Newsbud Gives NBC a Deadline of Monday, July 25, 2016, to issue a public explanation & retraction
On July 15, 2016, as an attempted coup was unfolding in Turkey, a rumor began circulating that Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had fled the country and was seeking asylum in Germany. According to various articles and news sites, the report originated from NBC. Frequently cited was a tweet by Kyle Griffin stating “Senior US military source tells NBC News that Erdogan, refused landing rights in Istanbul, is reported to be seeking asylum in Germany.” This tweet appears to be the earliest mention on Twitter that this asylum claim came from NBC.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Kyle Griffin is a Segment Producer for The Last Word at MSNBC. Griffin’s tweet was retweeted nearly 3,000 times, and was used as a source in many reports put out on July 15, 2016 as the attempted coup was taking place.
On July 19, 2016, Newsbud released a video and call to action to confront NBC and MSNBC regarding this claim that President Erdogan was seeking asylum in Germany. Griffin was repeatedly asked on Twitter, in numerous tweets, about his source of information for his claim in his July 15, 2016 tweet. He blocked those who asked rather than tweeting a response or explanation. The original July 15, 2016 tweet appears to have now been removed.
It is certainly possible that this was a mistake, or even a careless joke. Mistakes happen and inaccurate reports are often made as major events unfold and reporters scramble to be the first to release new details. However, as purported reporters of fact and truth, it is extremely important that the media corrects its mistakes with apologies and retractions. If the source of this report was not NBC News, then NBC News should explain why it has been credited to them repeatedly, and they have not denounced the claims.
Ultimately, this report of President Erdogan fleeing Turkey and seeking asylum in Germany did not change the outcome as the attempted coup was defeated. So why does this one rumor matter so much? Why does it matter enough that Newsbud has now officially demanded that NBC explain and retract the story and has officially requested a comment on the story by the Turkish Consulate? It goes beyond the possible effect such a report might have had on the outcome of the attempted coup. This is about accountability.
It seems that the large media corporations that control the flow of information in the US have become used to having no accountability for spreading rumors. And in today’s digital world, where so many are getting their news from online sites, especially social media sites like Twitter, it has become even easier to spread disinformation without any accountability.
Combining the use of spreading reports on social media with the growing use of unnamed sources is potentially even more troubling as it creates a certain degree of plausible deniability if the trail doesn’t lead back to an actual report from a specific media outlet but rather to tweets and unsupported statements like “according to NBC.” It becomes very easy to imagine a scenario where a particular piece of information, whether true or false, can be leaked to create an intended narrative in the media, swaying public opinion, and driving US policy.
The allowance for the use of unnamed sources is necessary as many who have important information take great risks to share it with journalists. However, justification for the practice has become very loose. In this August 14, 2014 article, Jack Shafer describes the over-use of such justifications:
“An Aug 13 Times piece noted that U.S. administration officials ‘spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.’ This justification has become so popular in modern journalism that when you drop it into Nexis, the database burps and informs you that the query will return more than 3,000 stories containing the passage or something very close to it.
If a lower anonymity bar than ‘was not authorized to speak publicly’ exists, I cannot imagine it. Very few people are authorized to speak publicly in government, corporations, and institutions. Does that mean that anybody who has accepted a muzzle can expect anonymity from the press?”
He goes on to write about sources who “spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic,” and others who spoke “on the usual condition of anonymity.” As if once granted, anonymity will always be automatically supplied.
Add to that the changes to the Smith-Mundt Act, with an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, that passed in 2013 which allows for the broadcasting of information and stories previously restricted to broadcasting outside the US. According to this RT report from July 15, 2016, “until earlier this month, a longstanding federal law made it illegal for the US Department of State to share domestically the internally-authored news stories sent to American-operated outlets broadcasting around the globe. All of that changed effective July 2, when the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) was given permission to let US households tune-in to hear the type of programming that has previously only been allowed in outside nations.”
Michael Hastings wrote in this May 18, 2012 Buzzfeed article, before the amendment was voted on, that “the new law would give sweeping powers to the government to push television, radio, newspaper, and social media onto the U.S. public. ‘It removes the protection for Americans,’ says a Pentagon official who is concerned about the law. ‘It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information. There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false.’”
In his article, Hastings links to this USA Today story from May 19, 2012 that describes how two reporters that were investigating “Pentagon propaganda contractors” were targeted themselves through the establishment of fake social media accounts. The article states, “fake Twitter and Facebook accounts have been created in their names, along with a Wikipedia entry and dozens of message board postings and blog comments. Websites were registered in their names.” These fake accounts were used to discredit the journalists.
That happened after the reporters published this report in USA Today in February of 2012 which begins with: “as the Pentagon has sought to sell wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to often-hostile populations there, it has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on poorly tracked marketing and propaganda campaigns that military leaders like to call ‘information operations,’ the modern equivalent of psychological warfare.”
Undoubtedly, these “information operations” are occurring more and more frequently in the US media today. Spreading a rumor via social media that the president of another country has sought asylum outside his country during a coup attempt looks an awful lot like just such an operation. It is becoming increasingly clear that if there is to be accountability for what is being reported in the mainstream media, it is going to require that the people demand it.
*Newsbud has given NBC a deadline of 3:00 p.m. Eastern, on Monday, July 25, 2016 to provide an explanation and issue an official retraction. If not fulfilled, on Thursday, July 28, 2016, at 9:00 a.m., a Newsbud team will gather with other concerned supporters in New York City, in front of NBC News HQ (NBC News, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10112) to confront and demand correction and retraction from NBC executives in person. We hope to see many thousands of you there!
**Follow us here at Newsbud Twitter
***Subscribe here at BFP-Newsbud YouTube Channel
# # # #
Katie Aguilera, Newsbud-BFP Columnist, is an independent researcher, author, and activist who resides in Bend, Oregon. She studied Outdoor Recreation Leadership and spent many years working in the field of wilderness therapy and as a river guide. She writes at the blog Seeking Redress.