Deseret News Fabricates More News

Bob Bernick and the D News were caught in an outright lie. On Monday, Utah Senate leaders met with the Deseret News editorial board. In a broad ranging conversation, they discussed the State’s referendum process, concluding that it was in the right place.

Instead of reporting those facts, Bob Bernick and the D News made up a story. In complete contradiction of the facts, they reported that GOP legislative leaders were going to make a run at changing the referendum process. Again, that was a complete lie.

When called on the lie, the editorial board was forced to acknowledge it. They, then, forced Bernick to write a retraction. He didn’t. Instead, he furthered the lie.

Though Bernick admitted privately to President Valentine that he’d acted unethically, he publicly lied again. The D News didn’t publish anything approaching, “We made it all up.” Instead, Bernick wrote that Legislative leaders weren’t going to change the law after all – as if they’d seen the light only after reading Bernick’s article where he first told this lie. That is a significant misrepresentation. As indicated in the comments to Bernick’s “retraction,” people were (intentionally) led to believe that the Legislature reversed course. Nope. But, Bernick and the D News need to reverse course and clearly admit that they made up the story in the first place.

I called the D News and again asked for the recording of the editorial board meeting. It is important that they exercise a little of the transparency they supposedly laud, and give people a chance to see how accurate the D News is with facts.