top us if you’ve heard this one before: The media — excited about a story that confirms all of its favorite narratives — gives the “news” prominent airtime before journalists actually do the hard work of thoroughly fact-checking. And, before long, the actual news turns out to pretty much the opposite of what these credulous reporters claimed. It happened with Jussie Smollett. It happened with Covington. It happened with the Virginia girl whose dreads were supposedly cut off. And now it’s happened again — in the most predictable, absolutely unsurprising development of 2020.