k310 9 days ago

Welcome to the new world, where one stupid tweet sets off a tweet storm, which is picked up by so-called reputable news agencies, unchecked and set off a market roller coaster. [0]

> Around 8:30 a.m. ET, the National Economic Council's Kevin Hassett was asked during a live Fox News interview whether Trump would consider a 90-day pause to the sweeping tariffs he imposed on many countries last week. Hassett responded: "I think the president is going to decide what the president is going to decide." On X, that morphed into a bogus headline that Trump was considering a 90-day pause on tariffs for all countries except China.

> It appears the X account "Hammer Capital" was the first to share this false report, around 10:11 a.m. ET on Monday. The account has just over 1,100 followers, and it has a blue verification badge, a paid feature that helps enhance the reach of user's posts.

... which was re-tweeted over and over ...

> Around 10:12 a.m. ET, cheers broke out across the New York Stock Exchange trading floor, according to CNN, as the market rallied on the false premise that the White House was weighing a tariffs pause. Reuters, citing CNBC, then published a headline carrying the inaccurate tariff pause report.

> In statements to NPR, Reuters said it has withdrawn the incorrect report, blaming a headline published on CNBC. When asked for comment, CNBC said it "aired unconfirmed information in a banner," which it "quickly" corrected. The network would not comment on the source of its information.

It's truly a post-truth and no-checking world. It's not journalism any more, just move fast and literally break news.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2025/04/07/nx-s1-5355055/tariffs-markets...