Tag Archives: Pulitzer Prize

The Cover Story Never Made Sense

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In September 2022, the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines were blown up. The mainstream media claimed that the Russians had blown them up. This never made any sense–it was a source of income for Russia. There was speculation in some media outlets that in fact the United States was responsible (the claim was that the United States was the only country with the technology to blow up the pipeline). Well, it looks as if the truth might have stumbled out.

On Saturday, Fox News reported:

A former senior Ukrainian official was the coordinator of the explosions that ruptured the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines, the Washington Post reported, citing Ukrainian officials and European sources, and in conjunction with German periodical Der Spiegel.

Roman Chervinsky, a former commander of one of the Ukrainian special forces units, was the “coordinator of the Nord Stream operation” and managed a six-person team that carried out the devastating multibillion-dollar infrastructure attack in September 2022, according to the report.

The outlet said Chervinsky and the group of six people rented a sailboat under false identities and used deep-sea diving equipment to place explosive charges on the gas pipelines. 

Chervinsky did not act alone and did not plan the operation, but was obeying the orders of high-ranking officers who ultimately answered to Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer, Valery Zaluzhny, the Post said, citing people familiar with his role.

That makes sense. Blowing up the pipelines was one way to limit Russia’s income from fossil fuel revenue.

The article also notes:

In February, Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, alleged that U.S. Navy divers laid bombs that destroyed the Nord Stream 2 pipeline under a direct order from President Joe Biden. 

The Seymour Hersh article reminds us that even Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists don’t always get the story right. The article makes no comment on who might have encouraged Ukraine to blow up the pipelines, so it is possible that the United States bears part of the responsibility.

I Guess The Truth No Longer Matters In Reporting

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On Monday, Breitbart reported that Pulitzer Prize Board would not be rescinding its Pulitzer Prizes given to The New York Times and The Washington Post for its reporting on the Russia hoax. Evidently the fact that the awards were given for articles that later proved to be false did not enter into the decision.

The article notes:

These inquiries prompted the Pulitzer Board to commission two independent reviews of the work submitted by those organizations to our National Reporting competition,” the board continued before announcing the establishment media outlets will keep their prizes.

“The separate reviews converged in their conclusions: that no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes,” the board claimed.

In total, 20 articles were challenged with formal complaints. All 20 were ruled factual by the Pulitzer Prize Board. The questioned articles include the following titles:

    • FBI was to pay author of Trump dossier (WaPo)
    • Trump reveals secret intelligence to Russians (WaPo)
    • Trump crafted son’s statement on Russian contact (WaPo)
    • Trump’s Son Heard of Link To Moscow Before Meeting  (NYT)
    • Emails Disclose Trump Son’s Glee At Russian Offer (NYT)
    • Unlikely Source Propelled Russian Meddling Inquiry (NYT)
    • Undisclosed On Forms, Kushner Met 2 Russians (NYT)

Despite claims by Democrats and establishment media reports that former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, those claims were found to be baseless. In March of 2019, the Mueller report found no evidence Donald Trump colluded with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

So if I report that there is a tyrannosaurus rex in my backyard and it’s Trump’s fault, and I win a Pulitzer Prize for my report, I don’t have to give back the Prize when it turns out the report is false? Wow. Journalism has taken some interesting turns lately.

 

Occasionally The Fake News Gets Called Out

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The Washington Examiner posted an article today about a recent award given to The New York Times for their podcast series “Caliphate.”

The article reports:

The paper of record announced this weekend that Caliphate, its award-winning 10-part podcast series on the Islamic State, contains “significant falsehoods and other discrepancies.”

The disclosure concludes an internal investigation launched this year after Canadian officials charged the podcast’s central narrative character with lying about his supposed involvement with the terrorist group.

Absent the testimony of the accused hoaxer, Canadian resident Shehroze Chaudhry, who spoke to the New York Times under the pseudonym “Abu Huzayfah,” there is not much left to the Caliphate podcast. Indeed, the show’s most gripping and grizzly “reporting” on ISIS’s operations in Syria relied entirely on the say-so of a supposed “executioner” who most likely has never even been to Syria.

“We fell in love with the fact that we had gotten a member of ISIS who would describe his life in the caliphate and would describe his crimes,” New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet explained this week in an interview with NPR.

The article concludes:

Caliphate won the 2018 Peabody Award. The New York Times has already returned it. The Overseas Press Club has also rescinded the podcast’s Lowell Thomas Award.

Man, what a year for the paper of record.

From publishing Chinese communist propaganda, to getting it wrong on coronavirus vaccine readiness, to losing top opinion editors following a temper tantrum thrown by newsroom staffers, to having nearly its entire bench of columnists suffer a collective nervous breakdown ahead of Election Day, to pretending still as if its fraudulent 1619 Project is not an abject embarrassment, 2020 has been as lousy a year for the New York Times as it has been for everyone else.

Actually, this was a careless, innocent mistake. I can’t say the same for much of their other reporting. They have never done a fair job of reporting on President Trump, and they did their best to convince people that Joe Biden was capable of handling the office of president. I really don’t feel sad that they had to give up their Peabody Award. They should also give up the Pulitzer Prize they won for their false reporting on the Russia hoax during and after the 2016 presidential campaign.