With numerous details provided the question becomes – are any of them accurate?!

On Monday the Washington Post ran a story that Cumulus Media issued a command raising concerns with the on-air talent broadcast by its radio division, Westwood One. Based allegedly on an internal memo that had been leaked, writer Paul Farhi explained the new standard was supposed to be addressing the content on the radio shows in its syndicate, declaring that no on-air personalities would be permitted to continue suggesting the election was fraudulent. Reprisals were promised.

Cumulus Media, which employs some of the most popular right-leaning talk-radio hosts in the United States, has told its on-air personalities to stop suggesting that the election was stolen from President Trump — or else face termination. The memo adds: “If you transgress this policy, you can expect to separate from the company immediately.”

The article goes on to invoke the names of some of the bigger names in the conservative talk sector — Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, and Dan Bongino — and the difficulties which may emerge with this new policy forced upon them. For instance, how can they change their narrative after delivering so much invective? The story was amplified by Bloomberg’s Emma Kinery.

This would be the time when you could say, ‘’But then, a slight problem emerged’’, except that is not accurate. Numerous problems are found, and they are rather significant. For starters, Shapiro has not been saying the election was stolen, so he would not be subjected to this new edict supposedly handed down. But there are more issues, something the producer of Shapiro’s show pointed out.

Cumulus is not Ben's employer and hasn't told Ben jack shit about what he can or cannot say on air.

Also, Ben never said the election was stolen.

That's at least three falsehoods in 280 characters or less, but pretty good journalisming otherwise. https://t.co/5h0VASqfHZ

— Jeremy Boreing (@JeremyDBoreing) January 11, 2021

Just a complete mess regarding Shapiro. The Post ended up correcting the story — sort of. The piece now accurately states Shapiro in fact has not claimed the election was stolen, yet the correction they ran still insists he is a Cumulus employee. ”This story has been updated to clarify that while Ben Shapiro is one of Cumulus’s most popular hosts, he is not among the voices who have promoted claims of a rigged election.” Just a complete fiasco. 

Well, what about the other hosts? That evening Mark Levin next addressed this memorandum that was delivered to him dictating what his content was permitted to be on the air. Things did not get any better. 

“Now, here’s the problem. I never got a memo. I never got any memo. Not from Brian Phillips, executive vice president of Content for Cumulus, not from anybody.  Nobody threatened me. Nobody told me what I could and couldn’t say. Because if they did, you’d be hearing about it, but they didn’t. They didn’t have an insight in anything. I don’t promote violence. But the Washington Post has a narrative, Paul Farhi, he has a narrative, he’s also a liar.”

Yesterday Levin issued an update at his website, stating that the story was never corrected.

Okay, that leaves Dan Bongino. The rather vituperative host has been enduring quite a load of stress, as he is an investor in the social media site Parler that had been de-platformed by the tech giants over the weekend. Surely this memo telling him to calm down and not anger the bosses would find him in a defeated state and ready to comport himself properly, correct?

Er, what is the opposite of ‘’correct’’? On his Tuesday program, Bongino addressed this article directly. ‘’Paul Farhi, never spoken to me, never reached out for a comment at all, but my name is mentioned in this ridiculous piece.’’ Uh oh, this does not seem to be going well at all. What did Dan have to say about the details?

‘’I do not work for Westwood One, Number one. The story is fake. Number two – The story implies that Westwood One/Cumulus…sent out some email,demanding we stop talking about the election and what happened. Ladies and gentlemen, that is 100 percent fake.’’ 

This is bordering on the remarkable. Three prominent names in the conservative radio realm are drawn into this article, none of whom were mentioned in the memorandum (a document that is never displayed, and only select pull quotes are given.) Not only were they not subjects in the memo, two of them are not even subjected to it, as they do not even work for Cumulus. This is an entirely crafted myth.

It is difficult to determine just what the intent of this article had been, given that it concerned three major media names who were more than adept at addressing the falsehoods. If selling some kind of narrative was the plan how could the writer not see that it would be entirely debunked by the names who have no hesitation in confronting this kind of method?

Whatever goal was hoped for cannot be worth the roundly exposed hackery that was used in making this fiction.