Meryl Streep’s promotion of ‘fake news’ at the Golden Globes

As you may be seeing, the bright, shiny object getting more attention than any other on this Monday is Meryl Streep’s Golden Globes speech last night that included her slamming Donald Trump for allegedly mocking a reporter’s disability during the presidential campaign.

“There was one performance this year that stunned me — it sank its hooks in my heart,” Streep said. “Not because it was good; there was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh, and show their teeth.

“It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter,” Streep continued. “It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I still can’t get it out of my head, because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.

Trump says he engaged in no such behavior, stating he was only “calling into question a reporter who had gotten nervous because he had changed his story.”

But video clearly shows him using flailing arm and hand gestures associated with someone physically challenged and making sounds associated with someone mentally challenged to imitate New York Times Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from a condition known as arthrogryposis, which causes joints to seize, affecting their movement. 

In other words, flailing one’s arms wildly is something Kovaleski physically can’t do. He also speaks perfectly.

But that isn’t stopping many in print and on television for reporting Trump’s mocking as absolute fact, all without providing these little (crucial) things called “precedent” and “context.”

For example, during an interview with Larry King on CNN in 2005, Trump used the same exact flailing body movements and sounds to describe himself. Here’s the video: 

And several times during the presidential campaign before ever broaching Serge Kovaleski, Trump applied the flailing motions and sounds again to describe everyone from Ted Cruz to an unnamed flustered American general to confused bank regulators. More video evidence is below: 

All the videos clearly illustrate that Trump has a default impression for basically everyone he mimics or mocks.

But why let overwhelming video evidence get in the way of a story, particularly when it gives the media another chance to paint Trump as evil, immature, unhinged?

The Washington Post: Meryl Streep was right. Donald Trump did mock a disabled reporter

The Daily Beast: Meryl Streep Calls Out Donald Trump for Mocking Disabled Reporter in Riveting Golden Globes Speech

Entertainment Weekly: Meryl Streep unloads on Trump in powerful Golden Globes speech

Huffington Post: Donald Trump Denies Mocking Reporter With Disability, Even Though It Appears He Did

In a Monday New York Times story that included Trump’s reaction via a brief telephone interview with a reporter there, the paper of record fails to broach any of the context provided above. And if you read the dozens of front-page stories on Streep’s speech, none of them provide any context or precedent either.

So after watching those other videos and understanding the nature Kovaleski’s condition, do you still agree with Meryl Streep and almost of the media that Trump was mocking a disabled reporter?

We’ve heard much about fake news and false narratives lately.

Chalk this one up as another example of the media being dishonest, lazy, or most likely, both in its endless pursuit to break the bright, shiny object that is President-elect Trump.

Joe Concha is a media reporter for The Hill.

The views expressed by Contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.