REPEAT A LIE OFTEN ENOUGH: Granted, Variety Magazine is hardly the stuff of insightful or particular detailed reporting, but using Christine Amanpour as a springboard to repeat a canard is pretty low. Being a Hollywood-based publication, it’s not surprising how a sly but false anti-Trump innuendo would show up:

“To Amanpour, it’s no surprise that violence against journalists has grown. This is a world where the man with the biggest bully pulpit of them all, President Trump, actually uses it to bully, denouncing the news media as the “enemy of the people.” Last year, a gunman killed five people in the newsroom of Maryland’s Capital Gazette, propelling the U.S. into a tie with Mexico as the fourth-deadliest country for journalists.”

That’s all fine and dandy…except it’s a strawman: The shooter had in fact targeted the staff members over a long-running feud with the newspaper that stemmed over a 2012 defamation lawsuit. Even Reuters was forced to discipline an editor who repeated the talking point.