The New York Times has issued several corrections regarding an article published two weeks ago insisting Attkisson was a “coronavirus doubter.”
After the article was published, Attkisson and her lawyers sent a letter to the Times demanding they correct their story or face a defamation lawsuit. The Times article was about five people, including Jerry Falwell Jr. and Dr. Drew, who doubted the severity of the coronavirus. As Attkisson’s attorneys stated in their letter, the Times’ article included “false and defamatory” statements regarding the ex-CBS journalist’s reporting on the coronavirus.
“Through a combination of discrete statements of fact, the defamatory headline, and the juxtaposition of defamatory statements concerning a small group of individuals with whom you have lumped Ms. Attkisson, the article conveys the false and defamatory gist that my client, among other things, lied to her readers and listeners, reported as fact lies that endanger the lives of the public, and otherwise violated the litany of ethical standards by which responsible journalists conduct themselves,” wrote Attkisson’s attorney G. Taylor Wilson of Wade, Grunberg &amp; Wilson, LLC.
As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ex-cbs-reporter-sharyl-attkisson-demands-new-york-times-correct-false-and-defamatory-article">reported</a> previously, the letter included 10 examples from the Times article that defamed Attkisson:
<ol>
<li>The false and defamatory headline, “From Jerry Falwell Jr to Dr. Drew: 5 Coronavirus Doubters.”</li>
<li>“While public health experts warn people to take precautions, these popular media figures insist that the virus is overhyped.”</li>
<li>“Misinformation about the coronavirus continues to circulate across swaths of the American media – on popular podcasts, in blog podcasts, in blog posts, in online videos and on prime-time cable news shows – as recently as this week.”</li>
<li>“Some are conservatives who insist the virus is being hyped for political purposes.”</li>
<li>“Even as President Trump and the federal government’s top public health officials warn that the virus is not something to be taken lightly – and the authorities reported more coronavirus deaths in the United States on Wednesday – these commentators make misleading comments, cherry-pick facts and go so far as to claim that the virus could be a hoax or a North Korean Plot.”</li>
<li>“One of Mr. Hannity’s top sources [Ms. Attkisson] selectively picks facts.”</li>
<li>“In the past, she [Ms. Attkisson] has promoted the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism.”</li>
<li>“The facts she has chosen recently to highlight falsely leave the impression that the deaths are not all that significant in number and largely contained to one facility.”</li>
<li>“‘Look at those 30-some-odd deaths – most of them were from Washington State,’ Ms. Attkisson said last week on her podcast, adding that most of those were in an assisted-living facility. ‘The vast majority of those who passed away were from one cluster in the United States – almost none anywhere else.’”</li>
<li>“And yet visitors to Ms. Attkisson’s website this week might have come away confused about the severity of the virus, as there were several ads for high-grade protective masks.”</li>
</ol>
On April 1, the Times issued a correction to the article and changed the language surrounding Attkisson. The correction reads:
<blockquote>An earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to statements made by Sharyl Attkisson.  Ms. Attkisson accurately reported the number and location of U.S. coronavirus deaths, as of the date of her March 13 podcast. Separately, a reference to advertisements for protective masks that appeared on Ms. Attkisson’s website has been removed.</blockquote>
Attkisson <a href="https://sharylattkisson.com/2020/04/new-york-times-nyt-corrects-false-jeremy-peters-article-that-defamed-sharyl-attkisson/">wrote</a> on her personal website that before her attorneys sent the letter, she contacted Times editor Carolyn Ryan about the needed changes, reporting her complaints were dismissed. Attkisson said: “Ryan defended the article by saying that because I had reported on coronavirus deaths– in a way The Times acknowledges was perfectly accurate– readers could somehow be misled into believing they were not at much risk if they were not in a high risk group.”
When Attkisson explained that the major authorities on coronavirus – including the Dr. Anthony Fauci, the CDC, and the Surgeon General, along with the Times itself – reported the same numbers and asked how readers could be “misled” when she reported the same facts as others. She said Ryan didn’t respond.
“Wiser heads ultimately prevailed. Lawyers at The New York Times have now forced multiple corrections in the defamatory article. Even with the revisions, false implications remain… but the corrections are a step in the right direction,” Attkisson wrote.

Sharyl Attkisson

After Threat Of Lawsuit, New York Times Issues Corrections On Article Defaming Sharyl Attkisson

Defamation

New York Times

Former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson had her lawyers send a letter to the New York Times demanding they correct the “false and defamatory” article titled “From Jerry Falwell Jr to Dr. Drew: 5 Coronavirus Doubters,” which painted Attkisson as one of those doubters.
Attkisson published the legal threat to her <a href="https://sharylattkisson.com/2020/03/read-attkisson-demands-nyt-retract-false-libelous-report/">personal website</a>, saying her attorney would “pursue legal redress” if changes were not made. Attkisson’s attorney, G. Taylor Wilson of Wade, Grunberg &amp; Wilson, LLC, says in the letter that she had attempted to get the article corrected previously, but was provided a “cavalier response” from the Times.
“Through a combination of discrete statements of fact, the defamatory headline, and the juxtaposition of defamatory statements concerning a small group of individuals with whom you have lumped Ms. Attkisson, the article conveys the false and defamatory gist that my client, among other things, lied to her readers and listeners, reported as fact lies that endanger the lives of the public, and otherwise violated the litany of ethical standards by which responsible journalists conduct themselves,” Wilson wrote.
Wilson then outlines 10 examples from the Times article that were false and defamatory toward Attkisson:
<ol>
<li>
<blockquote>The false and defamatory headline, “From Jerry Falwell Jr to Dr. Drew: 5 Coronavirus Doubters.”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“While public health experts warn people to take precautions, these popular media figures insist that the virus is overhyped.”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“Misinformation about the coronavirus continues to circulate across swaths of the American media – on popular podcasts, in blog podcasts, in blog posts, in online videos and on prime-time cable news shows – as recently as this week.”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“Some are conservatives who insist the virus is being hyped for political purposes.”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“Even as President Trump and the federal government’s top public health officials warn that the virus is not something to be taken lightly – and the authorities reported more coronavirus deaths in the United States on Wednesday – these commentators make misleading comments, cherry-pick facts and go so far as to claim that the virus could be a hoax or a North Korean Plot.”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“One of Mr. Hannity’s top sources [Ms. Attkisson] selectively picks facts.”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“In the past, she [Ms. Attkisson] has promoted the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism.”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“The facts she has chosen recently to highlight falsely leave the impression that the deaths are not all that significant in number and largely contained to one facility.”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“‘Look at those 30-some-odd deaths – most of them were from Washington State,’ Ms. Attkisson said last week on her podcast, adding that most of those were in an assisted-living facility. ‘The vast majority of those who passed away were from one cluster in the United States – almost none anywhere else.’”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“And yet visitors to Ms. Attkisson’s website this week might have come away confused about the severity of the virus, as there were several ads for high-grade protective masks.”</blockquote>
</li>
</ol>
As Attkisson’s attorney noted, the Times did not always specifically state how the investigative reporter dismissed the coronavirus, instead lumping her in with four other individuals and claiming things like “these popular media figures insist that the virus is overhyped.” Wilson also took issue with the claims directly written about Attkisson.
“[I]t bears noting that the portion of the Article directly referencing Ms. Attkison is equally problematic and actionable. In it, the Times chose in its editorial discretion to affix defamatory labels to otherwise accurate and fair reporting conducted by Ms. Attkisson. For instance, the Times reiterated its “cherry-picking” accusation by asserting that my client highlighted selective facts that ‘falsely leave the impression that the deaths are not all that significant in number and largely contained to one facility,’” Wilson wrote. “It comes as no surpise that my client’s accurate and factual reporting in this regard mirrors the Times’ own reporting on the virus, including that at the time of publication the deaths in the United States numbered approximately 30 and that they were concentrated in Washington State, and a nursing home facility in particular.”
Wilson noted that the Times is using Attkisson’s past accurate statements to discredit her now that new information has come to light. Attkisson even noted that what she was reporting was current information that was subject to change and directed her listeners to go to cdc.gov for the most accurate and updated information.

Ex-CBS Reporter Sharyl Attkisson Demands New York Times Correct ‘False And Defamatory’ Article

COVID

Lawsuit

As media outlets rushed to report recent polls showing Americans favor an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, a closer examination of those polls reveals far more about their bias.
It first should be noted that it is expected that after weeks of the media blasting headlines about Trump’s alleged crimes and violations it comes as no surprise that polls indicate Americans also think Trump has committed crimes. Former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson went a step further, diving into the CBS poll, which showed a majority of Americans favored the impeachment of Trump.
Attkisson looked into the poll for <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/463751-a-deeper-dive-into-one-poll-shows-what-americans-really-think-about-impeachment">her column</a> at The Hill, and discovered that while a majority did claim they favored an impeachment inquiry into Trump (55% to 45%), the poll overly sampled Democrats.
“A check of the poll data shows it interviewed 124 more Democrats than Republicans. That’s a statistically significant difference — 6 percentage points more Democrats than Republicans,” Attkisson wrote. “Assuming, for the sake of argument, that Democrats and Republicans generally respond along party lines, a sample that looked at 6 percentage points more Republicans instead of Democrats would blow the ‘headline’ that ‘a majority of Americans’ favors the impeachment inquiry. It would, theoretically, change the pro-impeachment inquiry majority to a minority: 49 percent favoring the impeachment inquiry, and 51 percent opposing.”
The former CBS reported said a more accurate headline for the poll was, “Majority of Americans in Democrat-heavy poll favor an impeachment inquiry into President Trump.”
Left out of the headlines were other statistics from the poll. From Attkisson:
<blockquote>The CBS poll shows 58 percent say Trump does not deserve to be impeached or that it’s “too soon to say.” Using the same math as above, adjust that for the lopsided number of Democrats interviewed and it would theoretically become 64 percent believing that Trump doesn’t deserve impeachment or it’s too soon to know.
Then, 69 percent of Republicans who were asked about an impeachment inquiry say it makes them want to defend Trump. In other words, there is reason to believe the inquiry could be a motivational factor for Republicans in an election year — in a way that benefits Trump.</blockquote>
The poll also showed a majority of respondents thought the impeachment inquiry would be “better for Democrats” in 2020, but again, as Attkisson noted, this number would flip if the poll were slanted toward Republicans as it was toward Democrats.
Finally, Attkisson pointed out, a majority from each party – Democrats, Republicans, and Independents – said they believed the “primary goal of the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry is to ‘politically damage Donald Trump’s presidency and his reelection.’”
Of course, this doesn’t mean everything is looking positive for Trump, but as Attkisson concluded: “we already are seeing the continuation of a trend that proved problematic in 2015 and 2016: polls being used to try to shape public opinion, rather than to measure it.”
Then again, polls oversampled Democrats in 2012 yet President Barack Obama still beat GOP candidate Mitt Romney, but that may have had more to do with incumbent bias than poll bias.

Donald Trump

CBS Poll Shows Majority Of Americans Across All Parties Think Latest Impeachment Talk Just To Hurt Trump’s Re-Election

Impeachment

Poll

Carter Page, the man who federal investigators first targeted for surveillance on the unfounded premise that he was a potential agent for Russia, part of the feds&#8217; now debunked &#8220;collusion&#8221; claim against the Trump campaign, wasn&#8217;t charged &#8212; or even so much as mentioned &#8212; in Mueller&#8217;s various indictments, none of which were related to the original focus of the investigation. Having been finally vindicated with Mueller&#8217;s report submitted to the attorney general and no further indictments issued, Page is now getting his chance to tell his story without the cloud of the years-long investigation hanging over his head.
In an <a href="http://fullmeasure.news/news/cover-story/carter-page">interview</a> with former CBS investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson published by Full Measure Sunday, Page describes the FBI&#8217;s &#8220;outrageous, preposterous&#8221; claims against him. Full Measure offers a description of Page, details of which most reports citing him over the last two years have somehow failed to emphasize: He was &#8220;a Naval officer in Europe and the Mideast with a brief stint in Navy intelligence,&#8221; holds two Masters and a PhD, was &#8220;a successful investment adviser and worked in Russia from 2004-2007,&#8221; and &#8212; the part that really didn&#8217;t get much play by the mainstream outlets &#8212; has a long history of helping the FBI and CIA in counter-Russia investigations.
&#8220;It&#8217;s been reported that you assisted the FBI years ago in the case of corporate espionage by a Russian spy case. Is that true?&#8221; asked Attkisson.
&#8220;I had alluded to the fact that I&#8217;d helped out CIA and FBI going back decades,&#8221; Carter responded, citing relationships he developed in his time in the military as aiding him in those endeavors.
&#8220;So the theory was, at the time, that a guy who had helped the FBI and CIA in the past, including with potential spy cases, himself became a spy while being watched by the FBI?&#8221; asked Attkisson.
&#8220;It&#8217;s just so outrageous, preposterous,&#8221; Carter responded. &#8220;Where do you even begin?&#8221;
Page&#8217;s involvement with the Trump campaign clearly made him a target for the infamous Democrat-funded &#8220;dossier,&#8221; the claims of which have never been verified and, importantly in Carter&#8217;s case against the feds, were not verified when it was used as rationale for securing a FISA warrant to spy on Carter for a full year.
Full Measure notes that Yahoo News was first to publish a story during the 2016 campaign attempting to link Page to Russian agents, which Page alleges was part of a government-orchestrated attempt to smear the campaign generally and him specifically.
&#8220;When you felt you were being targeted or became aware of this, you wrote a letter to then FBI director James Comey,&#8221; said Attkisson. &#8220;Tell me about that.&#8221;
&#8220;Literally that weekend, so this outrageous Yahoo News article came out on Friday September 23rd, 2016,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;About the opposition research dossier that implicated Donald Trump and you in all types of outrageous behavior?&#8221; Attkisson asked for clarification.
&#8220;Yeah. And so I sent a letter to Director Comey over that weekend and just explaining, telling him reality, just how absolutely outrageous this whole thing is,&#8221; said Page. &#8220;And I mentioned in there, again that&#8217;s why I brought up the fact that I had helped CIA and FBI over many years, and I said we&#8217;ve had long conversations with the intelligence community, if you have any questions, I mean this is just so implausible on the face, but if you have any questions about it whatsoever, please do not hesitate to contact me. And that&#8217;s essentially the message. And what&#8217;s interesting is over the next two months, both the next month in October 2016 and then again January 2017 they put in these FISA warrants.&#8221;
Those warrants were for wiretaps, Page explained, which they&#8217;d use to track his communication for a year, despite the only basis for the allegations against him being based in an unverified, partisan dossier.
Attkisson stressed that our intelligence agencies are supposed to have &#8220;evidence in hand&#8221; to take the &#8220;drastic step of a privacy invasion,&#8221; yet all they really had was the dossier and reports based on unsubstantiated leaked information that appears to trace back to the dossier. The feds ended up getting four wire tap warrants of 90 days each to surveil Page.
During the interview, Page revealed that he has never even spoken with Trump.
&#8220;Had you met him?&#8221; Attkisson asked, referencing Trump.
&#8220;I never met him at all. No,&#8221; said Page. Asked if he still hadn&#8217;t met him, he replied, &#8220;Nope. Never.&#8221; Not even on the phone, he said.
Attkisson noted that when the FBI is granted the ability to surveil a citizen, it &#8220;allows itself to also surveil everyone who&#8217;s in touch with you and everyone who&#8217;s in touch with those people. At least two layers back.&#8221; That &#8220;two layers back&#8221; would mean that the FBI could have been able to monitor the communications of people that were in direct contact with Trump, thus monitoring Trump himself through those connections, Attkisson notes.
Page is now suing the federal government for what he says is the use of the media to spread false information about him.
<a href="http://fullmeasure.news/news/cover-story/carter-page">Watch the interview here</a>.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45112/ex-cbs-reporter-calls-out-media-fbi-time-apologize-james-barrett">Ex-CBS Reporter Calls Out Media, FBI: Time To Apologize To Trump, And A Lot Of Other People</a>

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Sharyl Attkisson

After Threat Of Lawsuit, New York Times Issues Corrections On Article Defaming Sharyl Attkisson

Ex-CBS Reporter Sharyl Attkisson Demands New York Times Correct ‘False And Defamatory’ Article

CBS Poll Shows Majority Of Americans Across All Parties Think Latest Impeachment Talk Just To Hurt Trump’s Re-Election

Trump Advisor FBI First Targeted For ‘Collusion’ Gives New Details About Feds’ ‘Preposterous’ Claims