A “journalist” for the Leftmedia outlet USA Today resigned after an internal investigation revealed that she had fabricated sources and evidence for nearly two dozen of her articles. “After receiving an external correction request, USA Today audited the reporting of Gabriela Miranda,” the paper stated. Talk about the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

Not only did Miranda fabricate sources and quotes, she “took steps to deceive investigators by producing false evidence of her news gathering.” The paper has removed all of Miranda’s offending articles from its webpage, replacing them with the message, “This story has been removed from our platforms because it does not meet our standards.” The articles in question appeared to address a wide variety of topics, including the war in Ukraine, TikTok, abortion, pop culture, and COVID.

Now for the much bigger question: How many other Mirandas are there in the mainstream media?

Meanwhile, Miranda may be feeling a bit like a scapegoat. USA Today along with 250 other news outlets under the umbrella of parent company Gannett recently announced they will be scaling back their opinion pages and shrinking the number of columnists.

According to The Washington Post, “Opinion pages are alienating readers and becoming obsolete.” Gannett claims: “Readers don’t want us to tell them what to think. They don’t believe we have the expertise to tell anyone what to think on most issues. They perceive us as having a biased agenda.” Even the language of that statement reveals just how biased they are. Readers perceive media outlets as biased because they are biased. But it’s not the opinion and op-ed section that reveals this bias as much as that which the Leftmedia presents as “non-biased” news.

The real problem is that leftist “journalists” have rejected the notion that their job is to report the news and avoid injecting their opinion into their reporting. Instead, Gannett blames its reputation not on its own biased reporting but on “the traditional model [that] is confusing and repelling readers.” When the waters are intentionally muddied, it makes it difficult to see what’s swimming in the stream.

While Gabriela Miranda did engage in blatant fabrication of sources and evidence, her instinct to promote a narrative rather than simply report the news is essentially the root of the problem for Leftmedia “journalism.” Seeking to propagandize readers is the goal because trusting them to decide for themselves doesn’t move the cultural needle in the Left’s desired political direction.