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Esquire Vaporizes Error-Laden Column and Behold the Lack of Outrage for Its Pushing Misinformation

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Dec 04, 2024
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Stealth Story Evolution – ESQUIRE

  • Are we ever going to acknowledge when this happens, or nah?

Well, the Joe Biden pardon continues to befuddle the media. The latest attempt to squelch any criticism of the move is to dredge up past examples in a dose of whataboutism. The main problem is that the avowed truth experts in the press appear flummoxed by what constitutes a fact.

At Esquire, Charles Pierce wrote a scathing rebuke of anyone daring to criticize the pardon – almost echoing Joe Scarborough’s Springtime defense of Biden’s mental sharpness, profanity and all. Pierce listed off times other presidents had pardoned family members, using that as the impetus to vulgarly tell people to shut the f-up on the matter.

The problem is that in listing off how Jimmy Carter pardoned his brother Billy, and George Bush erased the charges against his son Neil, Mr. Pierce missed one pertinent detail – those pardons never took place. At all.

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Esquire ran corrections on the piece initially but then seemed to realize that, given those examples were the foundation of the entire column, they ended up memory-holing the entire feature. 

What is amazing here is that while the press is currently in a chorus of voices decrying misinformation and people getting their news from disreputable sources, here is the esteemed and approved media delivering the very content they claim to despise. Try to imagine how such a deeply flawed piece can be written, edited, and pass through all the supposed levels of editorial rigor they always tout as their badge of quality, only to make its way to publication and public shame.

Artisanally-Crafted Narratives – NBC NEWS

  • One would think with so many witnesses to this somebody would be bold enough to place their name on it.

The collective attack on Pete Hegseth continues to unfurl in the media. The latest is an NBC News exposé where Fox News employees detail how Hegseth was a perpetual drunk around the network. This sounds like a major story, and NBC reports on it as such. Yet while attributing this to ten current and former employees, none rise to a level beyond “sources say.”

This account of Hegseth’s time at Fox News is based on NBC News interviews with three current and seven former Fox employees, all of whom asked not to be named 

As for the detrimental aspect of the alleged condition of the host, there is this scandalous description of his behavior:

None of the sources with whom NBC News has spoken could recall an instance when Hegseth missed a scheduled appearance because he’d been drinking. 

Presentation Paradox – THE DAILY BEAST

  • Annnnnd, once again the nameless cranks take priority over known individuals going on the record.

At The Daily Beast, they followed up on NBC’s coverage, declaring rather boldly that his “colleagues go public” with tales of his inebriation. If refusing to give your name to your accusation is going public, this is a fractured standard. But what is deeply revealing about this approach by NBC News, The Beast, and all other news outlets covering this story, is that there is a list of noteworthy names from Fox News who work alongside Hegseth and have gone on the record to refute these claims by unknown people with unknown positions and access. 

One of his on-air partners, Will Cain, was rather resolute in his stance contesting the claim.

Both Kinds of Standards – CNN

  • Quite a lot is missed by the media watchdog guy.

Regarding that Esquire fiasco, it remains to be seen if one noted media analyst will ever get around to analyzing the mess. 

BUT – Given the Hegseth issues are concerning a Fox News personality, you knew this would prick up the ears of CNN’s media maven, Brian Stelter. He seemed to feel like he had pinned the network down, given its insufficient amount of coverage of the controversies, according to his expert measurement. 

But this calls into question, then, issues concerning other networks that those networks avoid covering.

Such as CNN.

We have yet to spot Stelter’s coverage of the massive defamation suit that his network is facing, which has been moving through the courts for months.

Glossary Over Things – MSNBC

  • Do dictionaries not exist in media circles?

Molly Jong-Fast has been consistently untethered from reality in her scribblings, and she is among the class of media figures mewling that they will become targeted directly by Donald Trump and sent to jail, camps, or some other such hysterical fantasy.

In other words, she is the perfect guest to appear on the regular at MSNBC. In her latest pearl-clutching baseless rant on her imperiled condition, Ms. Jong-Fast addressed Kash Patel's nomination as potential FBI Director, and then declared that she has experienced Bureau-generated governmental oppression in a “firsthand experience.”

Not only was this something she did not experience directly – it was her grandfather – and Molly could not have “seen” his trauma firsthand or via any other limb, as it took place before she had even been conceived.