Many journalists have condemned the actions of these people. The Wall Street Journal for publishing an op-ed by former President Donald Trump peddling lies about the veracity of the 2020 presidential election — including some journalists at the newspaper itself, who have worked diligently to fact-check the former president in their own work.
Trump’s letter, which was published on Wednesday in response to an opinion piece written by the Journal’sEditorial board contained many falsehoods about 2020 election. But the newspaper allowed his missive to be printed nonetheless, essentially lending credence to the former president’s misleading commentary and flat-out lies.
“The election was rigged, which you, unfortunately, still haven’t figured out,” Trump wrote in his opinion piecedirected towards the JournalIt is all.
Much of the article was focused on Pennsylvania’s election results. Trump placing blame on former Attorney General William Barr for his loss, claiming that he ordered a U.S. attorney to “stand down and not investigate election irregularities” in the state. Barr denies doing this, noting that he told federal lawyers across the country that he did. they could pursue claims of fraudJust days after the election,
Journalists were furious about the op ed. Many of them felt that allowing the former president to use the platform to promote his false claims was dangerous.
“Most newspapers don’t allow op-ed writers to just make up nonsense lies. Evidently the Wall Street Journal is not among them,” wrote HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Dáte.
Trump’s op-ed “is full of absolute lies – from the first bullet point down,” opined Jonathan TamariNational politics writer at The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Charlie Sykes, a Conservative columnist, was also chastised The Wall Street JournalFor its decision, saying, “You know, the WSJ was not obligated to run this farrago of lies. That was a choice.”
Noah Bookbinder is the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (a non-profit government watchdog). explained how allowing Trump to proselytize his lies in a paper with the reach of the Journal was a dire miscalculationOne that could have serious consequences.
A letter from Donald Trump containing clearly false and unsupported claims that the 2020 election was marred by widespread fraud is dangerous. Trump’s false claims already helped incite violence, and this could encourage more.
The Wall Street Journal has so far declined to comment on why it chose to publish Trump’s rant.
But journalists working within the organization are not excluded. Journal They are independent of the opinion department. were also critical of the department’s decision. An anonymous reporter spoke out about the issue and said that much of their work in correcting the record was being lost and publishing the truth.
“I think it’s very disappointing that our opinion section continues to publish misinformation that our news side works so hard to debunk,” that reporter said, according to CNN. “They should hold themselves to the same standards we do!”
Another reporter from the Journal didn’t expressly criticize the organization, but shared a tweet disparaging the publication from The Daily Beast’s Matt Fuller, stating that “newspapers don’t exist so that powerful people can publish whatever lies they want.”
