IMPERFECT INFORMATION-GHAZI!

Right-wing media figures and influencers have a thousand different ways of making the Republican base angry at their enemies. One important way of making the rubes angry is by accusing the enemies of dishonesty and bad faith just for doing their jobs in an environment where all the facts aren't known.

Twitchy rounded up several outraged X posts that accused the Associated Press of disinformation merely for saying that a Tesla Cybertruck caught on fire in Las Vegas on New Year's morning:

On no planet did the Tesla truck simply “catch fire”

It was loaded up with explosives & detonated@AP, you’ve navigated the frontiers of NY Times v. Sullivan for far too long

This is defamation, and it’s a actionable here—even from a public figure like @elonmusk

Good luck!🧨 https://t.co/oU3ejfk18c

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) January 2, 2025

They just can't report the truth of events. They can't simply just publish what happened. Not even once. https://t.co/91RXqN299m

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) January 2, 2025

But in the original version of the story, AP did "simply just publish what happened" as far as its reporters knew. The vehicle did catch fire and explode. At the time, AP said, "No cause was given and details were sketchy." Even Eric Trump tweeted that this was "a reported electric vehicle fire." But it's important to keep topping up the base's level of rage, so Elon Musk tweeted that AP should be called "Associated Propaganda."

A Hot Air post collects other tweets that accuse multiple news organizations of disinformation for reporting what they knew when this was a breaking and imperfectly understood story:

BREAKING: Media headlines are misleading audiences, suggesting the Cybertruck caught fire or exploded due to a malfunction.

The truth is that explosives were placed in the back and intentionally detonated, likely as part of a terrorist act. Don’t fall for the misinformation. pic.twitter.com/19f1jmtwxS

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) January 2, 2025

The Cybertruck literally saved lives in Las Vegas today. The local police department confirmed it.

Then the mainstream media writes headlines that make a terrorist attack look like Tesla’s fault.

This is dishonest and shameful.
We need a way to community note these authors. pic.twitter.com/yXhlrqZuia

— Penny2x (@imPenny2x) January 2, 2025

It should be noted that Cybertrucks have actually been known to catch fire, and that there have been so many reports of Tesla vehicles catching fire that the dedicated website tesla-fire.com has documented 232 such incidents.

In the other major terrorist incident on New Year's Day, in New Orleans, right-wingers were told to be outraged at the FBI because it hesitated before declaring the incident an act of terrorism. Early reports told us:

LaToya Cantrell, the mayor of New Orleans, described the incident as a "terrorist attack." The FBI said it wasn't yet using that term.

The FBI called the attack an act of terror later that day. But that wasn't good enough for right-wing rabble-rousers such as this leader of the British far right...

ADMIN POST.

FBI; "This is not a terrorist event". pic.twitter.com/gJMraU2zwv

— Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 (@TRobinsonNewEra) January 1, 2025

... or this former Ted Cruz communications aide:

The FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge who initially said the attack in New Orleans was not a terrorist attack is playing weird language games.

Why say the FBI is "investigating this as an attack of terrorism" & not use the colloquial and plain English term terrorist attack? pic.twitter.com/OQLbsWOr32

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 1, 2025

News organizations and the FBI are being accused of dishonesty and bad faith for reporting on partial information in an obviously good-faith way. Meanwhile, America's president-elect and his allies have linked the two terrorist incidents to immigration, even though the culprits in both cases were born in America. CNN reports:

During the 10 a.m. hour on Wednesday, Fox reported that the New Orleans suspect’s truck crossed the US border in Eagle Pass, Texas “two days ago.” Some of the right-wing network’s coverage explicitly said “the suspect” drove across the border, leaving viewers with the impression that a foreigner might be responsible for the deadly carnage.

In fact, the New Orleans attack suspect was a US citizen and Army veteran. But those facts weren’t publicly established at the time Fox aired the faulty information.

Eight minutes after the first Fox segment that mentioned the border, Trump issued a statement about “criminals coming in” from other countries....

Some of Trump’s family members and political allies also immediately connected the attack to illegal immigration and cited Fox.

“Biden’s parting gift to America — migrant terrorists,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote, sharing the Fox claim on X. “Shut the border down!!!” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene exclaimed.

(Both of those tweets are still up as I write this.)

As the CNN story notes, Fox reported this incorrect information -- for whatever reason -- without fact-checking it:

Fox tried to walk back its incorrect report about an hour and a half later. The network said the truck used in the attack was actually in Eagle Pass nearly two months ago, not two days ago. More importantly, the truck was being driven by someone else at that time – it was available on the car rental app Turo – so the detail about the border was completely irrelevant.

But the damage was done. References to Eagle Pass continued to spread across social media. Fox continued to stream a clip on its website of the incorrect information. “Some Republicans continued to beat the border drum well after Fox News retracted its initial report,” The Daily Beast’s Josh Fiallo reported.

But Trump continues to rabble-rouse about "open borders":

Oh, but Trump and Fox are allowed to mangle the truth -- no one expects them to have standards, right? Meanwhile, when mainstream news organizations tell us only what they know, they're branded as liars, and there's more overall anger in America about their conscientiousness than about Trump's flagrant dishonesty.