Members of the news media are all-too-eager this week to share a viral tweet insinuating Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell enriched himself by abusing his position in Congress.
It is an easily debunked conspiracy theory — and it has been debunked, as even the most basic Google search reveals. But leave it to members of the press to amplify a thinly sourced, already addressed smear against a Republican.
This particularly stupid episode starts with an obscure Twitter user, “Akki,” whose bio reads: “21 // Animal Lover // Enjoys Politics // Follow me for quality tweets❤️ // #resist.” This person tweeted on July 31:
2005: $2,962,015
2015: $26,927,535
Increase: $23,965,520 (+809.1%)
How does a senator earning $193,400 a year increase their net worth by nearly $2.4 million a year, every year for a decade?
Sen. Mitch McConnell’s net worth:
2005: $2,962,015
2015: $26,927,535
Increase: $23,965,520 (+809.1%)How does a senator earning $193,400 a year increase their net worth by nearly $2.4 million a year, every year for a decade?
— Akki (@akkitwts) July 31, 2019
There is a simple, nonconspiratorial answer to the tweet’s obvious insinuation: The senator’s mother-in-law died in 2007, leaving a considerable fortune to McConnell’s wife, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao. This is basic, public knowledge, and has been since the last time McConnell foes questioned where his family got its wealth.
As of this writing, “Akki’s” tweet, which is either enormously lazy or intentionally misleading, has been shared by more than 30,000 social media users. Sadly, the people sharing it include top-tier news media personalities, who absolutely should know better. After all, they are up to their necks every day in cautionary news reports warning of the spread of misinformation on social media.
“Excellent question, [Senate Majority Leader],” tweeted MSNBC host and conspiracy enthusiast Joy Reid.
The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof took a break from spreading North Korean agitprop to spread anti-GOP agitprop, tweeting in response to “Akki’s” nonsense, “McConnell, your response or explanation?” Kristof at least deleted the tweet later.
“[T]his sounds like a job for” Washington Post investigative reporter Dave Fahrenthold, tweeted former Time magazine editor-in-chief John Huey. Really?
Atlantic contributor Marie Lee asked, “drug running as side hustle, Koch brothers, dark $ – who paid off [Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s] debt?”
NBC News analyst Howard Fineman, who is still sore that people made fun of Maureen Dowd’s cocktail party, not only shared “Akki’s” conspiracy theory, but also gave it his own unique twist.
“Actually, he gets his personal money not from #Putin cronies, but from his very #XiJinping-connected family. So he’s bipartisan,” he said.
This is actually worse than merely falling for the lie, which Fineman knows it is not true. Rather than correct the record, he amplified it with an additional layer of conspiracy.
Luckily, not everyone in the news media is so willing to throw themselves on idiot hand grenades for the sake of sticking it to the Republicans. Decent journalists, including Bloomberg News’ Sahil Kapur and Politico’s Jake Sherman, were quick to note that dupes like Reid and Kristof were sharing a conspiracy theory that had been debunked long ago.
But look — many supposedly intelligent, in-the-know, well-versed-in-online-hoaxes media personalities rushed immediately to amplify a fake claim from an obscure Twitter user without so much as Googling whether it was true. After all, if you cannot trust a random, 21-year-old, animal-loving Twitter “Resister,” who can you trust?
It really tells you something about our media culture, does it not?
