Unsurprisingly, the most egregious examples of the media regurgitating right-wing talking points on gas prices often come from Fox News. White House reporter Peter Doocy has parroted oil industry talking points at White House briefings and insinuated that the administration is being dishonest about the cause of inflation. (Disclosure: I am an MSNBC contributor.) It’s increasingly obvious to those outside the right-wing bubble that the “news” side of Fox often serves as a content provider for the MAGA propaganda machine.
But the rest of the White House press corps and cable TV news outlets also habitually repeat GOP talking points on energy, even as reliable print media debunks them. Headlines such as “GOP blames Biden for gas prices after pushing for Russian oil ban” on ABC News’s website serve to amplify false claims. Politico’s “Biden blames Putin for inflation. GOP blames Biden.” might be the perfect distillation of bothsidesism. And NBC’s “Republicans cheer Russian oil ban and jeer Biden for rising gas prices” epitomizes coverage that treats the topic as a contest of partisan claims.
We know Republicans’ claims are untrue. The Post’s fact-checker Glenn Kessler awarded four Pinocchios to an ad from former vice president Mike Pence that “tries to make two distinct statements — Biden canceled the Keystone pipeline and Russian imports of oil reached a high under Biden — but it does so in a way that virtually all viewers are going to think the two are connected.”
Likewise,...
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