Wall Street Journal criticized for Trump letter pushing election lie

Former president’s letter, written in response to an editorial on Pennsylvania voting laws, contains a list of disproved claims.

The 600-word letter contains a bullet-point list of disproved claims – many of which have been debunked by WSJ reporters – which Trump claims show there was voter fraud. There was no widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, as several independent and partisan reviews have confirmed.

Several WSJ reporters were unhappy with the publication of the letter, CNN reported, which comes after what had been a successful few weeks for the WSJ, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. The newspaper’s Facebook Files investigation revealed, through internal documents, how high-profile users were not subject to the same standards as regular users, and that Facebook was aware that Instagram, which it owns, is toxic for teenage girls.

The decision to publish Trump’s spurious letter threatens to undermine that journalism, despite a newspaper’s editorial board typically being separate from the newsroom.

Trump remains banned from Twitter and Facebook, and has been reduced to sending daily emails to supporters to make his voice heard. The WSJ’s publication of the letter was swiftly criticized in the media world.

“I think it’s very disappointing that our opinion section continues to publish misinformation that our news side works so hard to debunk,” an unnamed WSJ reporter told CNN. “They should hold themselves to the same standards we do!”

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