The Worst Journalism of the Year – THE TOWNHALL 50 2024, Part 1: #31-50
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With the dawning of a new calendar, it is time for us to look back at the worst offerings from the press industry over the last year: It is that special time for The Townhall 50, our measurement of the worst journalists seen in 2024. This was no breezy task.
While our media industrial complex has been in a state of meltdown for years, in various facets, the past year was shown to be a watershed time. The news outlets of this country were brazen in the fashion they departed from standard journalism ethics, unbiased presentation of the facts, and willingly behaved in a truly activist fashion. They shielded President Joe Biden from criticism of his mental decline for six months, were uncritical in the fashion he was dispatched from the Democratic presidential ticket, boosted his replacement through the rewriting of Vice President Kamala Harriss' history and propping up her campaign, and were entirely incapable of looking at the Trump-Vance ticket in an objective fashion.
So, we had to be more discerning this year in applying our deeply stringent arbitrary measurement. To measure the degraded quality, we looked at elements such as the bulk of work, the level of influence an individual has, and the impacted practice of journalism tactics. As such, it was possible that the worse one behaved, the lower they became on the list, as their credibility eroded and made their voice less valid.
Now, it is time to descend into the media swamp and roll out the first entry of our list, as we count our way down to the worst in journalism from 2024.
50. Max Boot – Washington Post: The columnist who has written the same anti-Trump screed for years cracked our list by degrading himself in special fashion. Boot placed himself firmly into irrelevance when, after years of carping that Donald Trump operates as an unregistered foreign agent for Russia, it was discovered Boot's wife was indicted for that very crime over her lobbying on behalf of South Korea. She wrote a number of columns in outlets on the subject, including one together with Max. When speaking with Jonathan Capehart about Trump’s chances of victory, it does not dawn on Boot, the ardent Never Trumper, how lacking in influence he has become on the issue. He also released a book explaining how he no longer reveres former President Ronald Reagan as a political titan.
49. Ciara O'Rourke – PolitiFact: The dependably slanted O'Rourke is a regular source of fractured fact-checks on the site. She saw the need to correct a joke post from The Babylon Bee about Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. She showed a post about sunflowers avoiding the sun because it is not real to be (get this) false. She disproved another Babylon Bee gag about dying of the Chicago River red to honor abortion for the Democratic National Convention. That was apparently needed to counter the social media account with under 100 followers.
48. Steve Peoples – Associated Press: The AP campaign correspondent lets his hack flag fly on the regular. He said Speaker Mike Johnson commenting on the Trump trial was going to “tear down the judicial system.” Biden lobbying the courts at the same time was no such threat. He called the comedian at the MSG rally telling off-color jokes an “ally on stage.” Best of all, at a Harris campaign event, Steve appeared to be okay with the Harris camp holding reporters in a pen, until he was “allowed” out to speak with voters.
47. Matt Viser – Washington Post: Following the disastrous debate performance, the WaPo cheerleader for the White House gave out Joe’s excuse for his meltdown being a result of extensive travel ahead of the debate. Matt ignored Biden had returned 10 days prior and took naps during his week of debate prep. The longtime Biden sympathizer was, while most in the press denied Joe would pardon his son, paving the way to make excuses for him doing so. When James Biden testified on behalf of his brother, there was Viser detailing his claims without challenging them.
46. Bill Weir – CNN: A day before the election, CNN’s in-house climate guru compared Kamala to Presidents Abe Lincoln and Reagan in regards to saving the planet, and days later,
© Townhall
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