Often accused of left-wing bias and making up stories on the fly, the mainstream media has had it’s fair share of controversies throughout the years.
In this Horn News exclusive, we take a look at the five BIGGEST media liars in recent memory:
#1: Dan Rather, CBS News
A “60 Minutes” piece that aired during the presidential race between George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry on September 8, 2004 threatened to shake up the election.
The story relied on a bombshell – four documents allegedly written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, one of Bush’s Texas Air National Guard commanders in the early 1970s.
The documents suggested that Bush had disobeyed a direct order to appear for a physical exam, and the Bush family exaggerated his service with the National Guard. They were given to CBS by retired Texas National Guard Lt. Col. Bill Burkett.
Turns out, it was all fake. After the airing on September 8, document experts began questioning the memos, and discovered they seemed to be created on a computer that would not have been used during the 1970s. CBS continued to defend its story, but in the end Killian’s former secretary came forward to say it was likely all fake.
Burkett later admitted to lying about how he obtained the documents.
Dan Rather left the network shortly after the incident, and currently hosts a one-hour weekly talk show, Dan Rather Reports, on cable network AXS TV.
#2: Piers Morgan, The Daily Mirror
Morgan was the lead editor of The Daily Mirror when the paper published photos of British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners.
In one, a soldier was seen urinating on a hooded man. In another, the hooded man is being beaten with a rifle in the groin.
While the photos created worldwide outrage, they weren’t real. Aspects of uniforms and equipment in the photographs provided “overwhelming” evidence that the photos were staged.
The Queen Lancashire Regiment (QLR) said the paper had endangered British troops by publishing the photos and provided recruiting propaganda for Al-Qaeda.
After refusing a demand to apologize, Piers Morgan was fired from his role as editor.
Morgan went on to host the show “Piers Morgan Live” on CNN until 2014.
#3: Brian Williams, NBC Nightly News
Williams enjoyed telling an elaborate story about his experience in a helicopter that got shot down in Iraq during the Second Gulf War. His story evolved over the years, and each time his personal involvement steadily increased.
In 2003, Williams described the attack on a segment on NBC as, “a close call in the skies over Iraq… the Chinook ahead of us was almost blown out of the sky.”
In 2013 he had a different story when he told David Letterman that he had been on the helicopter that was shot down.
Then again in 2015 he referenced the event on the Nightly News, calling it “a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an R.P.G.”
Turns out, William’s helicopter was part of a different mission. His helicopter was at least 30 minutes behind the one in his story.
One of the soldiers on the actual helicopter, Joe Summerlin, eventually called out Williams’ made-up story, leading to Williams’ resignation from his position at the “Nightly News.”
Brian Williams currently works as an anchor at MSNBC.
#4: Jayson Blair, New York Times
Blair was a journalist with a strong career at the Times… until, in 2003, it came out that he was plagiarizing and fabricating numerous stories.
When investigated, it became clear he had written about events which he never attended, taken quotes from other publications, and fabricated situations that never even occurred.
Blair blamed personal psychological problems for his actions. After being caught, Blair resigned his position, was hospitalized, and eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
The “Blair Affair” sparked a national debate about affirmative action and whether that had caused the paper to overlook his issues.
Jayson Blair went on to publish his memior, “Burning Down My Master’s House,” published by New Millennium Books.
#5: Janet Cooke, Washington Post
Cooke gained fame when she published a story, “Jimmy’s World,” in September 1980 about an 8-year-old heroin addict in Washington, D.C.
The story provided a detailed account of Jimmy’s daily life, quotes from him, his mother, his drug supplier… and his tragic aspirations to be a drug dealer.
The story created a flood of sympathy among readers, culminating in an unsuccessful police search for the boy.
Cooke was awarded with the Pulitzer Prize in 1981…. then admitted the whole thing was fake.
The Washington Post returned the prize and offered a public apology.
Cooke later resigned. Years after, she and her former boyfriend Mike Sagar sold their story to Tri-Star Pictures for a reported $1.6 million.
Dan Rather looks like gold when compared to today’s news reporters. Savannah Guthrie is the worst. Air headed bias.
I agree with you about the media. The constant distortion of the facts is what the media in best known for. However, in Savannah Guthrie’s defense, The majority of her new commentating on NBC’s Today Show, is just reading what someone else has written for her. It is the editor and behind the scenes staff that write the script that she must read on camera. To me. the worst TV news reporting comes from CNN.
You can add MEGAN KELLY to that list >> A pretty face but very vendive on reporting on Mr. Trump >>. must love Obama and the corruption going on in Washington
What Megan Kelly asked was a fair question because Trump then and now still says things about woman. Trump is a cry baby and he had no answer so he took it out on the person asking. I am a life long Conservative Republican for 71 years. I have watched Megan do the news ever since she has been there and I have never seen her as you put it taking sides. I can’t see Why anyone would think Trump would make a good President. Trump has a problem of over playin his hand with the truth so bad I don’t know truth from a lie.
You might not like Trumps style but aren’t you sick and tired of the established parties in charge for the last umteen years using the system for their own gain at the expense of We The People ?
I would prefer a more Presidential type of speech, but I can overlook this small conundrum because the USA is now in a crisis that Liberal politically correctness and race/gender dividing speech has brought us to our knees,
At this point we need a no BS strong leader that will get our country back on track, and stop the transformation of the great free country we once had into a third world country with a dictator type leader that we have now.
We have been fooled too many times with all the niceness and false promises of government controlled ideas ……. FOOL ME ONCE, SHAME ON YOU …… SHAME ME TWICE, SHAME ON ME !
The way I look at it is, we don’t have to like the presidents style as long as he is being a president that is doing business in the best interest of our country and works within the parameters of our constitution.
Shows what an idiot you are main steam, Dan the Marxist rather belongs to the council on foreign relations or CFR. They are a pro Marxist group founded in 1908. They have been conspiring against America for over 100 years. Case in point, we went from a rebuplic form of government the framers gave us, to our current position as progessive Marxist socialist, next step for America, anarchy.
I hardly think Dan rather is a Marxist. He was a reporter when reporters asked questions and reported the news. Today they argue with people if they have a different opinion. I saw Savannah Guthrie once host Meet the Press. She grilled a conservative senator like an overly aggressive lawyer would a witness. The UN Ambassador Samantha Powers was on. She talked about how Hillary allegedly bakes the best cookies. Rather may have been controversial, but compared to Guthrie or Scott Pelley he was quite tolerable.
I looked up your council on foreign relations. So many Bush advisors listed as prominent members of that
organization. Are they Marxists too?
CFR worte the JFK lies & 911 lies-6 out of 9 on the warren commission r CFR members-the secret oscity that killed JFK n led USA to fbot, an illegal JA queer, drug addict married to a tranny
YES THEY ARE! Get a clue.
There’s always been an integrity problem with the media–this is nothing particularly new. From the “yellow journalism” of a William Randolph Hearst, to the days of McCarthy’s communist witch-hunts, the media has participated in many shocking displays of the truth having been “manipulated”. The framers of our Constitution were very concerned that we always have a free and independent press as a means of ensuring liberty. Those who oppose liberty have always understood that controlling the media was an essential part of denying men their rights and freedom.
There are five major media corporations controlling the vast majority of “news” items that we all assume is true. Anyone who has been the subject of media reports will tell you ruefully just how much the media distorts the truth. For those who lie as a matter of course, they often don’t even recognize the truth any longer. Politicians are particularly apt to lie routinely–even when a lie doesn’t particularly benefit them. Politicians who tell the truth are a rare commodity and they are usually eliminated from consideration by a media whose main job is to present the “truth” in such a way as to suit the agenda of the media owners. Writer, George Orwell once said, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
McCarthy was onto something their jay, the government was under attack by Marxist then, and still is today. McCarthy was demonized by the very press we all know was corrupted going as far back as Walter the communist bastard conkrite. Dan rather, tom brokaw, Barbra Walters, Diane sawyer, garret utly. What do all of these Marxist have in common besides being member of the council on foreign relations? They all anchored the evening news bringing their propaganda and spun lies to your living rooms for decades. Is it any wonder why America has fallen so with this intensional onslaught to deflate America, and fold it into the United Nations control? America has been dumbed down. And these conspirators had there hand in it
Very well said!
Forgot CNN, MSNBC too.
Glad FNC didnt rate any.
Need to add LA Times & Wall St Journal for leftist leanings.
The news media has been very obviously shown their bias in reporting for more years than I can remember. 80+ years ago, I recall my high school English teacher commenting that you can tell the political bent of the news media if you listen or read carefully. This is very true. But today, the reporting is obviously distorted on a daily basis. The news media is in the pockets of the Democrats. The Democrats control just how the political news is reported and how often a negative report about anyone opposed to the current administration or the president is repeated. The media also feed into the racial tensions in this country. This gives them more to report. For that reason, they report the issues more frequently that they know will exacerbate racial tensions. You cannot trust the news media to report fairly and unbiased news.
These people all attend the same schools and are taught “journalism” bt the same twisted Leftist instructors. I believe it was Barbara Walters (it could have been any of them) who, on the landslide victory of Reagan, proclaimed “how did this happen – I don’t know anyone who voted for Reagan!” Of course she wouldn’t, and this colors their entire world view on everything.
Freedom of speech.
IMPEACH THEM ALL !! YOU BET.
It is in my opinion that we need to fire them all, starting with the Oval office. Suggestion: (YOUR FIRED) Message to the entirety of The American Government and the liars and deceivers that propose they care about us the people. NOT. NOT. NOT. NOT. For three plus decades, there has been example after example that the ones we trust are not so trustable.
President Reagan was the last great president for America. then we started the descent into hell with the Texas Bush clan, then the Arkansas Clinton scandals, and then Bush. w. again, then we made history by electing Mr. Obama, a Illonois. baby senator who was not prepared to run the greatest power government in the world.
This is America, where we have the most IGNORANT Government, half of the data collected is made up Rhetoric and election outcomes are doctored, like election FA-BUNGLE in the last three decades. we have just accepted the ballot , the hanging CHAD. in Florida where ballot boxes were found floating with hanging CHADS. LOL LOL. LOL. LOL.
how is it that the Clinton’s got away with robbing the white house, and then there’s e sexual behaviors of Billy boy, , and how was it that Dick Cheeney was never prosecuted for his involment in the Black Water Da Bunkle.
jumping to the Benghazzi issues with Hillary big mouth , She can laut behind the scenes and lie to the people to their face. And be found innocent. Hillary committed an act of Treason against this country, and she’s not the only one. WAKE UP AMERICA. PLEASE
What’s really scary, is all the idiots out there that believe every word they spout out….Of course, that’s exactly what these biased, so called journalists, are counting on….If you repeat lies long enough, most people will believe them…Our educational (institutionalized) system is all that’s been taught now for decades.
McCarthy was proven right, when US and Russian officials opened up KGB records, when Bush1 was president. Everyone one McCarthy named was listed as a member of the Communist Party. They, also, found papers, where most of them pledged loyalty to the Soviet Union. Clinton had the records sealed as soon as became president.
Bush 2, agreed to keep them sealed, many of the people were wealthy Hollywood executives and actors. Some came out and said they were told if they didn’t join they would never work in Hollywood again. There were a few articles at the time, and Bill Buckley tried to get more info, and reported he had never ran into so many sealed lips.
Congressman Larry McDonald was a very efective conservative congressman from Georgia telling other congressmen about the far left Council on Foreigh Relations. He was also national president of the John Birch Society, and was so efective that the State Department had him killed when they got the soviets to shoot down the Koreal airliner he was on. They tookJesse Helms off the flight in Anchorage. McDonald was national chairman of the John Birch Society, exactly like the Tea Party of today, except that the Tea Party does not have a national chairman, or they would have had him killed by now too.
John Howell
there are mericel cures that comes from coke and foods from fast foods places and also in natruall medicines that the Anecint people used that works and the news people who coverd those on tv gets banned so this means Big pharma industries are also controlling the media every time people eats food that they hate their doctors invokes sicknesses on people it is time to stop this madness
Drs kill more n guns, also Drs Lie
Drs kill by ignoring the “Health DANGERS of HFCS”, search that term n HFCS causes fibromyaligia
IMO, you can probably take just about ANY “major news story” — as presented by almost any delivery-component of the “mainstream media” — and find a key aspect of illegitimacy in what they report and in how they report it.
IMO, what is also instructive is in what they do NOT report accurately or do NOT report AT ALL.
On the positive side, I do believe that there are indeed conscientious, ethical, honest journalists and other such people in the media, who DO try their best to get the full and accurate story out. But, increasingly, they are also up against a growing “blockade” of “interests” — from “inside” as well as from what appears to be a growing proportion of the PUBLIC — that has OTHER aspirations in mind.
So here’s a question to ponder: what must be done to turn that increasingly negative state of affairs around?
OOPS AGAIN! In my above comments about journalists, I left out a vitally important clarifying-word: “also”.
I.e., Please insert it, as follows, in the sentence that starts “On the positive side, I do believe that there ALSO are indeed conscientious, ethical, honest journalists and other such people in the media …”.
Apologies for the confusion.
Get a real newspaper. The problem with digital is it mushes people to get a story out so quickly that they don’t want to take the time to fact-check; if something’s wrong, they can just edit it post-“press.” Dealing with a format that isn’t so easily altered forces them to think (at least once, if not twice) before they publish.
Ah, the wonders of capitalism. Listen, most media outlets these days are just in it for the money. And guess what, appearing to have an “agenda” (Fox, etc.) pays better than being unbiased. People get brand-loyal, too. Everyone’s a victim of it. You just have to wake up and realize that most sources can’t be trusted. I always get my news from multiple (3+) sources.
That Bush Air National Guard story isn’t nearly the fake-lore the MSM makes it out to be. The story was forced to press prematurely, edited in a way that made the context hard to understand, and attacked by people who made incorrect assumptions about the capability of typewriters. (That “computer that would not have been used during the 1970s” line is, in itself, a case of bad reporting: The argument–made by people who ASSuMEd that all typewriters were only capable of normal script–was that electric typewriters of the day were incapable of superscripting things like “21st of May,” when in fact, some models of typewriters, including those used at bases like the one where the “fake” reports originated from WERE capable of it.)
Anyone who has been to any college in the US knows that the colleges are where intense propaganda begins. But, as a state employee on two campuses and later in my state capitol, I can testify the propaganda does not end in college.
You can put Hillary Clinton at the top of this list of liars.
Yes, Hillary Clinton is at the top of this list of liars, but she has massive support from the liberals and communists. The only person who can defeat her is Donald Trump, all the other republican candidates are too wimpy.
John Howell
The so-called Main Stream Media was bought by Communist Party USA by the mid 1960’s. Communist Party USA controls the so-called Main Stream media completely by the mid 1960’s. Only the official Communist Party line is spewed forth. Ever notice the same story is repeated often us9ing the exact same words!
Not noticed by the American public during the Viet Nam war in the media often set afire the same wreckage as a back drop for the Communist reporter. VIET NAM was won on the battlefield after TET 1968 as every VC identified themselves. So controlled by Communist Party USA the Mainstream Media snatched victory turning it into defeat at home to the gullible public.
Read The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War (The Politically Incorrect Guides) if you have the courage to learn the TRUTH!
Not Hillary but Obama is the greatest liar . If you have the stomach for it , you can trace the mind control back through Barry’s controller , Valeri Jerret’s University Training , back through mind control research at Stanford , back through massive donations from Annenburg Foundation to Standford research for mind control ,colluding with DARPA , Paperclip and back to Auchwitz ( owned 50% by IG Farben and 50% Standard Oil Of New York.) Note that the Annenburg Foundation funded Obama in Chicago . Note that Annenburg owns “Fact Check ” who handled the “”Birth Certificate ” problem . Unfortunately Obama is a Manchurian and the greatest liar to ever hold the office . Do your homework
Biggest lie of all is global warming. Solve the problem of carbons by growing more trees. Trees absorb carbon monoxide and give off pure oxygen. Nature is great. Pic up trash. Russia and theus and other countries are swarming the arctic. People make heat. Itll melt anything. Just let nature take its course. With all the volcanoes that have erupted and blown stuff in the air. We will have cooler and wetter weather..