Byron York notes “a new tone in straight-news general election reporting on Trump.” Sounds exciting! Let’s check out the New York Times first:
Mr. Trump carefully read his remarks from a teleprompter and offered more detail than his stump speeches generally contain, but his speech was still rife with the sort of misstatements and exaggerations that have typified his campaign.
He repeatedly stretched the facts, for example, in describing the United States as overrun by dangerous migrants. He claimed the country has an “immigration system which does not permit us to know who we let into our country,” brushing aside the entire customs and immigration enforcement infrastructure. And he asserted that there was a “tremendous flow” of Syrian refugees, when just 2,805 of them were admitted into the country from October to May, fewer than one-third of the 10,000 Syrians President Obama said the United States would accept this fiscal year. Mr. Trump described the gunman in the Orlando shooting as “an Afghan,” though he was born an American citizen in New York City to parents who had emigrated from Afghanistan to the United States over three decades ago.
In a speech laden with falsehoods and exaggeration, Trump was antagonistic and pugnacious, in stark contrast with his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, who also spoke Monday about combating terrorism….Trump’s address contained a number of inaccuracies and overstatements. Among other things, he wrongly claimed that Clinton wanted to abolish the Second Amendment; said the United States is “not screening” refugees, who undergo a rigorous vetting program that can take two years or more; and said the New York-born shooter was born “an Afghan, of Afghan parents who immigrated to the United States.”
I’m sorry to report that the LA Times didn’t follow suit. They should. I know it’s not much in the face of Trump’s tsunami of lying, but the job of the press is to tell the truth. They should do it, regardless of whether it makes much difference or not.
