AV Club News Wire Proves It Can’t Be Trusted Yet Again with a Slam on Ellen Degeneres

A week ago when I was puzzled why Elon Musk was getting such vicious crap, I noticed a cyber-acquaintance had posted an article on him at the AV Club and in responding to what I considered to be an off-base assessment, I found myself commenting and subsequently getting caught in the comment loop as I found articles that seemed to be misleading or show an obvious bias.

I’m a journalist and I always try to make the argument against peers that the news is unfairly smeared, but the coverage on Elon Musk and the AV Club newswire is not doing me any favors:

In the last week alone:

• The AV Club has given a substantial platform to Charlyne Yi in three separate newswires that conflate second-hand knowledge of abuse on a set with the actual thing and smearing a public figure in the process. The articles (taking the lead from Yi) seem to skip over the nuanced debate over whether James Franco is innocent or guilty of what he’s been accused of, and go straight to debating Seth Rogen’s guilt by association. It’s also unusual that Charlyne Yi’s instagram posts have continued to be on the front of the page for three straight days over other news stories.
• In a deep-dive essay and an episodic review of the Elon Musk SNL episode that contributed to the manufacturing of a scandal. It claimed that the cast was dissatisfied with Elon Musk over three relatively indirect tweets of disapproval (two of which were rescinded). At the end of the day, not one cast member boycotted and various people like Chris Redd, Pete Davidson, and Michael Che reported that in-person and even in a private group text that excluded the host, no one voiced any complaints. The episodic reviewer continued to irresponsibly speculate that the cast didn’t like him and that we should wait for the tell-all book years later on the episode.
• Highlighting a story of a celebrity (Lakieth Stanfield) not getting cancelled over anti-semitic remarks. This one’s an interesting case because according to the holy grail of intersectionality, black public figures sit lower on the scale of oppression than Jews, so I was surprised to see Stanfield written in a negative light although this was a far more balanced piece than most of the other hit jobs they do. Nonetheless, if a celebrity is not running into scandal, why is this news?
• Printing a bogus story today on Ellen DeGeneres with the…