It is worrisome to me, as it should be to all Americans, how much “intelligence” and facts President Trump seems to get from Fox News. As a result, when they get it wrong, he gets it wrong, but not before he tweets out his error to his followers and the news media. Rather than rely on perhaps one of the best intelligence services on the planet (ours), Mr. Trump relies on Fox News to tell him what is going on in the world. As a case in point, Mr. Trump tweeted the following 25 minutes after seeing a story on Fox News:
The Failing New York Times foiled U.S. attempt to kill the single most wanted terrorist,Al-Baghdadi.Their sick agenda over National Security
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2017
The problem is that the Fox News story is a Fake News story which was only updated with an addendum (no correction) on their web site after the New York Times called out Fox News after their journalistic failure.
The truth of the matter is that The Times printed an article on June 8, 2015, about an American military raid in Syria that led to the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s key lieutenant Abu Sayyaf, and the capture of his wife, Umm Sayyaf , who played an important role in the group. The raid took place on May 16, 2015 and the Pentagon announced on the same day that the raid had taken place and that Umm Sayyaf had been detained. To recap: The New York Times published a story based on a Pentagon press release on May 16, 2015 and a follow-up story 23 days later based on the raid details in the original Pentagon release.
So how did Fox News get it so wrong? In my opinion, they heard what they wanted to hear and stopped listening. On July 21, 2017, the Aspen Institute hosted a conference in which General Raymond “Tony” Thomas, Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command spoke on the topic of SOCOM: Policing the World. The conference was moderated by Catherine Herridge, Chief Intelligence Correspondent for Fox News. So that’s the source of the Fox News story. The General’s remarks are below.
As for how they got the story content wrong, well that’s a different tale. That’s poor reporting. In relating the story of the raid, General Thomas didn’t get the time element right nor did he identify the national newspaper as The New York Times. Fox News did that the next day on their own repeatedly identifying the paper as the failing New York Times (just as the President refers to them). No one at Fox News bothered to research or question General Thomas’ timeline of events. If they had exercised the least little bit of journalistic discretion they would have immediately seen the error in Thomas’ statement and provided an opportunity for Thomas to correct the record which the General would have gladly done.
So the bottom line is that The New York Times didn’t foil any attempt to kill/ capture Baghdadi. However, Fox News did mislead their viewers and the President with a story that was poorly researched in an effort to clearly curry favor with the current administration. I can only hope that the President will not continue to rely on Fox News for his intelligence information – but I know that he will. The New York Times article is here.
You see, we have found the Fake News the President complains about and it is the Fox News Channel.