Satire site Babylon Bee gets fact-checked by USA Today over Trump’s ‘Space Navy’ and we’re crying over thread
The Babylon Bee is a satire site on the Right, and they posted an article with tongue-in-cheek this week that joked about President Trump proposing a Space Navy now that NASA has found water on the Moon. USA Today evidently believed that people would take the post seriously and were quick to fact-check it to set readers straight.
The Bee’s post went viral and USA Today was mocked for yet again fact-checking a humor/satire site.
From the Babylon Bee: “WASHINGTON D.C.—NASA recently announced its discovery of definitive evidence that there is water on the moon. President Donald Trump wasted no time, following up with an announcement of his own. “Water in space means only one thing,” he told the press. “We need to create a Space Navy.”’
With Moon Water Announcement, Trump Proposes Space Navy https://t.co/aG1at5Wp1F
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) October 27, 2020
The Bee wrote: “According to Trump, the Space Force would patrol the space skies — ‘all that black stuff between planets’ as he described it — but any space water would be the domain of the Space Navy.”
“‘We’ll get big, beautiful space battleships to put on the oceans of the moon,’ Trump said. ‘And they’ll have big space cannons ready for any space water threats out there, like space sharks. Or maybe space pirates — but not the regular space pirates that fly around in spaceships but space water pirates.'”
Readers and the Bee found it hard to believe that USA Today felt it necessary to fact-check their post.
This led to a very funny “retraction” from the Babylon Bee:
Sadly, we must retract this one. We'd like to thank @USATODAY for calling us out with this fact check. We will strive to do better. pic.twitter.com/5tk5ApSQjv
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) October 30, 2020
Our writer @IMAO_ is responsible for this one. We called him into the office and said, “Hey, dummy, boats don’t go in space!”
He said, “Oh. I guess that makes sense. Probably should have looked into that on Google.” He then committed seppuku to preserve his journalistic honor.
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) October 30, 2020
Then the actual US Navy got involved in the satire which made the whole incident even funnier:
To infinite-sea and beyond. ? @NASA #nasa #usnavy #navyreadiness pic.twitter.com/0wK6wc4kue
— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) October 30, 2020
It would seem the Navy thought it was a great idea and took off with it.
At that point, the Babylon Bee decided to retract their retraction:
Wait, hold on. We’re retracting our retraction.https://t.co/s6mCrwqE9N
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) October 30, 2020
USA Today focused on quips from the Bee such as: ‘”Trump has already tasked people to design a logo, uniforms, and a space aircraft carrier — though it would in fact be a space spacecraft carrier since there is no air in space,’ reads the Babylon Bee article.” They also alluded to it as being a fake news site and were quick to point out that Trump retweeted the post from the Babylon Bee.
And this conclusion by USA Today seems unnecessary: “The claim that Trump proposed a Space Navy is FALSE, based on our research. The claim originated on the Babylon Bee, a satirical website. There is no evidence that Trump made any sort of proposal after water was discovered on the sunlit surface of the moon.”
It’s unclear if USA Today will fact-check the Navy over their tweet. The media outlet did reach out to the Babylon Bee but it is hard to understand how they did not know the site was a satire site.
