The Associated Press (AP) was slammed by critics this week for a fact-check in which it claimed President Biden "misspoke," rather than "lied," about how much money Americans would save on average by switching to renewable energy sources for their homes, reports Fox News.
"If you're home is powered by safer, cheaper, cleaner electricity like solar or heat pumps, you can save about $500 a month on average," Biden falsely claimed Thursday while announcing plans to release 1 million barrels of oil a day for the next six months from the strategic oil reserve.
In a tweet later that evening, the AP claimed its fact-check found that Biden "misspoke," and pointed to a White House statement saying people using green energy might save $500 a year, not per month.
In its fact-check, the AP noted that the average electric bill for homeowners never passed $120 per month between 2009 and 2019, and was $115 per month in 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Critics took to social media to slam the AP, with some claiming Biden didn't misspeak, but actually lied, and others arguing that if a Republican was being fact-checked by the outlet, it would have accused them of "disinformation."
"Every single ‘misspeaking’ a Democrat makes is to up-sell their BS policies, and ‘fact-checkers’ still refuse to call it a lie," wrote Townhall columnist Derek Hunter, while conservative website ForAmerica simply tweeted, "Biden didn’t misspeak, he lied."
"The AP is a Democrat activist organization. If a Republican politician said this, the AP would accuse him of ‘disinformation’ (lying). But when a Democrat politician says it, he 'misspoke,'" wrote Christina Pushaw, press secretary to Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
No comments:
Post a Comment