News of the evening terrorist truck attack in Nice, France first appeared at the Drudge report at 5:06 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time Thursday afternoon. By 5:28, Drudge was linking to an item noting that conducting a terrorist attack with a truck is something "that jihadist propaganda has suggested for several years."
Friday at 12:15 a.m. Eastern Time, hours after it was known that what had occurred was a terrorist attack, a tweet from the intrepid journalists (that's sarcasm, folks) at MSNBC.com told readers that the event was a "deadly truck crash."
Here it is (HT Instapundit):
Things didn't get much better later Friday morning.
While the tweet's linked story at NBCnews.com, updated as of 9:45 a.m., headlines the "Truck Attack in Nice," its opening bullet point acts as if the truck drove itself. A later bullet point falsely claims that "There has been no claim of responsbility" for the attack:
At least 7 hours ago (i.e., about 4 a.m. Eastern Time, according a related Google search result obtained at roughly 11 a.m.), press outlets were reporting that "ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, according to unconfirmed reports in the French media." There is some dispute over whether ISIS's "claim" has been adequately confirmed and the proven extent of ISIS's involvement in the the attack, but that doesn't change the fact that NBC's current "no claim of responsibility" assertion is incomplete at best, and arguably deceptive.
As Stephen Green at Instapundit wrote: "You stay ignorant, MSNBC viewers." I would add "and NBC" to that sentence.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
