March 11, 2022

Yes, Wendy Bell's "Research" Is Shoddy, At Best

Hot off the Twitter-presses from the more than capable crew at the WBW:

I won't bother with a transcription. Suffice it to say that Wendy Bell "enlightens" one of her sons with the video from this story:

As far as I can tell, the original tweet has been removed.

The video shows one of the "dead" getting out of the "body bag" and as this is purportedly in Ukraine, the whole invasion story has to be taken with a huge amount of skepticism, teaches Wendy. Wendy beams that her son "learns" this lesson about the news media and Ukraine. She "Right-on!" quotes him:

That I can't believe everything I'm hearing in school.

You'll note the date on Wendy's BS board: 3/9/22. The removed tweet's date is Mar 1, 2022.

This story was debunked by Politifact on March 4 (three days later):

The people under the tarps aren’t crisis actors from Ukraine trying to fool people into thinking they are dead. They were part of a protest against climate change that was held in Vienna, Austria, on Feb. 4.

Specifically:

The clip is from a Feb. 4 demonstration against climate change in Vienna. The reporter, Marvin Bergauer, is from an Austrian news channel called OE24 TV and is speaking German in the video. An English translation of the chyron on the video says "Vienna: Demo against climate policy." 
 
The people under the tarps aren’t crisis actors — from Germany, Ukraine or anywhere else — trying to fool people into thinking that they are dead. They’re protesters from Austria in a video taken before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.

So let's go through the possibilities of Wendy's life-lesson to her son.

  • The fake story was introduced on March 1.
  • Polifact debunked it on March 4.
  • Wendy told the story on March 9.

Perhaps Wendy told her son the story before it was debunked. This gives her the benefit of the doubt - if she knew it was false and yet still told her son? No. No rational parent would do that, right?

In any event, that really doesn't help her case much since she's still telling us the story after.

Or perhaps Wendy never bothered to research the veracity of the story at all.

That's far more likely, doncha think?

This is Wendy Bell-style research. It's complete and utter bullshit.

Here's the lesson we  learn every time she's debunked for misinforming the public or otherwise spreading Russian disinformation:

That I can't believe anything I'm hearing from Wendy Bell.

See what I did there?

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