Whoopi Goldberg Decries Fact-Challenged Bloggers, But Spreads Misinformation Herself on the View
Appearing as a guest on Saturday's Huckabee show on FNC, Whoopi Goldberg - co-host of ABC's The View - complained that bloggers disseminate inaccurate information about her without the need to "fact check," and that "they poop on you and they walk away."
Goldberg: "But a blogger can say endless stuff. They don't have to fact check. ... And then that is picked up and made into some other story on another station, and it becomes the truth. See, I think fact outweighs assumption. So if you have facts in your hands, then you can talk, then you can have a conversation... People just, they poop on you and they walk away."
After asserting that she has said "not one thing" on ABC's The View that she regrets saying, Goldberg soon added, "And I've gotten flack for what I felt was fact as opposed to someone's speculation."
But Goldberg has her own history of helping spread misinformation on The View. Last May, she and other co-hosts repeated the distorted claims of a left-wing organization in Texas which alleged that conservatives on the Texas State Board of Education were trying to downplay or eliminate references to slavery in its grade school history curriculum. On the Monday, May 17 show, co-host Joy Behar misinformed viewers with sarcasm:
Remember that thing called the "slave trade"? Remember that? Okay, it turns out, what you learned was all wrong. Because it wasn't some evil buying and selling of human beings. It was simply called "Atlantic triangular trade." That's what they want to call it now. It's called revisionism. People do it about the Holocaust, and now Texas wants to do it about our country.
Moments later, Goldberg chimed in, "I'm sorry. Slavery was slavery. You can't recall it." Instead of reading out the actual wording from the curriculum plan, panel members seemed only to refer to third-party accounts of the proposed changes.
And in April, the panel on the View helped feed the misinformed hysteria over Arizona's effort to enforce federal immigration laws as some of her co-hosts assumed the new state law would require racial profiling and targeting of Hispanics, failing to convey that Arizona law enforcement would only check immigration documents of suspects who have been detained for some other reason. Goldberg acted more as moderator on this occasion and was not as outspoken as other co-hosts in making assertions about the new law, but she did not challenge the claims of her co-hosts and seemed to assume they were accurate. Goldberg, from the April 26 The View:
There are only some people who get stopped, okay? They're generally brown. Because there's a lot of people from Italy, from Denmark, from Ireland, England, Africa, who have been here on visas that expired ages ago. If we're going to do something, let's start at the beginning and really do it. Let's get the folks who are not supposed to be here to go back around to the back of the line and start again. If you want to be here, come in and do it the right way. If you're going to stop one, then stop everybody.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Saturday, November 20, Huckabee show on FNC:
MIKE HUCKABEE: You talk in the book about something near and dear to my heart, and it's about bloggers and the fact that people can be anonymous and cruel and vicious. You call them cowards.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: I call them cowards and assassins, you know, because you don't know where the hit is coming from. See, on the View, and I'm sure on your show as well, if I say something, you know I said it. If you hear me say it, you know I said it. If I don't apologize the next day, you know I meant it. But a blogger can say endless stuff. They don't have to fact check.
HUCKABEE: Yeah.GOLDBERG: They don't have to find out if they are even current in their information. They don't have to do any of that. And then that is picked up and made into some other story on another station, and it becomes the truth. See, I think fact outweighs assumption. So if you have facts in your hands, then you can talk, then you can have a conversation and say I hated what you did, blah, blah, blah. And I want to know who's saying it so I can say, well, I think you're wrong here, you missed this. But you can't do that. People just, they poop on you and they walk away.
HUCKABEE: Well, I think it's the equivalent of really word smith terrorism where people can anonymously hurt other people-GOLDBERG: Yes.
HUCKABEE: -they take no responsibility-
GOLDBERG: No.
HUCKABEE: -for it, and yet the damage can sometimes be absolutely irreversible.
GOLDBERG: Yes.
HUCKABEE: You're on television five days a week. You deal with a lot of controversial topics. Is there any one thing that you have said on television about somebody or an issue that you wished you hadn't have said?
GOLDBERG: Not one thing.
HUCKABEE: Not one thing.GOLDBERG: No.
HUCKABEE: How nice that must be.
GOLDBERG: Well, you know what, I stand behind my beliefs.
HUCKABEE: You've never had that moment where it came out of your mouth and you said, "That ain't going over real well."
GOLDBERG: Well, a lot of things I've said haven't gone over real well.
HUCKABEE: But you didn't mind.
GOLDBERG: Well, you know what? They were my opinion...
[GOLDBERG RECOUNTS TRYING TO PUT MICHAEL VICK'S DOG FIGHTING INTO PERSPECTIVE AND THE RESULTING COMPLAINTS]
So they really gave me a hard time on that. And, you know, I got a little bit of flack for getting up and walking away from Mr. O'Reilly. That was all right, too. And I've gotten flack for what I felt was fact as opposed to someone's speculation.
- Brad Wilmouth is a news analyst at the Media Research Center
