The false link between Amy Coney Barrett and The Handmaid’s Tale, explained

One of the weirder ways this debate has played out since Barrett was first discussed as a potential Supreme Court nominee is the fight over whether or not People of Praise, the group of which she is a member, is also one of the inspirations for The Handmaid’s Tale. In Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel (and its recent TV adaptation), fertile women are forced to live as childbearing slaves called handmaids. The book isn’t an established inspiration — but the story has developed legs anyway.

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The phrase “debate begins” in the headlines of multiple stories on coronavirus does not mean sneaky journalists copy-pasted a press release

If you encounter the same story on different news sites, that does not mean you caught sneaky America-hating fake news “journalists” in the act. A meme I recently encountered shows three slightly different coronavirus headlines, all of which use the phrase “debate begins.” Text shared along with the meme suggests the repetition means the story is a copy-pasted press release. I did some simple Googling. You can follow the links…

Fact check: Biden ad misleadingly suggests Trump called Covid-19 a ‘hoax’

CNN fact-checks a misleading Biden ad, which edited a Trump speech to make it look like he called coronavirus a Democratic hoax. To be clear, Trump’s informal and freewheeling style of speaking at rallies often leaves his exact meaning hard to pin down. But I agree with CNN that this ad misrepresents Trump’s intentions.   Here’s what Trump actually said: Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus — you know…

Meme alleging Trump said “Africans Are Lazy, Good at Sex, Theft” is a hoax

I’ve seen this meme shared by several FB friends in the past few days. It’s clearly a hoax. It was created by someone who wasn’t trained as a journalist. The body of the story doesn’t even include the quotes that are mentioned in the headline. (The head says Trump said “Africans are lazy,” but in the body of the article he is talking about “African Americans.” The terms are not…

If you think I’m wrong that the media fairly covered the Cannon Hinnant murder, but you’re still reading, then I welcome you.

Plenty of news organizations have reported on the tragic case of a white boy who was murdered while riding his bicycle. One must ignore easily verifiable opposing evidence to claim that “the media” are universally ignoring this story. It’s even more unhinged to latch upon the conspiracy theory that the reason for this (non-existent) lack of coverage is that the media organizations are unified in their intention to control a…