It’s exhausting to recollect a time when The Onion was synonymous with “humorous.”
The humor website as soon as had the sphere all to itself, creating Faux Information tales that made us chortle and assume. The Onion got here out in printed type, and its assaults on the political class could possibly be withering.
That was then.
At present’s online-only Onion is comedic in title solely. The outlet’s hard-Left politics have all however stripped away its comedian potential, from the woke handcuffs positioned on liberal satire to the way it protects Democrats…
…very similar to as we speak’s late-night TV panorama.
So if you wish to learn one thing humorous about President Joe Biden, for instance, you’d by no means sort “the onion” right into a search engine. You go to The Babylon Bee.
To Save Time, The Babylon Bee Will Now Simply Republish Every thing Biden Says Verbatim https://t.co/KDHEZAjgU7 pic.twitter.com/O4ZfgGrc8P
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 18, 2024
That website leans to the Proper, but it surely’s unrelenting in its humor and talent to smite either side. It’s every little thing The Onion isn’t – topical, quick, daring and hilarious.
And, sadly, The Onion would possibly quickly be even worse.
The location simply obtained picked up by new house owners, and former NBC journalist Ben Collins is the platform’s CEO shifting ahead. Ostensibly charged by the Peacock community with overseeing so-called “disinformation,” Collins proved inept on the gig.
We’re nonetheless ready for him to weigh in on the Hunter Biden laptop computer scandal, the “Very Superb Folks” hoax and extra.
Right here’s how Collins described Libs of TikTok, the social media journalist who exposes the far-Left’s extremes.
“Fox Information’ favourite aggregator of LGBTQ academics they don’t just like the look of.”
The latter a part of the sentence feels slanderous, no? What’s his proof that Libs of TikTok is bigoted. Does he share any?
Collins, previously with the far-Left Each day Beast, additionally obtained uncovered by The Federalist for carrying water for the hard-Left. Contemplate:
NBC’s leftist reporter Ben Collins, in the meantime, arguably provided essentially the most laughable response to Soros backing Bragg. Quoting a CNBC story, Collins says Soros can’t again Bragg as a result of the 2 by no means met.
Journalist Steve Krakauer slammed Collins for his social media-heavy strategies that always happen with out precise journalism.
Collins appears to spend his days endlessly opining on social media concerning the state of journalism – like his frequent assaults on the New York Instances. However one factor Collins doesn’t look like doing very a lot anymore is journalism. Collins hasn’t written an article for NBC Information in additional than 100 days. His final one, printed in early October, was on one in all his favourite targets, X proprietor Elon Musk. Earlier than that, you must return to Might 22 to seek out his earlier byline, a brief piece a couple of “pretend image of an explosion” on the Pentagon that had gone semi-viral.
He’s additionally cautious of transparency.
I requested Collins and NBC Information if he was nonetheless a full-time worker of the media outlet, and neither responded to a number of requests for remark.
Does this sound just like the individual to shake The Onion from its hard-left shackles?
It will get worse.
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Collins was one in all many mainstream information reporters who obtained the notorious Gaza hospital story improper.
Collins is handled as an skilled within the burgeoning discipline of countering the unfold of misinformation. But his error fee is noteworthy….
Did Collins soberly look ahead to these info to come back in? Nope. The award-winning disinformation skilled helped flow into the wrong claims of the Palestinian authorities. When different voices on social media really helpful warning, Collins chimed in to claim that any delay in reporting the horrific casualty numbers represented a profound ethical failing.
It’s Disinformation 101, and he fell for it. That he not too long ago received a Walter Cronkite Award for journalism speaks volumes about as we speak’s Fourth Property.
Collins’ rage in opposition to free speech advocate Elon Musk discovered him making extra errors, in line with Purpose.
Collins’ reporting typically accommodates fundamental errors that recommend he doesn’t significantly perceive the right-wing forces he’s denouncing. His most up-to-date article alleges that Musk’s plans for Twitter had been formed by a far-right former Trump administration staffer, despite the fact that it’s pretty clear the staffer wasn’t really telling Musk what to do, however fairly warning about what would occur to Musk if he offended “the regime.”
Collins even raged in opposition to the discharge of The Twitter Information, which uncovered the platform’s in depth censorship regime in opposition to right-leaning voices. He did so with out calling out any errors in Matt Taibbi’s reportage.
He simply used advert hominem assaults on the left-leaning Taibbi.
So The Onion’s return to its humorous, bipartisan roots is much more unlikely as we speak.
Nonetheless, the 2 events could also be excellent for each other.