Today’s paragraph comes to us from what passes these days as ABC’s news department.
Here is the lead paragraph from its unbylined story about the Justice Department report essentially exonerating its people for their activities during the “January 6” incursion:
An independent watchdog probe uncovered no evidence that federal agents were involved in inciting the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to a report released Thursday, undercutting years of baseless claims spread by far-right political figures who have alleged the FBI played a significant role in the attack.
Remember those puzzles you did as a kid, where they showed you a picture and you had to find all the things wrong with it? If that’s what ABC “News” was trying to provide, they did a pretty good job. But if this is supposed to be news? You’ve got to be kidding, right?
Let’s start with the “independent watchdog” claim. Here are the next two paragraphs from this article – presumably the ones justifying the first one:
The long-awaited report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz found no evidence that FBI undercover employees were present among the thousands of Trump supporters who stormed the building, or even among the crowds of Trump’s supporters who attended protests around Washington, D.C. that day.
While the report confirmed there were 26 informants in Washington, D.C., who were dubbed within the FBI as “confidential human sources” or CHSs, Horowitz uncovered no evidence suggesting that any were instructed to join the assault on the Capitol or otherwise encourage illegal activity by members of the pro-Trump mob.
Wait a minute. Weren’t we told this probe was by an “independent watchdog”? Since when is the FBI probing the Justice Department an “independent watchdog”? How bad does that stink?
Next we are told that this supposedly independent probe undercuts “years of baseless claims spread by far-right political figures”.
“Baseless”? Even if the findings of the probe were unbiased and accurate, it doesn’t mean the claims were baseless. “26 informants” on the scene (that’s how many they admit to, who knows if there were more) doing who knows what for who knows why is, to say the very least, a reasonable basis for suspicion.
And then there is ABC’s claim that the only suspicious parties are “far right political figures”. No one other than a far rightist is suspicious? What’s the basis for that claim, which is written not as an opinion but as a fact? Did ABC do a survey of everyone who feels this way? I dare you to come up with one.
I award ABC News Paragraph Of The Day “honors” for showing us what happens when a news organization decides to forego any semblance of actual journalism and “sell” one side of a story.
If ABC purports to be serious about neutral presentation of the news, whoever wrote this, and whichever editor approved, it should be looking for jobs today.
