2024 was a year of gaslighting — here are the worst media lies

Let’s be blunt: 2024 was the worst year ever for legacy media, and it ain’t even close.

Journalism morphed into blatant activism before our eyes.

We were told things we all witnessed or heard didn’t actually happen.

But Americans knew better, and the gaslighting got increasingly hysterical as the year went on.

Amid the relentless madness, some egregious examples deserve special mention.

And if we staged an annual tournament of media malfeasance and meltdowns, my bracket would peg these as the Final Four of 2024. 

No. 4, “Cheap fakes”:

When President Biden wandered off from a group photo shoot with other world leaders in June during the G-7 summit in Italy, the clip understandably went viral.

The worrisome walkabout followed several instances of Biden shaking hands with the air, sharing conversations he had with long-deceased world leaders and forgetting the names of his own Cabinet members. 

But the media insultingly told us all these videos were actually “cheap fakes.” 

“Some of us are watching long, complete speeches by the president. Others just watching short, out of context clips on social media,” claimed Brian Stelter, CNN’s chief media correspondent at the time.

“Two audiences are seeing two very different reflections.”

The Washington Post pontificated that the “deceptively edited videos” that “misrepresent events simply by manipulating video or audio, or by leaving out context” were “staples of Republican attacks against Biden.” 

Two weeks later, when Biden’s brain turned to applesauce (again) during his debate with Donald Trump, the narrative collapsed. 

No. 3, Policy flip-flops are irrelevant:

Sure, Kamala Harris was on video in 2019 saying she opposed fracking and wanted to ban all offshore drilling.

Sure, she compared ICE agents to the KKK while calling former President Donald Trump’s border wall “medieval.”

And sure, she supported US taxpayer dollars for imprisoned illegal migrants’ sex-change procedures. 

These are all profoundly unpopular positions, so Harris flip-flopped on every one.

G7 leaders Justin Trudeau, Olaf Scholz, Ursula von der Leyen, Charles Michel, Emmanuel Macron, Rishi Sunak, Joe Biden, Giorgia Meloni, and Fumio Kishida, listening to Italian parachutists on a field after a demonstration in Italy. Corbis via Getty Images

But our media insisted that defeating Trump was far more important than questioning or even noting it. 

“In the 2024 election, policy details matter even less than they usually do,” asserted “conservative” Tom Nichols in The Atlantic.

Harris and her running mate Tim Walz “seem to have figured this out.” 

Over at ABC News, Ana Navarro argued that Harris had absolved herself of conflict via limited interviews with ultra-friendly outfits.

“She’s doing ‘The View’ live … She’s doing ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. She’s doing ‘The Howard Stern Show.’ She did ‘60 Minutes’ … She did ‘Call Her Daddy’!” Navarro exclaimed with a straight face.

“What more do you all want?!”

None of the above attempts to explain her new policy positions swayed voters, though.

No. 2, Madison Square Garden rally was an ode to Nazis:

Trump’s October rally at the world’s most famous arena should have been covered as a condensed sequel to the Republican National Convention.

The standing-room-only crowd heard from Trump, J.D. Vance, Elon Musk and a bipartisan cast of supporters.

But the usual suspects in the press maintained its true message was an appeal to Nazism — because Nazis held a rally at MSG 85 years ago. 

No, really. 

The Washington Post headlined it thus: “Another night at the Garden: How Trump’s rally echoed one in 1939; The Trump campaign’s rally in New York mirrored one in the 1930s that was openly supportive of Adolf Hitler — with two dangerous differences.” 

MSNBC anchor Jonathan Capehart rolled footage from that long-ago event as part of his coverage of Trump’s perfectly ordinary campaign appearance.

“That jamboree happening right now, in that place, is particularly chilling, because in 1939, more than 20,000 supporters of a different fascist leader — Adolf Hitler — packed the Garden for a so-called ‘pro-America rally,’” Capehart intoned.

Considering Trump’s staunch support of Israel and Democrats’ four-time use of the Garden for their own national conventions, these takes were simply pathetic. 

No. 1, Sexism and racism caused Kamala’s loss:

Former Obama strategist David Axelrod on CNN: “There is racial bias in this country, and there is sexism in this country, and anybody who thinks that that did not in any way impact on the outcome of this race is wrong.”

Sunny Hostin on “The View”: “It’s very difficult for people to believe racism and misogyny, they’re just alive and well. My lived experience tells me that it does still exist … The facts support that.”

What’s weird about this argument is this: If sexism and racism led to Harris’ loss, why was she roundly rejected by Democratic voters in 2019? Were they racist and sexist too? 

All these examples, and many others from throughout 2024, are the reason why trusting the legacy media today is as popular as gas-station sushi: Americans just don’t buy it. 

It will only continue to get worse until the industry makes wholesale changes that put journalism ahead of activism.

Joe Concha is the author of “Progressively Worse: Why Today’s Democrats Ain’t Your Daddy’s Donkeys.”