On Saturday, the New York Post splashed an image of Superheroes Are Everywhere, a kids book written by Kamala Harris, across the front page. ”Kam On In: Solo kids at border welcomed with copy of veep’s book,” the Post headline blared, with the story proceeding to claim that the Biden administration was passing out copies of the vice president’s book to incoming migrant children.
The claim exploded online, with some outlets, pundits, and lawmakers regurgitating the Post story while voicing anger at the White House for supposedly using undocumented kids to boost the vice president’s author royalties. ”Was Harris paid for these books? Is she profiting from Biden’s border crisis?” asked RNC chair Ronna McDaniel. The Daily Mail, Fox News, RT, and the Blaze all aggregated the story, as GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn tweeted a screenshot from a Fox News segment and wrote, “Kamala is now saying ‘we’re making progress’ on Biden’s border crisis. Really? Is a 900% increase in apprehensions from last year and a 233% increase in fentanyl smuggling ‘progress’ to you? She must be referring to her progress on book sales.”
Days later, the Post was forced to take down two stories spreading the false claim after it was revealed that the single copy of Harris’s book printed on the paper’s cover happened to be just one of many books donated to the California facility by local residents, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The two stories were republished online with editor’s notes; reporter Laura Italiano, who authored the original one, announced her resignation Tuesday.
“The City of Long Beach, in partnership with the Long Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau, has a citywide book and toy drive that is ongoing to support the migrant children who are temporarily staying in Long Beach at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shelter,” HHS spokesperson Kevin Lee told The Washington Post. Much of the conservative coverage on the Post’s story made it seem as if the vice president’s book was included in all of the welcoming packages after copies were apparently bulk ordered by the government, not unlike how the Republican National Committee spent nearly $100,000 on copies of Donald Trump Jr.’s book, Triggered. But in reality, the copy of Harris’s book “is one of hundreds of books that have already been donated. The book was not purchased by HHS or the City,” per the HHS.
Taking an isolated piece of data, stripping it of context, and turning it into a massive national story has proven to be a model for conservative media success over the past week. Several days ago, an education controversy erupted in Virginia after Fox News warned that the state’s Department of Education is planning to discontinue all pre-11th grade accelerated math classes in the name of “equity,” thus “keeping higher-achieving students from advancing.” Virginia House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert seized upon the Fox News coverage to accuse the state’s DOE of killing “opportunities for students to excel in the quest to achieve mediocrity for all.” But according to state officials, no such education revamp has been implemented. After the conservative media outcry blew up, Virginia education officials emphasized that not only has nothing changed in the state’s math curriculum, but that such proposals are not even up for a vote by Virginia’s Board of Education. If any sweeping changes are decided on this year, they would not be instituted until 2025. So how did Fox News arrive at such a wildly false conclusion? By partly relying on such things as social media rants made by a sole member of a Virginia county school board.
This reality did not stop outlets like The Federalist to run stories warning that “the Virginia Department of Education is eliminating accelerated math courses before 11th grade to ‘[i]mprove equity in mathematics learning opportunities.’” The Russian state-controlled media outlet RT published a similar piece, dramatically headlined “Virginia to revamp math curriculum, CANCEL advanced courses prior to last two years of high school to force racial equity,” that claimed, “There’s no need to worry about that ‘racist’ trigonometry, at least in Virginia, because the state is eliminating advanced math courses for all students prior to the 11th grade, all in the name of equity.” Nearly every other notable conservative website, including Breitbart, Twitchy, Mark Levin, The Blaze, American Greatness, Big League Politics, Townhall, and the Washington Examiner, all ran respective pieces lobbing claims against the nonexistent VDOE policy. Dinesh D’Souza tweeted that Virginia is planning “to achieve ‘equity’ by making everyone equally stupid.”
Over the weekend, numerous conservative lawmakers and talking heads expressed their strong opposition toward another “woke” agenda item entirely made up in their own collective imagination, as my colleague Bess Levin reported. After the Daily Mail warned that “Biden’s climate plan could limit you to eat just one burger a MONTH,” a data piece it arrived at by citing a climate change study completely unrelated to Biden’s environmental proposals, Governor Greg Abbott responded with defiance toward the made-up policy. “Not gonna happen in Texas!” tweeted the Texas Republican, a post that GOP governor Brad Little added onto by writing, “Idahoans also have beef with this agenda and for dinner!” The remarks from the two governors were made after former Trump adviser Larry Kudlow shared the Daily Mail story on his Fox Business show. “Speaking of stupid, there’s a study coming out of the University of Michigan which says that to meet the Biden Green New Deal targets, America has to, get this, America has to stop eating meat, stop eating poultry, fish, seafood, eggs, dairy, and animal-based fats,” Kudlow said. “Okay, got that? No burger on July Fourth. No steaks on the barbie. I’m sure Middle America is just going to love that.”
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