Table of Contents
Christian Toto
The Babylon Bee lives rent free in the minds of too many journalists.
How else do you describe constant fact checks on a site that churns out satirical news stories a la The Onion?
USA Today once fact checked a Bee piece saying President Joe Biden sold Alaska to Russia. PolitiFact ran to the scene after a Bee article claimed, “ISIS Lays Down Arms After Katy Perry’s Impassioned Plea To ‘Like, Just Co-Exist’.”
Snopes routinely holds the Bee accountable for creating fake-news stories meant to make us laugh and think.
Now, it’s Reuters’ turn.
The once-neutral outlet reached out to the Bee’s editor-in-chief, Kyle Mann, to see if the site’s story about ballot boxes being placed along the US-Mexico border was true.
Mann shared the back-and-forth exchange with his X followers.
His response?
We went down to the border and took that picture. So it’s true. Hope this helps.
Mann kept the running gag alive days later.
And it’s not the first time Reuters fact checked the Bee.
In 2021 it assured readers that a Bee story saying Rep. Nancy Pelosi “Thanks Millions of Babies For Sacrificing Their Lives For Women’s Rights” wasn’t accurate.
Reuters also targets other right-leaning voices over satirical posts.
Does anyone remember a fact checking organization treating The Onion the same way? It, too, serves up fake news stories for satirical effect. (The fact that it’s no longer funny and can’t speak truth to power when Democrats are in charge is a separate matter.)
If examples do exist, please share them in the comments section below.
Do fact checkers ever keep Stephen Colbert honest? Jimmy Kimmel? “Saturday Night Live?”
Actually, some fact checkers did correct “SNL” once. The show dared to mock President Barack Obama, and journalists snapped into action.
There’s a method to the corrupt media’s war on The Babylon Bee and, to a lesser extent, conservative humor.
Facebook once flagged a Bee story saying CNN purchased an industrial-sized washing machine to spin the news as “misinformation.”
Why does that matter?
Social media giants lean on so-called ‘fact checkers’ to make sure they’re sharing trustworthy information on their platforms. Share enough ‘misinformation,’ and a site like The Babylon Bee could get purged from social media giants.
That would directly impact the company’s bottom line. The Bee generates revenue via traffic streams, and Facebook users aggressively post and share their stories.
Fact Checks Won’t Keep the ‘Big Guy’ Honest
There’s a much bigger problem afoot.
Fact checkers too often ignore the current Commander-in-Chief, a leader whose trail of whoppers could circumvent the planet.
So what DOES Reuters fact check?
Here’s a sample of recent fact checks from the news outlet taken from the last seven days.
Time Magazine’s 1938 ‘Man of the Year’ choice not a Hitler endorsement
Posts don’t show evidence of ‘fraudulent’ Maricopa County mail-in ballots
Fabricated Rep. Greene post about shutting down government is parody
N.Y. Governor did not threaten to seize trucker bank accounts, homes
Report on Disney’s Cinderella Castle burning down stems from satire
Posts on Keanu Reeves refusal to present award to Whoopi Goldberg stem from satire
Note: This reporter typed in, “Biden Reuters Fact Check” into Google. The first page of results all showed checks that defended Biden. None of the first-page results featured stories fact checking his statements.
Why burn so many calories with fact checks tackling conservative comedy? It’s simple.
Comedy matters.
It’s why late-night programs avoid mocking Democrats and skewer Republicans. The right sketch, joke or punch line can leave viewers feeling differently about a candidate or political position.
It also explains why liberal fact checkers select certain targets over others. For them, holding the Bee accountable sometimes matters more than keeping the leader of the free world honest.
