Here's a new low from the mainstream media: Calling something fake news that isn't fake news, and dragging American Thinker into it.

Earlier this week, President Trump presented in a televised press conference a slew of evidence that thousands of white farmers in South Africa had been murdered by criminalized political activists over their race in that country, their land now being expropriated without compensation and a slew of discriminatory laws going up. Not surprisingly, many were now seeking refuge in the U.S. and as they meet the legal definition of refugee, President Trump was admitting them.

That's a horrific public relations problem for South Africa which proclaims itself a 'non-racial' country and holds up the legacy of Nelson Mandela as a 'peacemaker' to his former white oppressors.

But with crime going largely unenforced and white farmers targeted for grisly murders for being white, they are more and more just starting to look like the same old story of African tribal warfare -- one tribe slaughtering another as we have seen in Zimbabwe, People's Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Niger, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Mali, Sudan, Somalia and other tragic places. As long as that is going on in South Africa, too, their story isn't what they advertise.

That was much of the point of an essay written by American Thinker managing editor Andrea Widburg, who warned of the dangers of tribalism as Democrats were embracing it. She cited two ongoing incidents in South Africa and one in the People's Republic of Congo as examples. The post was illustrated with a linked screen shot of tribal killings in the PRC.

Which is where the media came in with claims of 'fake news' from President Trump. (We already have one piece on this out there.)

Trump leafed through a stack of news stories and commentaries on the problems in that region as part of his presentation. One of the commentaries included was Andrea Widburg's which included the screen shot of the PRC killings as it discussed those PRC killings along with the South African ones.

You can see Trump's swift leafing through action in the New York Times's video snippet here. You can see Andrea Widburg's actual commentary here.

The press claimed the linked screen shot was passed off as South African killings, in Andrea's piece, and from President Trump, the former of which was absolutely not the case (which explains why many didn't link it or say the name of the publication), and the latter of which is very questionable.

Now they've turned into a hive.

Here are some choice examples of what's out there:

Reuters went with this, featuring their own screen shot of the fast-moving presentation, presenting what was Trump's rapid leafing through of articles at the press conference as the frozen image:

The New York Times, the paper of Walter Duranty, claimed this:

During the encounter, Mr. Trump presented a stack of articles and blog posts as evidence of the persecution of white farmers in South Africa. He shuffled through them as Mr. Ramaphosa squinted at the pages, trying to see what they said. One of the images Mr. Trump held up showed medical workers in white protective clothing lifting body bags.

“Look, here’s burial sites all over the place,” Mr. Trump said, grasping up a copy of the blog post. “These are white farmers that are being buried.”

It could be credibly argued that he was presenting the whole article which described killings in South Africa as well as PRC, and not just the PRC picture it contained, since if he wanted to present that picture as killings in South Africa, he certainly had the resources to do it, and in a better format than a grainy screen shot in a photocopy of an entire blog commentary. In reality, he was holding up the entire blog, which happened to contain that barely visible screen shot, as well as all the content of the blog. In some press accounts, they used the weasel words "Trump suggested" instead of "Trump said" which pretty well proves that they didn't have the goods on Trump.

Some of them didn't want to name the publication in their pieces, probably because they didn't want people reading the post. They just went generic, calling it "a blog," as if to imply it couldn't possibly be true.

CBS News did, though, joining the pile-on:

Mr. Trump held up a printed article from "American Thinker," a conservative online magazine, that included a screenshot, credited to Reuters, that the president said showed "all White farmers that are being buried."

But the video the screenshot was taken from was of humanitarian workers lifting body bags in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Reuters said. The footage was taken in February after deadly battles with a Rwanda-backed Congolese rebel group in the city of Goma.

USAToday took several leaps of logic ahead of the matter, making its own editorial opinions the news:

President Donald Trump falsely cited a Reuters video from Congo as proof of "White genocide" during a meeting with the South African president.

In their video captions, they called the "white killings" which are factually happening there with even South Africa admitting as much, (arguing that they are simple random crimes, not targeted racial killings), a "conspiracy theory." They went the full Walter Duranty on that one, ever determined to best the Times.

The Independent of the U.K. piled on with mockery in its bid to distort what happened:

President Donald Trump’s attempt to demonstrate evidence of “white genocide” in South Africa fell flat after he used pictures from an entirely different country to support his claims.

Trump met with South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, in the Oval Office on Wednesday in an effort to “reset” foreign relations.

The meeting took a bizarre turn when Trump produced an array of articles and showed video footage alleging ethnic cleansing in South Africa.

Actually, it didn't fall flat. None of what Trump said was false. Their interpretation of what Trump was holding up is what fell flat.

And America, the far left Jesuit magazine, piled on, too, heading into libel territory with this:

Other “evidence” of white genocide shared by the president was similarly based on erroneous, hyperbolized or completely fabricated reporting collected from dubious sources off the wondrous World Wide Web—including a printed-out blog post with a photo from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and not, as Mr. Trump implied, from South Africa. (America’s Johannesburg correspondent, Russell Pollitt, S.J., reported in February on the rejection of the white genocide accusation by South African Christian leaders.)

But exiting the meeting, Mr. Trump, oblivious to the uproar that followed his treatment of a visiting dignitary, seems as convinced as ever of his Elon Musk-induced fantasy of white genocide in South Africa.

A publication that openly defends communism isn't the one to decide which publications are 'dubious.'

Grosser still, its senior editor, the Rev. James Martin, S.J., invoked the pope, whom he seems to view as someone under his thumb.

"Pope Leo warned about fake news. President Trump just showed us a worst-case scenario." https://t.co/V1o9ujt7QS

— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) May 23, 2025

The pope warned of A.I.-generated deepfake videos depicting the pope himself presenting Church teachings, including false ones. A misidentified photo at worst (and I think that's arguable) is nothing approaching and nothing like what the pope warned about. Rev. Martin ought to take that tweet down if for nothing more, to avoid annoying the new pope by claiming to speak for him, and to keep himself out of the Walter Duranty school of genocide denial, which, given the country's politicized murders, is clearly well on its way in South Africa. Let's not even get into the sleazy attempt to smear the brand of another publication.

Andrea Widburg has written to the Times, asking for a correction:

In your recently published article, "Trump Showed Images of ‘Genocide’ in South Africa. One Was From the War in Congo," your reference to American Thinker portrayed this site in a false light implying that the article deliberately misinformed readers. 

With dishonesty like this, any questions as to why the mainstream media is so discredited in the minds of the public?

Image: Screen shot from shareable USAToday video, via YouTube