said he was not affiliated with Project 2025, and the proposal recommends policies conservatives have supported for decades.
5. What’s a Border Czar?
After Democrat oligarchs orchestrated a silent coup to replace Biden with Kamala Harris on the 2024 ticket, the media jumped into action to cover up the vice president’s myriad failures — including her role as “border czar.”
To hide Harris’ incompetence from voters, left-wing journos pretended Biden never tapped her to oversee the invasion at the U.S.-Mexico border. Left-wing rags like Axios went as far as to claim Harris “never actually had” the “border czar” moniker — despite the outlet repeatedly referring to her as such in previous articles.
6. Trump’s Arlington Cemetery Visit
Obviously seeking to tarnish Trump ahead of the November election, anti-truth NPR ran an anonymously sourced hit piece attacking the former president for — wait for it — visiting Arlington National Cemetery at the request of Gold Star families.
The smear campaign was aimed at fomenting a controversy about Trump’s team taking photos and videos of the former president’s visit alongside the loved ones of those killed during Biden’s disastrous 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal. The media hoax didn’t sit well with the Gold Star families, who blasted Kamala Harris, Democrats, and, by extension, their corporate press allies for attempting to politicize the event.
7. Show Me the Garbage!
Legacy media propagandists had their hands full in the closing days of the 2024 election after Biden referred to the tens of millions of Americans who support Trump as “garbage.”
Amid fears that the president’s remarks could hurt Harris’ electoral prospects, the “democracy dies in darkness” crowd rushed to cover up the scandal. While Politico’s Johnathan Lemire employed the media’s classic “Republicans pounce!” framing, NPR’s David Folkenflik decided to play doctor and mind reader for a day, telling his X followers he “listened to [Biden’s comments] several times” and came away with the conclusion that the president’s supposed “stutter” problem is to blame.
8. Trump’s Liz Cheney Comments
One of the biggest media-driven hoaxes concocted this year was the manipulation of Trump’s remarks about Liz Cheney.
While speaking at an event days before the Nov. 5 election, Trump critiqued Cheney’s obsession with overseas military adventurism. The former president referred to Cheney as a “radical war hawk” and defended the troops forced to fight in the never-ending conflicts neocons like Cheney would never personally partake in.
“Let’s put her with a rifle, standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it … when the guns are trained on her face. You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Gee, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy,’” Trump said.
In the wake of Biden’s “garbage” smear, the media rushed to distort Trump’s comments to make it appear as if he was calling for Cheney to be executed via firing squad. The disinformation operation represented a clear attempt to smear Trump ahead of the election and boost Harris’ prospects.
9. What Assassination Attempts?
If you watched and read nothing but legacy media, there’s a good chance you’d know little to nothing about the two assassination attempts against Trump this year.
After a longtime Democrat donor allegedly tried to kill the incoming president on his Palm Beach golf course in September, left-wing propagandists at NBC News and The Washington Post downplayed the attempted murder as nothing more than an “incident.” Outlets like Time magazine whitewashed the suspect’s history of donating to Democrats, characterizing him in a tweet as a “58-year-old with unclear political ideology.”
[RELATED: Corrupt Media Obsess Over Luigi Mangione After Memory Holing Trump’s Would-Be Assassins]
Such dishonest propaganda isn’t surprising, however. It’s the same playbook these media hacks — who spent years leading an “assassination prep” campaign with horrific smears and lies directed at Trump — deployed when initially “covering” the first assassination attempt against Trump in July.
10. The Atlantic’s Hitler Hysteria
In a last-ditch attempt to salvage Kamala Harris’ flailing presidential bid, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg — who ran the debunked 2020 “suckers” and losers” smear — published an anonymously sourced October hit piece with claims that Trump said he wanted “the kind of generals that Hitler had.” It also contained accusations that Trump expressed anger about paying for the funeral services of a murdered Army soldier.
[RELATED: Debunked Atlantic Hit Piece Gives Kamala Pretext To Justify Political Violence Against Enemies]
To the media, it didn’t matter that the soldier’s sister blasted Goldberg for his anti-Trump fabrications, or that numerous former Trump administration officials debunked the bogus claims. What mattered was regurgitating The Atlantic’s slanderous hatchet job, which they did with no questions asked.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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