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Blaze Media CEO calls out New York Times for 'ominous framing' of Glenn Beck quote ripped out of context
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Blaze Media CEO calls out New York Times for 'ominous framing' of Glenn Beck quote ripped out of context

Blaze Media CEO Tyler Cardon called out the New York Times on Wednesday for using "ominous framing" in an article about "election falsehoods" that took comments from BlazeTV host Glenn Beck out of context.

The Times article, "Election Falsehoods Surged on Podcasts Before Capitol Riots, Researchers Find," reported on a study by researchers at the Brookings Institution who reviewed transcripts of nearly 1,500 episodes from 20 of the most popular conservative podcasts looking for election misinformation leading up to the 2020 presidential election.

In the opening paragraph, the article by reporter Stuart Thompson claimed that Beck made a prediction about the election in which he suggested President Donald Trump would appear to be winning early in the evening but would have his lead erode after questionable mail-in ballots were counted, giving Joe Biden an advantage.

“No one will believe the outcome because they’ve changed the way we’re electing a president this time,” Beck is quoted as saying.

In several tweets, Cardon called attention to how the Times article left out important context surrounding Beck's remarks.

"Read this opening paragraph from New York Times piece about 'election falsehoods' that published yesterday. Note the ominous framing. Apparently, on a random day in September, big bad broadcaster Glenn Beck outlined his prediction for Election Day in a single sentence," Cardon wrote.

"But the quote they pulled was from a segment in which GB was reacting to a report by the Transition Integrity Project, which got a ton of media coverage largely because it predicted the end of the Republic in all scenarios except a Biden landslide," he continued, providing a partial transcript of Beck's remarks from the Sept. 16, 2020 episode of his radio program.

Beck was discussing an Aug. 3, 2020 report by a bipartisan group of experts convened by the Transition Integrity Project to run tabletop simulations of the 2020 presidential election. The report predicted it was highly likely "that November’s elections will be marked by a chaotic legal and political landscape." The report urged policymakers to prepare for a contested election and presciently predicted how Trump would contest the results of the election by alleging there was voter fraud.

The researchers ran four hypothetical scenarios with opposing teams representing the Biden and Trump camps. Two of the scenarios ended with close elections, which both resulted in what Beck described as a "nightmarish" situation where the election is contested. In a third scenario where Trump clearly won the Electoral College vote but Biden won the popular vote, "game play ended in a constitutional crisis," the researchers said.

Only the fourth scenario of a decisive victory for Biden in both the Electoral College and popular vote was resolved without a major crisis. Reacting to this information, Beck agreed with that assessment and said it would take a "landslide" victory by either candidate to convince a majority of Americans the election was legitimate.

"Where's the lie?" Cardon asked Wednesday. "You need to look no further than the TIP report itself to find support for GB's 'prediction' here. The only difference is that GB is more generous to the Dems by assuming they'd accept a Trump landslide. In the report, this resulted in 'constitutional crisis.'"

Supporting his case, Cardon shared a video montage of "prominent politicians" — including many Democrats — expressing their doubts about the integrity of the electoral process leading up to the 2020 election.

"The NYT (and other dusty, legacy media outlets) are desperate to connect every effective dissident voice in today's media landscape to some flavor of 'dangerous misinformation,' not because it's true, but because they're losing influence & want to silence their competition," Cardon said.

Reached for a response, New York Times Vice President of Communications Danielle Rhoades Ha said, "Our editors have reviewed the passage and found the use of the quote to be accurate and fair. Mr. Beck's quote is clearly in reference to concerns about mail-in ballots."

Editor's note: This article was updated at 11:11 p.m. ET on 1/5/2022 to include comment from the New York Times.

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