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Did You Retweet This Picture? If You Didn't Retweet the Apology, You're Guilty of Spreading Fake News

April 21, 2017
 Staff

WRITER

Finally, some honesty from a mainstream media reporter.

After tweeting juxtaposed pictures of the New England Patriots with President Trump and President Obama, the sports editor of the New York Times issued an apology. Why? The photos were fake news, comparing apples to oranges.

RELATED: New York Times Sports Editor Takes Blame for Misleading White House Photo

"Congratulations, Jason Stallman. If you can find his Twitter handle, you should tweet this and tweet good job," Glenn said Friday on radio.

There's just one little problem. The damage had already been done --- unless everyone who retweeted the original image retweets his apology.

An initial count showed the first tweet with the two pictures had been retweeted 32,000 times. The apology? About fifty-four.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

Glenn: I want to talk to you a little bit about fake news and the press. And I'm going to show you a hero, a villain -- I'm going to show you a mistake and the truth. And some of it you're going to cheer for. Some of it you're really not going to like. But I guarantee you, this will open your eyes if you're willing to look at the stuff you like and don't like, this will open your eyes on who's at fault here? What's happening to our society and who's at fault?

Let's start with the New England patriots. They went to the White House to go with President Trump, and the big thing was, oh, look at the New England patriots. They're not going -- not all of them are showing up to have their picture taken with Donald Trump. When Barack Obama was there, everybody was there.

STU: So the New York Times sports decided to tweet a picture side by side picture of the crowd of the patriots in 2015 versus the crowd in 2017.

GLENN: With the president in the middle.

STU: With the president in the middle and the exact same backdrop. And what you see in 2017 there's a small gathering of players behind the White House. And then there are staircases that go up the sides. And in 2015, those staircases are full. Those people all up and down, obviously much more interest in seeing Barack Obama than Donald Trump because in 2017, there's nobody on the staircases at all, and there's definitely a much smaller crowd. That's what they tweeted.

GLENN: Okay. So the New York Times is trying to make the point and the typical New York Times.

STU: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Typical failed New York Times is trying to make it look like nobody wants to have their picture taken with Donald Trump.

STU: Right.

GLENN: Here's what happens.

STU: So the New England patriots tweet "These photos lack context. Facts in 2015, over 40 football staff were on the stairs. In 2017, they were seated on the south lawn. So the picture does not reflect the entire crowd. In fact, they tweet another picture where the staff is there --

GLENN: In 2017.

STU: In 2017. And not only does it go up the stairs and the side, it wraps all the way around the back. That picture that they tweeted has more people than the Barack Obama picture of 2015.

GLENN: Okay. Now you can say fake news New York Times. Look what the New York Times is doing. How many times was the New York Times -- how many times was it retweeted that original picture of Donald Trump looking like a loser?

STU: I don't have the exact amount, but it was in the tens of thousands.

GLENN: Tens of thousands of people retweeted that picture basically to say haha.

STU: Trump sucks. Obama is better.

GLENN: Trump sucks. Obama is great, and it feels good. Tens of thousands of people retweeted it. And The New York Times knew what they were doing, or did they? Here's what the guy who made the decision, the sports editor, who made the decision to tweet those two pictures tweeted once the patriots came out and said "No, you've got the story wrong." Here's what he tweeted:

STU: He actually responded to a reporter asking about what he said. This is what he said "Bad tweet by me. Terrible tweet. I wish I could say it's complicated but, no, this one is pretty straight forward. I'm an idiot. It was my idea. It was my execution. It was my blunder. I made a decision in about four minutes that clearly wandered much more time. Once we learned, we tried to fix everything as much as possible, as swiftly as possible and as transparently as possible. Of course at that point the damage was done. I just needed to own it.

PAT: Wow, that's great.

GLENN: Isn't that the realest apology you've ever heard? That guy is one of my new heroes.

PAT: Stand up guy.

GLENN: Saying, look, man, I own it. It's my fault. It was four minutes I made this. Not even saying it was a little deal, big -- no, I own it. Huge mistake.

PAT: Everybody else almost anybody else would have done that. Been, like. Okay. Get over it.

GLENN: Right it was just a stupid picture. I made a mistake. Blah, blah, blah.

No, this guy -- I'm going to post this story up at GlennBeck.com today. This is a guy I want you to talk about at your dinner table tonight with your family. I want you to read that tweet to your children and say "That's the way you own it. That's the way you make an apology."

STU: Because we've all made mistakes like that. We've all jumped to a conclusion that was incorrect. And, you know, there's a point to be made here that seemingly he wanted to see that; right? Like, somewhere in his mind, he thought that impression was true, and he was, like, wow, look at that. And he put that out there and wanted to make sure people knew that these crowds didn't compare.

GLENN: And the only reason why we say he wanted to do that is because he works for The New York Times. We don't know anything about him.

STU: We don't know. But for some reason jumps to conclusion without checking.

GLENN: But this shows because he's surrounded with people thank that. This shows that I don't care what I think. It doesn't matter what I think. It's the truth. What's his name?

STU: I don't know, actually.

GLENN: We have to find out.

STU: It just says New York Times sports editor. A reporter contacted him.

GLENN: Keith -- is Keith around? Did you find out? Because I asked yesterday if we could get this guy on the air. Did we try?

STU: I know we did try. There's confusion of which one --

GLENN: Which one it was?

STU: I don't want to bore you with it.

GLENN: Please, find out, Keith.

PAT: It's New York Times sports editor Jason Stallman.

GLENN: Congratulations, Jason Stallman. If you can find his Twitter handle, you should tweet this and tweet "Good job."

Here's a guy -- I haven't heard an apology like that in how long? Ever?

STU: Right.

GLENN: I mean, that's a great thing. Now, here's the problem. As he said.

PAT: The damage was done.

GLENN: The damage was done. Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. How was the damage done? We used to say corrections in The New York Times, they run on the back page. Nobody sees the back package page. They run in a little, teeny section. It was the headline. They're not going to correct it with the same headline. New York Times wrong. Well, wait a minute. This isn't a newspaper. This is digital. They're giving it the same 144 characters from the same guy from the same source to the same people. So now, we can see. Because it is truly apples to apples. We're comparing the incorrect story, and its impact of tens of thousands of retweets, and we'll see who the fake news people -- who the fake news people are. Did those people retweet "Oh, crap. I just sent on to all of my followers, I just sent on a fake news story."

STU: Right. Do I have any responsibility -- or at least responsibility to correct it? To be clear what the New York Times did, they retweeted the exact tweet from the patriots that I just mentioned. So they actually said "Oh, by the way. We were wrong. Here's the evidence from the patriots saying we were wrong. And then they went into talk about how the delegation was, their quote was roughly the same. Okay? And this is just a snapshot in time. I don't have the current numbers.

At one point, though, the first tweet of the two pictures where it looked like Trump looked bad had 32,000 retweets. The correction had 54. Not 45,000. 54. 32,000 to 54.

GLENN: Okay. So who's fault is that? And we see this in the conservative realm.

STU: You do.

GLENN: I will tweet something out that feels good. I'll tweet something out that's true but doesn't feel good. No likes. No retweets. Nothing. Nothing. Who's fault is the fake news? In this particular case, who's fault is the fake news? It's not The New York Times. It's not The New York Times editor. They're all skewed. No, huh-uh.

STU: They made a mistake. It happens.

GLENN: It's you, minus 54 people.

STU: It's you, in this particular situation, it's the left.

GLENN: It's the left.

STU: They're the ones excited about this one. And this idea that the left has no appetite for fake news I think is pretty well disapproved right here.

GLENN: Right here. Right here. You are retweeting -- and, again, as Stu said, I guess I should point that out. I assume we all understand that I don't think any of us are following The New York Times, you know? We're not, like, I like and follow The New York Times on Twitter, so I think that's probably pretty low in our audience that you got that and then retweeted it.

But anybody who did, you're following The New York Times, and you retweeted this the first time and didn't retweet the correction, you are the problem. And every time that happens on our side, you are the problem.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: It's as long as it's corrected, and it's on Twitter. Because that's apples to apples. Like, I -- you know, we always say we lead with our mistakes. Most people don't. They won't put the headline right at the top. We put the headline right at the top. Try to do that. That's still not the same because we may have chewed on something for, you know, 20 minutes and the correction only takes three. With Twitter, it's 144 to 144. It's the same space going to exactly the same people. It's not the press, and I will tell you -- I mean, it is the press. But it is the people who are consuming it that are spreading it.

STU: And, you know, look, this guy at The New York Times who actually apologizes and takes responsibility, that person doesn't exist at name your random partisan fake news hack website they just want the 32,000 fake retweets. He doesn't bother with a correction.

GLENN: Nope.

STU: And I think it's important for us as conservatives as people who try to execute principles every day to -- when you see someone on the other side take a step like that, it's important --

GLENN: You have to say thank you.

STU: To make a big deal out of it. It is.

GLENN: This is important for us to retweet because it shows -- because I am convinced a lot of this nonsense is because we're not listening to each other. A lot of this nonsense is because we assume the worst of each other. And we're not following The New York Times. And because we don't follow The New York Times, we didn't see them just correct this, and we didn't see a heroic move of a guy who you know there are people in The New York Times who were, like, just leave it. It doesn't matter. I mean, what are you doing helping him out; right? You know there are people who said that to him in the cafeteria. We need to -- excuse me. We need to get to the point to where we can point out the heroes on both sides. And when we listen to each other, when we actually -- we just assume The New York Times is always going to be unfair. We just assume CNN is just going to be unfair. They just assume Fox News and talk radio is going to be unfair. They put this show into the same category as Alex Jones.

Well, that's because you don't listen to us and you don't listen to Alex Jones. That's why. You don't know the difference. We need to do it.

Critical race theory: Struggle sessions

Photo by Tony Rojas on Unsplash

China has a rich legacy of torture. During the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party used a variety of torture techniques. These became more and more advanced over time. This included public humiliation and public executions.

One specific kind of public humiliation is what's called "The Struggle Session." It was a punishment reserved for people who committed wrong-think. The point was to publicly degrade the person until they swore allegiance to the Communist Party. Their focus is on the elimination of the power base and/or class position of enemy classes or groups. It was also a warning to everyone watching: If you don't bend your knee to communism, you will be destroyed.

If you don't bend your knee to communism, you will be destroyed.

It was a way to punish anyone who so much as disagreed with Communist Party dogma.

These struggle sessions often took place in busy areas.

They also took place at universities, like the struggle session for the professor You Xiaoli, as recounted by Anne Thurston, in Enemies of the People:

You Xiaoli was standing, precariously balanced, on a stool. Her body was bent over from the waist into a right angle, and her arms, elbows stiff and straight, were behind her back, one hand grasping the other at the wrist. It was the position known as "doing the airplane." Around her neck was a heavy chain, and attached to the chain was a blackboard, a real blackboard, one that had been removed from a classroom at the university where You Xiaoli, for more than ten years, had served as a full professor. On both sides of the blackboard were chalked her name and the myriad crimes she was alleged to have committed...

The scene was taking place at the university, too, in a sports field at one of China's most prestigious institutions of higher learning. In the audience were You Xiaoli's students and colleagues and former friends. Workers from local factories and peasants from nearby communes had been bussed in for the spectacle. From the audience came repeated, rhythmic chants ... "down with You Xiaoli! Down with You Xiaoli!"

"I had many feelings at that struggle session," recalls You Xiaoli. "I thought there were some bad people in the audience. But I also thought there were many ignorant people, people who did not understand what was happening, so I pitied that kind of person. They brought workers and peasants into the meetings, and they could not understand what was happening. But I was also angry."

Struggle sessions have been revived, and exported to America. They come in many forms.

Forced apologies.

Beatings in public—like the mob attack on Rand Paul.

Or the 12-year-old boy who was sucker-punched.

Or the 12-year-old boy who was stabbed for being white.

Anti-racism seminars, like the one in Seattle.

Or the one involving Sandia Labs executives seminar.

This post is part of a series on critical race theory. Read the full series here.

RELEASED: Andrew Cuomo harassment REPORT Details the WORST

The long-awaited New York Attorney General's report on the sexual harassment allegations against Gov. Andrew Cuomo is out — and it is bad for Cuomo. The Democratic AG concluded that the Governor did sexually harass multiple women during his time in office.

On Tuesday's radio program, Glenn Beck questioned is the AG's report would be enough for Democrats to condemn him and call for his resignation? This is what the #MeToo movement was started for, Glenn noted, if Gov. Cuomo doesn't resign quickly, that says a whole lot about today's Democratic Party. Watch the clip to hear more of the conversation. Can't watch? Download the podcast here.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.

Critical race theory: The education trap

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

The fall semester isn't far away. If you aren't prepared for that, someone else is. Predatory behavior. The most important takeaway from this piece is, whatever is happening on campuses right now is what is going to play out through the rest of society in about 30 years. We're seeing it right now with Critical Race Theory.

It started on the campus. It started in the classroom. And our children are set to be the next victims in the cultural warfare for a nightmare that seems like it will never end.

Colleges are manipulating the system.

It's a little ironic that colleges are overflowing with Marxist professors who preach the Gospel of Karl Marx in their classrooms, because academia in America is the perfect example of capitalist achievement. If anything, colleges are manipulating the system in a way that should make Marxists furious. And they hurt the people that Marxism is supposed to rescue.

Colleges are an enterprise. They are Big Business. It means nothing to them to send thousands of students into debt—not if it means the campus will get a new fountain or another office for the Diversity and Inclusion department.

They'll never admit it, but a big part of their problem is that they have put so much into the myth of progress. They can't even admit that it's a myth. Because it's useful to them.

Roger Scruton once said:

Hence the invocations of "progress", of "growth", of constant "advance" towards the goal which, however, must remain always somewhere in the future.

In reality, they don't give a damn about actual progress.

That's how they have turned academia into instruments of social engineering. They use college to change society.

Their purpose is no longer educational. It's social. They're using the classrooms to cause social change.

This post is part of a series on critical race theory. Read the full series here.

'Woke' Olympic athletes are not brave — BUT this Olympic gold medalist is

On Monday's radio program, Glenn Beck and Stu Burguiere were joined by Pat Gray to discuss "woke" Olympic athletes.

In this clip, the guys discussed how "bravely" some athletes are for threatening to protest the national anthem, for twerking on stage, and for showing off how woke they are.

Glenn reminded America of actual bravery at the Olympics when Jesse Owens won the gold medal at the Berlin Olympics. "He [Owens] was oppressed," Glenn said.

Watch the clip to hear Glenn tell the full story. Can't watch? Download the podcast here.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.