This morning we have an example of one of the more curious oddities and inanities of the New York media ecosystem. The New York Post is reporting – or one of its premier columnists is – that Mayor Bill de Blasio is plotting to enter the 2016 presidential race as the left alternative to Hillary Clinton. This is almost certainly intentionally made up nonsense for the purpose of lampooning de Blasio and generating adverse stories for Clinton as well.
We’ve been chronicling this part of the Post’s place in the New York (and thus national) media ecosystem basically forever. Remember Amir Taheri? He’s another one of the Post’s premier bamboozlers, whose made up stories we’ve been busy debunking for something like a decade. Here’s one debunked anti-Obama smear and another nonsense story from 2006. And here’s more.
The key with the Post is that these stories, most of which turn out to be false and often simply made up, is that they seed into more legitimate media since New York is where so many national media organizations are located. And the Post is a fun bombastic read that gets everyone’s attention.
So is de Blasio planning on running for President in 2016? Almost anything is possible in theory. But 100 to 1 it’s another consciously made up New York Post story. Because this is what the Post does. For those outside New York, remember, the Post isn’t a real newspaper in the sense of publishing accurate stories. And I say that as someone who used to write columns for them.
