LA Times Damages Credibility Covering San Bernardino Shooting, Several Outlets Followed Suit

Why The Washington Times, Mediate, and FOX News Followed LA Times Right Off the Cliff

Every now and then we get to report a story featuring the story-makers that underscores why People’s Pundit Daily was founded several years ago. That is, the truth is truly a commodity in modern American politics. Some of this–well, most of it–is due to cultural and institutional bias in journalistic academia that fills future ranks in the Fourth Estate. However, some stories underscore another reason the American “mainstream” media have become untrustworthy–organizational bias.

Organizational bias, which is a fancy name we at PPD use for what used to be known as a “boys club,” comes in part from competition. They simply do not like company in the industry, no matter how legitimate that organization’s reporting proves to be.

When reports of the deadly San Bernardino shooting first started trickling in on Wednesday, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith repeatedly cited the LA Times as “the most credible source we have” to bring the latest details to consumers. However, that’s not really the truth. While Fox News bills itself as the conservative alternative to an otherwise liberal-dominated media, the fact is that they don’t like company in their field of business anymore than the leftwing members of the Fourth Estate.

Let’s take a look at some of the fine reporting from the Gold Standard of West Coast journalism, as Shepard Smith made them out.

Rick Serrano, a LA Times reporter who covers the FBI in his crime and justice beat, tweeted out a completely erroneous report regarding the name of one of the suspects in Wednesday’s apparent terror attack.

Notice how Serrano alleges that the police gave him that information, i.e. the suspect was a citizen from Qatar (he’s is not) and his name is Tayyeep Bin Ardogan (it isn’t). His tweet implies he just got off the phone with one of his beat sources, but he didn’t. In fact, Serrano simply copied and pasted the erroneous report word-for-word from some random Twitter account he saw, and it was noticed by another Twitter user/journalist.

They decided, for good measure, to put up Serrano’s tweet side-by-side with another that had posted the erroneous information five hours earlier. Rather than check on the information, The Washington Times (right) and Mediate (left) just ran with Serrano’s tweet, despite its factual inconsistencies.

Coincidentally, shortly after the Paris terror attacks two weeks ago, PPD broke the story with witnesses confirming the shooters yelled “Allah Akbar” as they sprayed down the Bataclan. Shepard, the resident liberal at Fox was also on the air as that attack unfolded. Ironically, he dismissed the report without even naming it, stating instead his team was not able to confirm it through “credible” sources.

Then again, unfortunately for Mr. Smith, we didn’t mess this up like his outlet did. Cue Fox News…

Times spokeswoman Hillary Manning has since told TheBlaze the mistake was shared with “relevant editors” and the LA Times were “trying to determine the original source of the apparent hoax.”

Don’t hold your breathe.

For the record, police confirmed the two suspects in the San Bernardino shooting, which killed 14 and injured 17, are Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27.

Further, San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said authorities are “pretty comfortable” Farook and Malik, who were killed in a shootout with police Wednesday afternoon, were the only two shooters in the attack.