{"id":118170,"date":"2021-02-04T17:21:56","date_gmt":"2021-02-04T22:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=118170"},"modified":"2021-02-04T17:27:43","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T22:27:43","slug":"snopes-posts-bogus-pro-aoc-fact-check-ends-up-exposing-its-left-wing-bias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/snopes-posts-bogus-pro-aoc-fact-check-ends-up-exposing-its-left-wing-bias\/","title":{"rendered":"Snopes Posts Bogus Pro-AOC \u2018Fact Check,\u2019 Ends Up Exposing Its Left-Wing Bias"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsnopes-posts-bogus-pro-aoc-fact-check-ends-up-exposing-its-left-wing-bias%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=118170&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-1198921154-1200x800-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span>Fact-checking site Snopes published a supposed<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snopes.com\/fact-check\/aoc-capitol-attack\/\"><span>report<\/span><\/a> <span>on Feb. 3 titled \u201cDid AOC Exaggerate the Danger She Was in During Capitol Riot?\u201d This title was immediately followed by the heading \u201cAOC was targeted with another round of bad-faith smears after giving an emotional, firsthand account of her experiences during the Capitol riot,\u201d clearly indicating the tone and premise of the \u201cfact check,\u201d which quickly demonstrates its overt left-wing bias.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Bethania Palma of Snopes begins by presenting the claim to be investigated:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em><span>Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez exaggerated the danger she was in during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, in that she \u201cwasn\u2019t even in the Capitol building\u201d when the rioting occurred.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>This claim \u2014 Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s alleged \u201cexaggeration\u201d of the danger based on her distance from the rioting \u2014 Palma concluded, deserves a \u201cMostly False\u201d rating. Palma sums up her conclusions about \u201cwhat\u2019s true\u201d and \u201cwhat\u2019s false\u201d (formatting adjusted):<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>As its rationale for calling the claim \u201cMostly False,\u201d Snopes points to the irrelevant fact that her nearby building was evacuated by police. In other words, the \u201cexaggeration\u201d element of the claim was left unanswered, and the location element of the claim was manipulated in order to achieve the \u201cMostly False\u201d rating.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Throughout the piece, Palma repeatedly exposes her own bias in favor of Ocasio-Cortez and against her critics on the right.&nbsp;<\/span><span>After presenting a straightforward account of the events \u2014 Ocasio-Cortez using Instagram Live to \u201crelay her personal account of how the events of that day had traumatized her,\u201d and the various themes of assault, survival and trauma raised by the Congresswoman \u2014 Palma suddenly invokes \u201cthe right-wing disinformation machine\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em><span>It took less than 48 hours for the right-wing disinformation machine to contrive a way to minimize what Ocasio-Cortez said she had experienced.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>Palma then manipulates the claim in question to slander those who pointed out counter-evidence that she was not actually in the Capitol building, as the \u201cfact-checker\u201d has already admitted was true.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cIn a circus of cyberbullying that began on Feb. 3, 2021, conservative news outlets and social media conspiracy trolls latched on to the misleading claim that Ocasio-Cortez \u2018wasn\u2019t in the Capitol building\u2019 and therefore was not in harm\u2019s way, as she had described in the Instagram video,\u201d Palma continued.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cRight-wing disinformation machine.\u201d \u201cContrive a way to minimize.\u201d \u201cCircus of cyberbullying.\u201d \u201cLatched on to the misleading claim.\u201d Each of these twists the supposedly objective investigation in the favor of Ocastio-Cortez, while failing to provide any evidence to support such strong accusations or to remain focused on proving or disproving the supposed central claim of the article.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Palma also made the unsubstantiated and false assumption that pushing back on Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s account \u2014 specifically regarding the danger she was in \u2014 was unquestionably invalid by nature of the fact that Ocasio-Cortez was not in the building under direct attack. This disregards the obvious point that proximity to danger is an appropriate metric to consider when measuring imminent threats.<\/p>\n<p><span>Along with RedState, Snopes chose to take aim at The Daily Wire, which chronicled the controversy in a Feb. 3 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/report-aoc-was-not-inside-capitol-building-during-breach-on-jan-6\">report<\/a> originally titled \u201cReport: AOC Was Not Inside Capitol Building During Breach On Jan. 6\u201d (later updated to include Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s response to RedState: \u201cReport: AOC Was Not Inside Capitol Building During Breach; AOC Responds: Report \u2018Manipulative.\u2019\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The first part of Daily Wire\u2019s supposedly problematic title is almost word-for-word Snopes\u2019 own conclusion that \u201cOcasio-Cortez wasn\u2019t in the main Capitol building.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span>The Daily Wire\u2019s report, mischaracterized by Snopes as \u201cright-wing disinformation\u201d and part of a \u201ccircus of cyberbullying,\u201d was devoid of any accusation or subjective assertion. Instead, the piece simply reported that Republican Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) had criticized the media for fanning \u201cfictitious news flames,\u201d referenced a RedState report which accurately \u2014 by Snopes\u2019 own admission \u2014 described the location of Ocasio-Cortez, and that Rep. Mace had claimed that there were never any rioters in their immediate proximity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The Daily Wire report also discussed Newsweek\u2019s coverage of Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s recollection of events, with Rep. Mace criticizing Newsweek \u2014 not Ocasio-Cortez \u2014 for misleading language. Finally, the updated report concluded by directly quoting Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s response to such accusations, which the Congresswoman described as \u201cthe latest manipulative take on the right\u201d and part of a \u201cdiscrediting campaign.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The majority of the remainder of Palma\u2019s article is dedicated to mimicking \u2014 without question or journalistic interest \u2014 Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s subjective interpretation of every negative reaction to both her account and the media\u2019s portrayal of her account and the related events.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cOcasio-Cortez was attacked on social media with bad-faith attempts to discredit her story by people who falsely claimed she exaggerated the danger she was in because she wasn\u2019t actually inside the main Capitol building where the House and Senate chambers are located,\u201d writes Palma.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Palma fails to justify why such attempts were \u201cbad-faith,\u201d uses the word \u201cdiscredit\u201d \u2014 mirroring Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s own language \u2014 and then states that it was false to argue that she \u201cexaggerated the danger she was in,\u201d again without any evidence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThe online attacks on Ocasio-Cortez downplayed, from a safe distance, not only the sense of fear she felt in the moment during the attack on the Capitol, but also the imminent physical danger that she and others in and around the Capitol really were in during the attack,\u201d Palma continued.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cAttacks.\u201d \u201cDownplayed.\u201d \u201cFrom a safe distance.\u201d Palma \u2014 a supposedly objective fact-checker \u2014 presumes that any criticism is simply an \u201conline attack.\u201d In addition, Palma disregards the personal account of another Congresswoman at the scene in her bid to play a subtle logical trick.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The original claim focused on whether Ocasio-Cortez \u201cexaggerated the danger she was in.\u201d The feeling of danger is subjective and abstract, while the reality of danger is objective and concrete. Palma, however, intentionally blurred feeling and reality to reach the desired conclusion, referencing the irrelevant \u201csense of fear\u201d felt in the moment with the unsubstantiated \u201cimminent physical danger\u201d Ocasio-Cortez and others were in, having previously referenced that \u201cthe office buildings and the main Capitol building are<\/span> <span>interconnected<\/span> <span>by a series of tunnels known as the Capitol Subway System,\u201d and that Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s building \u2014 Cannon House \u2014 was one of the buildings evacuated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Snopes attempts to debunk the \u201cexaggeration of danger\u201d claim by referencing Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s \u201csense of fear\u201d and that her building was connected to the Capitol building, which was under attack. While this makes it possible that insurrectionists <em>could<\/em> have accessed her building, it makes the false implication that they <em>did<\/em> access her building. Whether or not rioters had accessed her building is the sole factor which matters when measuring the physical danger Ocasio-Cortez was in. Since rioters had not accessed her building, she was under no imminent physical threat.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Revisiting the original claim, <span>\u201cAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez exaggerated the danger she was in during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, in that she \u2018wasn\u2019t even in the Capitol building\u2019 when the rioting occurred,\u201d there are only two appropriate ratings which any honest journalist could reach. First, that this claim is true. Second, that this claim is mostly true, with the \u201cexaggeration\u201d element impossible to judge given its emotional and subjective definition.<\/span> <span>To conclude this claim is \u201cMostly False\u201d is an act of intellectual dishonesty.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Unfortunately, such a demonstration of disreputable subjectivity with a shameless level of bias is not new in the world of fact-checking. Snopes, like many of their competitors, are routinely referenced by mainstream media outlets as objective sources of truth. \u201cFact-checks\u201d like this debunk the obviously incorrect notion that organizations like Snopes are in any way objective. Palma wrote this article to manipulate the evidence available to her to achieve a politically-advantageous conclusion, all while slandering \u201cright-wing\u201d voices and outlets as guilty of spreading disinformation, even when merely reporting on the same evidence to which she had access.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>What Snopes has just demonstrated once again is that the self-styled \u201cfact-checkers\u201d are in desperate need of some heavy fact-checking. Given that a search for \u201cleft-wing disinformation\u201d on their website returns no results, but \u201cright-wing disinformation\u201d has been used twice this year alone, it seems that fact-checking Snopes for objectivity might not be necessary.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Ian Haworth is an Editor and Writer for The Daily Wire. Follow him on Twitter at&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ighaworth\"><em>@ighaworth<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\">&nbsp;<em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fact-checking site Snopes published a supposed report on Feb. 3 titled \u201cDid AOC Exaggerate the Danger She Was in During Capitol Riot?\u201d This title was immediately followed by the heading &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1892666,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[5332,5335,4638,5330,5333,5329],"class_list":["post-118170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bogus","tag-check","tag-ends","tag-posts","tag-pro-aoc","tag-snopes"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1892666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}