Earlier this week, The New Yorker published a damning profile on Mike Pence in which Trump “jokingly” said Pence wants to “hang all the gays.”
Naturally, the White House cried “Fake News!”
“From start to finish the article relied on fiction rather than facts,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders wrote in a statement to Politico.
But this isn’t TMZ or the Enquirer we’re talking about, it’s The New Yorker, a magazine that prides itself on adhering to the highest of journalistic standards.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Related: Read Mike Pence’s article advising employers never to hire gay people
If they say something happened, you can be damn well sure they have receipts to back it up.
“To start checking a nonfiction piece, you begin by consulting the writer about how the piece was put together and using the writer’s sources as well as our own departmental sources,” wrote Peter Canby in a Columbia Journalism Review article about the magazine’s fact-checking process, aptly named Fact-Checking at The New Yorker. “We then essentially take the piece apart and put it back together again.”
In the case of the publication’s claim that Donald Trump joked about Mike Pence wanting to “hang all the gays,” that’s exactly what they did, and they’re willing to dig their heels in about it.
“The Vice-President’s press office declined to participate in this story for months, after multiple requests for interviews, comment, and fact-checking,” a New Yorker spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement to Politito.
Related: You won’t believe what’s in the swag bag at the hate group summit Trump headlined
“We heard from the press office only after the piece had closed, late Thursday,” it went on to say. “In the course of fact-checking this piece, we talked to more than sixty people to confirm the reporting contained therein, including senior White House officials, a senior member of the Vice-President’s office, the RGA, Rep. Elijah Cummings, and multiple people who were in the room when President Trump joked that Vice-President Pence ‘wants to hang’ gay people. We stand by the story.”
More than a few people also took note that while Pence’s office pushed back against the article, nobody ever flat-out denied that Trump had said what he’d reportedly said.
We’re going to go ahead and believe The New Yorker on this one…
Josh447
Someone should go bang the question to Pence at his financially failing low demand Colorado appearance up shortly. And film it. That is if it’s not canceled. His promoters are having trouble selling tickets to see the ghoulish bore.
leobaga
I’m still waiting for Trump and Pence to jail gays and throw them off the building. Still not happening. We’re still alive and living happy.
This is all fearmongering. Mr. Trump is not the one sowing discord in the nation. It’s the Democrats and the hateful media like Queerty. Stop the hate. Life is short. Life is beautiful.
DCguy
Oh look, Mo Bro brought out an old screename and thought nobody would remember it.
Lets cut through the B.S. We have a VP who is one of the most nortorious anti-lgbt politicians in the country, and a President who said he would pick judges to turn back our rights, and all of the screenames for this anti-lgbt troll are on here to defend them.
And look how they’re trying to move the goalposts of what’s considered homophobic. NOW, because they can’t claim anymore that Trump and Pence aren’t anti-lgbt, they are saying that if we aren’t being beheaded on the street, that means they aren’t homophobic.
Hey Queerty, at what point do screenames consistently trolling to support people who want to harm us cross over the line?
GayEGO
Based on the Republican Congress debacle against Trump, it is Trump and Pence who should be thrown off the building. Unfornately for them, ISIS is being defeated and will not be around to do their job and throw them off of the building!
dwes09
But of course nobody ever said that was going to happen, so you are smugly telling lies to bolster your apologist position (which is, after all, what you regressives do). But they have put forth a ban on transgender military people (which you think is great I am sure), and they are set to allow “people of faith” to deny goods and services to lgbt people as an expression of their “firmly held religious belief”. Actual facts show that the increases in hate and discord in this country are coming directly from the right. “The Democrats”, and Queerty are simply responding to it, in a very reasonable fashion. I’m old enough to recall serious racism, serious antisemitism, serious aggression against gay and lesbian people and I see it coming back with the tacit approval of folks like you (usually with the kind of critical thought deficiency you display).
Life IS short, and can be beautiful…I will agree with you there.
So how about you stop the disingenuous crap before you share in a (not so beautiful) fate you seem way too dull to see coming.
leobaga
Re: ban on transgender. Pretty much anybody who takes any kind of “maintenance medication” is barred from the military. If you can’t function properly, or possibly even live, without a certain medication on a regular basis, that’s not always going to work so well in combat situations because you might not be able to get it, and then what do you do. Doesn’t matter if it’s for diabetes or depression or transgenderism or what. Already needing a medication = no military career for you. Transgendered people very obviously fall into this category, so I don’t know what the controversy is.
leobaga
As for Religious Liberty, why would I want someone to bake a cake for me that doesn’t want to. It’s their loss of my business and that’s that, but let’s be honest here; hardly anyone is going to turn down any business for any of these reasons. There are people going to find that one or two cake shops in a state that aren’t comfortable with it.. it’s not like there is an epidemic where my boyfriend and I can’t get a cake made. Sure, I would like these people to have a more open mind but that’s their choice and their right. I always say just being a normal couple is much more likely to change their minds than to take them to court over something like this.
DCguy
Oh Wow, so NOW this screename is not only saying if we aren’t being pushed off buildings that means they love us, AND is defending anti-lgbt bigoted discrimination.
Hey Mo Bro’s screename, here’s an idea, if they don’t want to serve lgbts, no problem, all they have to do is NOT use any of the public services as a business that our tax dollars pay for. Then they wouldn’t have to follow the rules that ALL businesses agree to follow.
They are perfectly able to bake cakes at home and sell them to all of their bigoted friends.
Brody
dcguy –
We’re coming to get you, Barbara.
GayEGO
Most of the negative stuff we hear from Trump, Pence, and the religious bigots, is the real Fake News and we hear it because they are losing BIGLY!