The mainstream media’s dubious sources appear to have betrayed them yet again with false information about the Golden State Warriors boycotting the customary post-championship-winning White House visit.
According to Forbes, the fake news began with a tweet from CNBC’s Josh Brown claiming that, “per reports,” the Golden State Warriors would be forgoing a trip to the White House, the implication of course being that they decided to stand up to Trump.
“Members of the media quickly followed,” Forbes reports.
“Searching the internet for Golden State Warriors and White House turned up posts in Atlanta Journal-Constitution, NBC Sports, the Independent, New York Daily News, and the Kansas City Star.”
There were also tweets like these…
The Golden State Warriors have unanimously decided they won’t visit the White House for the traditional NBA championship visit. pic.twitter.com/pbTxYXCWUX
— AJ+ (@ajplus) June 13, 2017
The Golden State Warriors voted unanimously to skip their entire visit to Donald Trump’s White House.
As woke as any team in sports.
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) June 13, 2017
However, Forbes points out, Brown himself – in a subsequent reply to his now-deleted tweet – would admit, “I have no idea if its [sic] true, hence ‘per reports.’”
He would later attribute the claim to the unverified account of Mike Sington, whose Twitter bio identifies him as a retired director of operations at Universal Studios and “the world’s top celebrity expert.”
A look at Mike Sington’s original tweet and its replies reveals no mention of who his source for the information was.
Whoever it was, it certainly wasn’t the Golden State Warriors; as The Big League reports, the team themselves ultimately released a statement declaring, “we have not received an invitation to the White House.”
“The ‘reports’ this morning?” The Big League’s Jason Lisk writes. “That would be like me saying that Trump is going to send out an angry tweet this week, per reports. Yeah, I’m likely to be proven right. Doesn’t mean I’m right in saying it and have people report it as true.”
“This is the perfect storm for a story with flimsy and non-existent reporting,” he continues.
“The thing being claimed is almost certainly to prove true, even if there’s no basis for saying the team had a meeting right after the game to decide it. It’s on a hot topic, and it’s about politics, which people get passionate about.”
Of course, as with most fake news concerning Trump, the correction does not appear to be traveling as fast as the initial hysteria.
While AJ+’s tweet boasting about the Warriors’ decision to skip the White House got 8,000+ retweets, its subsequent correction – as of writing – hasn’t even reached 100 yet.
In a slightly more laughable example of fake news, mainstream media reporters were recently tricked by a hoax “Rogue White House Staffer” Twitter account alleging to have the juicy details concerning insane requests made by Trump during his state visit to Israel.
The list included 6 boxes of double stuffed Oreos and 3 microwave ovens that were NOT to be plugged in.
The whole thing, of course, turned out to be a complete sham – but not before several mainstream journalists propagated it.
