Reflecting back on 2024 and looking forward to a future with less misinformation and more facts, Just Facts has summarized 50 false or misleading claims spread by journalists, commentators, and so-called fact checkers during the past year.
Each of these examples quotes a specific media outlet or individual, but nearly all of these fictions were propagated by multiple outlets and people, and many of them were broadcast by dozens.
1: Inflation
Margaret Brennan and John Dickerson of CBS News claimed that “the president of the United States has nothing to do with the price of bacon,” “or eggs,” “or gas,” “or any of it.”
In fact, presidents impact the prices of virtually everything through federal deficits that spur inflation, regulations that prohibit the use of cost-effective production methods and resources, price and wage controls, trade deals, tariffs, and more.
2: “Bloodbath”
Reporting on the first assassination attempt against Donald Trump, George Stephanopoulos and Martha Raddatz of ABC News claimed that Trump “contributed” to “violent rhetoric” because he said “it’s going to be a bloodbath” if “I don’t get elected.”
In fact, Trump didn’t use the term “bloodbath” as a call to violence but to describe the effects of Biden’s policies, especially on the auto industry.
3: Crime Trends
PolitiFact reported that “the violent crime rate today is near a 50-year low.”
In fact, that claim is derived from FBI data, which is based on voluntary reports of crimes by state and local law enforcement agencies and “excludes” crimes like “sexual assault,” “simple assault,” “attempted robberies,” and “crimes not reported to law enforcement.”
The DOJ’s National Crime Victimization Survey—which is widely considered to be the “gold standard” for measuring crime trends—showed a 37% increase in violent crime from 2020 to 2023. Moreover, the latest rate of murder—which is the best-measured and worst violent crime—was 36% higher in 2023 than in 2014.
4: Jobs
The New York Times reported that “President Biden is presiding over a job-creation boom that would have gotten almost any of his predecessors re-elected in the postwar era.”
In fact, all real job growth under Biden went to immigrants, while jobs held by people born in the USA barely recovered from Covid lockdowns, are drastically below their pre-Covid trajectory, and flatlined over the past year:
It just gets worse, check out the rest of the lies here
Delusions of Adequacy 