Previous Troubling Reports

This media outlet takes a dissected quote from Jolanda Jones, where she discusses the difficulties of dealing with bullies in politics and uses metaphorical phrases about fighting back. In the CNN interview her words were completely misconstrued and taken to create a false headline. The article itself even states, "A state lawmaker in Texas running for Congress is threatening to cut the throats of her opponents. Literally." This is completely arbitrary, and it is obvious this media source isn't trying to spread truthful information, but feed their agenda against Jolanda Jones. The page itself only shows a screenshot of the CNN interview, and does not provide the full clip where she talks about "cutting the throats of her opponents." News outlets need to be held accountable for spreading false claims, manipulating the truth, and showing direct bias against or for certain politicians.

There has been much false news on social media, such as that undocumented immigrants are losing medical coverage. People who are unaware of the laws and regulations in place can cause a large uproar and fear within those communities. Spreading false narratives not only causes unnecessary anxiety, but also undocumented immigrants have never been eligible for federally funded medical coverage, only for emergency care. The 2025 federal reconciliation law DOES, in fact, affect lawfully present immigrants, who are now facing a large loss of access to federal and subsidized health benefits. However, these changes will not affect DACA recipients, refugees, and those seeking asylum in the US. Slight changes in wording, like that in large headers, can take away from the true story of a situation and take away from the people who are being targeted and affected by this huge issue. All people, whether documented or undocumented, deserve health care, and news outlets should do a better job in capturing the full story with valuable sources, rather than spreading misinformation on such a serious topic.

The headline for this article states a false claim, that the UK, or more specifically Britain, has pledged 40 billion pounds of taxpayer money toward the rebuilding of Gaza. The original number, being €40 billion, was an estimate made to reconstruct the damage the Israeli Defense Forces did to the Gaza Strip. Overall, the true story is that Britain held conversational spaces discussing the rebuilding of Gaza; they did not specifically state that they would fund the rebuilding with taxpayers' money, but rather partnering with private finance companies to bring in private funding. False news like this spreads a false narrative, but it also makes British citizens uncomfortable about where their taxpayer dollars are actually going, whether they support the rebuilding of Gaza or not, especially since Britain is known to be in deep debt that the moment.

The myth that millions of deceased people are receiving social security benefits was initially discussed by Donald Trump and Elon Musk. While there have been some data recovered that display some improper payments, the number is not reflective of millions. Such misinformation is very misleading and can skew the public's idea of the SSA and its purpose. This news has since been debunked; the truth is that SSA's record-keeping system may be outdated, providing unreliable or incomplete death data within its system. Despite there not being data for the deceased, the SSA is not paying benefits to millions of those people. Overall, the article tries to deem these mishaps in payments as fraudulent, when in truth they make up the smallest percentage of payments as a whole. Such boisterous claims without any foundation or proof can be extremely harmful and spread across the nation. Many people will continue believing that the SSA is paying millions of deceased people, and may not come across an article telling the truth of the matter.

I found this article troubling because it used sources that misconstrued the events of the No Kings protest, and extrapolated extreme left fringe thought (political violence) to being something that all leftists believed in.

This article is troubling news for me because it uses a lot of partisan language and buzzwords to frame peaceful protests in a divisive way. The phrase "hate America rallies" is emotionally charged, and paints peaceful protests as unpatriotic without presenting any concrete evidence to back up their claims. Having this kind of language in the article's title creates a "click-bate" headline because it exaggerates the issue to provoke emotion and strong reactions instead of presenting a more center-leaning, factual account--this is also seen throughout the article, not just in the title. All in all, This kind of wording encourages readers to take a side rather than understand the facts and that is why this article is troubling news.

Not a credible report of a heist at the Louvre involving "priceless jewels". The headline mimics classic viral fake stories.

The headline of this article could be seen as misinformation. President Trump is claiming that the President of Colombia is a drug dealer, but he is making those claims without any evidence. This statement is very emotionally charged as it comes after the Colombian President condemned the US strikes in the Caribbean.

As is typical of MSNBC articles, this article regarding Donald Trump's involvement of himself and his son in the real estate business in Indonesia as part of the Trump family business is highly criticized and contains a high amount of left-leaning bias. The article subheading states, "After years of searching for evidence of a 'Biden crime family,' conservatives have said little about the Trumps’ apparent self-dealing." This bias is clearly evident before the actual article content has even been read, making it troubling news. It immediately compares how criticism of Trump is lacking compared to criticism of the previous president, Joe Biden. Further down in the article, there is a direct quote stating an opinion from the author, not a fact. "And now here we have audiovisual evidence of the United States’ criminally convicted president setting up a potential meeting between a foreign leader and his son — and said son now suggests the foreign leader wants a meeting because of his interest in the Trump family business." While this may be based on facts, a personal negative opinion of Trump clearly comes through the writing, which invalidates this article's objectivity. I find this certainly to be troubling, yet unfortunately characteristic of many articles published on MSNBC's website.

The article title is misleading. The judge halted the firing of federal employees because the assistant attorney general wasn't prepared, and the judge thought the firings were unconstitutional. The reporter makes digs at her being emotional when she is just asking questions and giving her opinion. Additionally, some of the sources used are just other conservative news sources, calling her emotional.

Info Wars is notorious for spreading conspiracy theories, defamatory statements, and providing extremely biased and unreliable news. To begin, the full title of this article, written by Sean Miller, includes a slur directed towards the transgender community. The news being discussed is of a school board meeting in Maine protesting trans children using locker rooms that correspond to their gender identity. The author uses sources such as X (formerly known as Twitter), and uses opinions from the public, as well as his own opinions, to spread misinformation on what the transgender locker room policy actually promotes. Miller says statements such as, "transgenderism is the gateway drug to pedophilia", and also highlights biological differences between male and female athletes, stating unfair competition. Overall, the article provides no factual information regarding what the policy is, what the nuances are, or how it will be implemented in Maine's schools. Instead, Miller wrote an article supporting his own transphobia and the continuous slander that has been generated towards the trans community in an attempt to demonize such a small percentage of the U.S. population.

To me, this is troubling news because of the way that the information was presented. Author Anthony L. Fischer implements a lot of his own opinions into the writing, which may influence the audience to think about the situation in a particular way. MSNBC is known for having a left-wing perspective, and this article further backs that analysis. There is wording from Fischer such as "undeniable Republican gutter racism" and "the bottom line is that racism is part and parcel of the MAGA movement". While what the candidates have said is overtly awful, the way that this author presents what should be just facts is incredibly inflammatory. There are no photos/screenshots of the chats, either, even if there is a link. None of this crosses precisely into misinformation, but the shift of perspective and the addition of personal opinion may inch much closer to that than a source labeled as center.