During live special coverage Monday afternoon of memorial services for late President George H.W. Bush, a panel of NBC News journalists noted many of Bush’s foreign policy accomplishments before Nightly News anchor Lester Holt observed: “But what brought him down politically, and brought his presidency down, was not a foreign policy issue it was a sense that he was not connected to the American people.”
Holt then recalled a false story from the 1992 presidential campaign: “I mean, we all remember the infamous milk scanning in the – ” Both correspondent Andrea Mitchell and Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd quickly corrected him. Mitchell explained: “Which was actually a false [story]….It was misreported by the reporter at the scene.” Todd added: “As they might say today, fake news.”
Today show host Savannah Guthrie chimed in: “It was misreported, but it still it ended up in the obituaries.” Holt continued: “Yeah, it ended up in the obituary. And it was used to perceive that label.” Todd agreed: “A reminder of perception.”
In fact, obituaries of the 41st President by both the Associated Press and The New York Times repeated that “fake news” as if it were fact.- READ MORE