As Twitchy reported earlier, Vox’s Liz Plank went on ‘Reliable Sources’ (yeah, we laugh every time we write it, too) to talk about the Jussie Smollett story. Plank tried to protect the media in how they’ve been reporting this debacle by claiming they hadn’t reported his attackers saying, ‘This is MAGA country.’

Watch.

Vox's Liz Plank on "This is MAGA country" quote: "The people who were repeating that quote were not news outlets…It was repeated by, sure, people who maybe had good intentions of wanting to spread the story…We can't confuse celebrity tweets with the media and the press. pic.twitter.com/ayGHYmxYk8 — Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) February 17, 2019

We pointed out earlier how nobody bought what Plank was selling, but nobody called her out quite as brutally as Frank Luntz.

Either @Feministabulous is lying or just incompetent at Googling what news outlets said less than a month ago.https://t.co/Ws2yYNoprk — Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) February 17, 2019

And then Plank broke out her shovel to keep on diggin’ that hole.

news outlets did not assign truth to his statement, they correctly reported it as a claim which is what journalism is. they reported it as being investigated which it was! the examples of reputable news outlets that you’re quoting in your tweet all reported a claim, not a fact. — Liz Plank (@feministabulous) February 17, 2019

Plz post links of those same outlets questioning big holes in the story: • Nobody would be walking around 2am on the coldest night in city history with rope + bleach • No MAGA fan would recognize a bundled-up actor from Empire • Chicago would never be called “MAGA Country” — Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) February 17, 2019

So the story was accurately reported but media outlets should have cast doubts on the reports (inserting opinion/judgement) instead of simply reporting what was being investigated? — Liz Plank (@feministabulous) February 17, 2019

Scrutiny is a fundamental tenant of (competent) journalism. — Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) February 17, 2019

How dare he!?

Heh.

Sure…but saying no maga person would recognize an actor from empire is not inserting skepticism it’s inserting opinion. — Liz Plank (@feministabulous) February 17, 2019

K.

Honestly, it only got worse for her.

Here are the three #JussieSmollett tweets that I can find that @feministabulous RT'd in the early days of the reporting on the incident: pic.twitter.com/PnwVFBh5xj — Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) February 17, 2019

Does that mean you don’t consider yourself to be a reputable news outlet?https://t.co/fUVFtYRJhg — Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) February 17, 2019

Gosh, golly, and gee, that sure looks like a lot of media tweets covering what she said they didn’t cover.

But hey, we’re far from experts … so what do we know?

Related:

It just gets worse and WORSE: If true, you won’t BELIEVE how far Jussie Smollett was willing to take his case (ok, you might)

DAAAMN, son! Ron Perlman learned the HARD way why you NEVER bring a knife to a gunfight with Dana Loesch

ACTUAL journo Andy Ngo has been chronicling responses about #JussieSmollett in 1 HUGE (and infuriating) thread and just WOW