It pays to be skeptical when watching television news programs. The people who put together
television news programs sometimes display shameless political bias, by their selection of what is
reported and what isn't. You may have noticed that TV news reporters often pass along press
releases from government agencies (at all levels) without ever questioning the wisdom of anything
the government does, or the cost, or the truthfulness of what the government says. When
television news producers and reporters lack healthy skepticism, it's up to you to be on guard and
ask questions of your own. That's what a large portion of this web site is about.
To a great extent, the "news" people on television don't know very much that you don't know
already, if you've spent more than five minutes on the internet before turning on the TV. Beyond
morbid curiosity, do you really care if there was a fire last night at an apartment complex across
town? Do you care if there was an eight-car wreck on the freeway, or if a bunch of drunken
teenagers had a wreck while drag racing at 3:00 a.m., or the police chased a guy all over town
until he ran off the road? How is your life made any better by knowing about all that?
And then there's the weather. Television weather forecasts are notoriously inaccurate beyond the
next 48 hours, yet most stations have "extended" forecasts covering the next seven days. I can
assure you, they're just guessing (or repeating someone else's guess) about everything beyond
three or four days from now. On tonight's weather segment, the predicted high and
low temperatures for six or seven days from now are just the normal high and low for this time
of year. Anybody with a real interest in tomorrow's weather (or today's) can make
educated guesses that are every bit as good as the ones on television. If you'll make notes
about the weather forecast you see today, versus the weather that actually develops five or six
days later – sometimes as little as one day later – you'll see what I mean.
The only thing the TV weather "personality" has – that an amateur forecaster
doesn't – is really good radar. But even that is available to
Joe Average over the internet. And you don't have to wait until 6:15 p.m. to see it.
And there's hardly ever any good news about the weather. TV weathermen
complain that we desperately need rain, and then when it finally starts raining, you'll hear them
wonder if the rain will ever end. They never mention lake levels or UV intensity or
pollution or pollen counts unless there is bad news to report. That's bias. That's
calculated pessimism — the consultants know bad news makes people watch again tomorrow,
but good news does not.
Similarly, the local news is sometimes padded with stock market news. But anybody with a serious
interest in the stock market will learn nothing new from the superficial two-sentence financial report.
An event is newsworthy in direct proportion to its unlikeliness. That's why "this day in history" is not
news. That's one of several reasons why celebrity birthdays are not news. They're
inevitable. Stories about Hollywood divorces (or "breakups", since actual marriages are the
exception in Hollywood), and stories about professional athletes being arrested are not
news; they are nothing more than idle gossip.
On the other hand, what appears to be incompetence is often just expedience. The producers of
local news shows aren't dumb, they're just under pressure to fill half-hour blocks of time
with something, even if they don't have a lot of fresh material. The news segments
in a local news show are often just spacers between commercial breaks. On light news days,
the "news" segments are sometimes shorter than the commercial breaks with which they alternate. When
serious news is in short supply, you're likely to see stories about animals, babies, baby animals,
time-critical rescues, and anything else that has some kind of emotional appeal. (That's why we
heard about "Baby Jessica in the well" for months after the story was over.)
This page is not about political bias, necessarily. Examples of flat-out political bias
are shown on this page.
Analysis and criticism of the New York Times can be found
on this page.
Obsolescent media, the decline of newspaper circulation, and similar subjects are discussed
here.
With the newspapers in decline, there may be some temptation to accept "help" from the federal
government. But that is an obvious threat to the First Amendment (isn't it?) and that
topic is discussed here.
News media bias and sensationalism in the coverage of Hurricane Katrina are outlined
on this page.
The Oklahoma City Bombing case
is a prime example of news media laziness. The government's official "one man, one bomb"
explanation was reported at face value, unchallenged, even though people have shown that a truck
bomb was not enough to cause that kind of destruction. ("For six weeks,
John Doe No. 2 is the most hunted man in the world until, without explanation,
he just kind of goes
away.")*
The crash of TWA 800 is a
prime example of news media gullibility in the face of an impossible official
explanation. Numerous aviation experts have tackled this story and have
shown the government's version to be a fabrication and a cover-up.
Even more suspicious, if you ask me, was the crash
of American 587, just a couple of months
after the 9/11 attacks. The plane was still smoldering on the ground when the government (with the
passive assistance of the hapless press) began making bold pronouncements that the crash had nothing
to do with terrorism.
The Vince Foster case
is an example of the national news media's unwillingness to confront the Clinton administration when
the evidence doesn't add up to the official explanation. Even so, I can see how reporters would
rather leave the story alone than suddenly end up dead like Mr. Foster.
To be fair, TV reporters are powerless to investigate questionable stories in cases where the U.S.
government is in possession of all the evidence. Especially when people at the highest levels
of government want to keep things quiet. In addition, the average reporter depends heavily on
government officials for information, and that same average reporter doesn't want his or her sources
to dry up overnight because he or she dared to question the officials' candor or honesty.
Dan Rather's Memo-gate is a
good example of unmitigated political bias in TV news reporting. The
story was released close enough to the 2004 election so that the outcome of the election would be
affected, even if the "facts" were later disproven. But as CBS found out, the internet moves
information quickly, and skeptics abound.
The Fox News Channel has figured this out, and they
at least try to present both sides of controversial subjects, even though such discussions
are too short to be conclusive, and when competing guests argue, the discussions often degenerate
into shouting matches.
Incompetence
Idiot
America Indeed. Today's post is not about politics but, rather, about contemporary
journalism's compulsion to besoil itself in the service of politics. The excess and
carelessness engendered by political servility plopped squarely this week upon the heads of Charles P.
Pierce (Esquire magazine) and Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (ABC's The View). Both sought
to justify Joe Biden's sweeping pardon of Hunter Biden by pointing to peculiar antecedents. Pierce
cited George H. W. Bush's pardon of his son Neil, and Navarro-Cárdenas cited Woodrow Wilson's
pardon of his brother-in-law Hunter deButts. Their examples were peculiar because (1) Neil Bush
was never convicted or even charged with any crimes, and (2) Hunter deButts never existed.
Navarro-Cárdenas learned of Hunter deButts's pardon from the often-hallucinatory ChatGPT.
Pierce apparently bypassed electronic sources, plumbed purported facts from the depths of his own
imagination, shunted them past whatever vestigial fact-checking routines exist at Esquire,
and shot them out to gullible readers. Across the Internet some of those readers are yet
spreading the Parables of Neil Bush and Hunter deButts.
Hunter
Biden Pardon Catches Useless Regime Media by Surprise. Nobody with half a brain
believed Joe Biden when he vowed never to pardon his infamous criminal son, Hunter Biden. The
very idea was ridiculous. And yet, over and over, the utterly useless American media assured
us we had Joe's word as a Biden. And it wasn't only that we had Joe's word as a Biden.
Oh, no, the useless media threw Joe's promise not to pardon his criminal son in every Trump supporter's
face. Unlike the Bad Orange Man, Joe Biden believes in the rule of law.
Joe Biden respects the judicial system. Joe Biden is a protector of democracy!
[Advertisement] Do an online search. The headlines are a joke. Despite thousands
of people who claim to be reporters swarming all over Washington DC, every single one was caught
off guard. It was Joe Biden who broke the story of Hunter's pardon by releasing the pardon.
Tales
of a Family Reunion Five Days Post-Election. The election of 1860 was divisive.
The election of 2024 was a passing fit of hysteria ginned up by a dying and increasingly dishonest
legacy media. [...] To make my case, I cited a survey done by Franklin Templeton-Gallup during the
last six months of 2020. In the survey, some 35,000 Americans were asked their assessment of COVID,
a subject that had dominated the news, left and right, since the beginning of the year. The
most revealing answer came in response to the question: "What percentage of people who have been
infected by the coronavirus needed to be hospitalized?" The Democrats who responded had no
idea. Some 41 percent believed that 50 percent or more of those who contracted
COVID would end up in the hospital. Another 28 percent said that 20 [to] 50 percent
of COVID sufferers would be hospitalized. The correct answer was 1 [to] 5 percent,
an answer that Republicans were nearly three times as likely to get right. In sum, 69 percent
of Democrats were deeply misinformed about a subject of critical importance, and 41 percent were
grotesquely misinformed.
Unsolicited
Advice for the Left. [Scroll down] Speaking of pure, unadulterated
enjoyment: Are there any bigger clowns than the talking heads of the dying mainstream
media? Could they be any more biased and out of touch? They lie so much and so
consistently that they're now trusted even less than politicians, mass murderers, and oven
grease. As the legacy media business model goes down in flames, I say, Learn to
code. I have a family member who makes good scratch coding.
ABC
affiliate 'mistakenly' airs election results sparking conspiracy theories. An ABC
affiliate has sparked wild conspiracy theories after mistakenly airing election results for
Pennsylvania. The results appeared on the ticker along the bottom of the screen during a
broadcast of the Formula 1 Mexico Grand Prix by ABC local affiliate WNEP-TV on Sunday. It
showed Kamala Harris taking the state with 52 percent of the votes, while Donald Trump's share
was 47 percent. It instantly prompted claims of election rigging on social media, with
one person tweeting: 'The cheat is on.' WNEP-TV said that the numbers came up on the screen in
'error' and that they had been 'randomly generated' as part of a test ahead of election night on
November 5.
The Editor says...
As I've probably mentioned a few times already, I worked in broadcasting for 48 years, and incidents
like the one described above are rare, but they happen, especially in the week before an election.
However, it's odd that when text is keyed (superimposed) over program video, with "randomly generated"
election results, they always show the Democrat winning. That makes it hard to believe it was
accidental. Here's a pro tip for the ABC affiliate: If you want to see whether your
Master Control switcher can put a super over network video, start with a blank bracket, "The quick
brown fox," or a single punctuation mark in the corner of the screen — not with an
advertisement for the socialist Democrats. You can play with the character generator off-line
as much as you want.
Absurd:
While Americans Suffer, NBC's Kristen Welker Focuses on Trump's Cholesterol Levels.
The Democrat's marketing wing in the mainstream media is in full panic mode as they watch their
candidate, Kamala Harris, implode. They are so desperate that they have resorted to demanding
President Trump's cholesterol levels be made public to shift the focus from the abject failure of
the Biden-Harris administration. On Sunday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) appeared on NBC's
Meet the Press. Instead of grilling Johnson on substantive issues, like how the Biden-Harris
regime has failed Americans recovering from the devastation of two recent hurricanes, Kristen
Welker talked about cholesterol levels.
When
science's walls start crumbling down. You may have heard that the secret to living a
very long life could be found in a few different areas, one of which was in Japan but also included
parts of Greece, Italy, and even California. This was the result of research that found much
higher rates of people over the age of 100 living in these so-called blue zones. The
problem? Those very old people? Yeah, they're dead. [...] It also seems when it's not a
case of poor record-keeping, there's something far worse going on. The story notes that a lot
of those supposed 150-year-old people were really folks who died decades earlier, but their
families pretended they were still alive so they could pocket the deceased's benefits. It
seems that these areas were also areas with high poverty and high crime, which doesn't tend to go
with long lives. It does go with pretending someone is still alive to collect government
benefits for as long as one can get away with it, though. And this was pushed onto the
American people as if there were secrets to longevity we should all heed.
Coffee
and Cable TV in Helene-ravaged NC. My husband and I live in Western North
Carolina. We are among the inconvenienced, not the devastated. [...] [W]e got a chance to
watch cable television, which we never, ever do anymore as we cut the cord right after Fox called
Arizona for Biden in November 2020 and we've never looked back. [...] Know what I found
out? We haven't missed [any]thing. Everything and more which I needed to
know — about the storm, about the veep debate, anything — I got online, via
X/Twitter or other various sites I've made a regular habit to frequent these last years: [American
Thinker], the Citizen Free Press, Twitchy, RealClearPolitics, and the Conservative Treehouse. With
that handful of sites, plus X/Twitter, there's absolutely no need for any cable news whatsoever. [...]
And to be clear: we saw zero government support. Zero. No FEMA, no nothing from the
Feds. Everything we've seen this past week was private citizens and charities.
The
Girl Squad Moderators for the Vance-Walz VP Debate Fixated on Childcare, Totally Skipped Over
Crime. Tuesday night's Vice Presidential Debate between Republican Ohio Senator
JD Vance and Democrat Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was amazingly civil and substantive. Vance not
only set the tone, but he put the Girl Squad moderator team of Margaret Brennan and Norah O'Donnell
on their four-inch heels by checking them on their attempts to fact-check and run interference,
even though they claimed at the beginning that this would not be done.
Idiotic
regime media interview totally crazy man because his rants flatter their geopolitical preconceptions.
Last Sunday, a totally crazy man named Ryan Wesley Routh hid in the bushes outside the fence of the Trump
International Golf Club in West Palm Beach with a rifle, apparently waiting to ambush Donald Trump while he
played a game of golf. Secret Service agents, who had failed to secure the perimeter of the golf course,
noticed Routh's rifle protruding from the shrubbery and shot at him. Routh fled, but was later arrested.
Here is looking like a lunatic in the back of a police car: [Photo] Routh has been a convicted felon since
2002, after he barricaded himself in a building with an automatic weapon. He's also collected criminal charges
for possession of stolen goods, possession of a stolen motor vehicle and various driving offences — all
while working as a builder and alienating a wide variety of people along the way: [...] The war in Ukraine pushed
Routh over the edge. He flew to Kiev with ambitions of fighting the Russians, but because he was in his
mid-fifties and mentally unstable, the International Legion turned him down.
Reporter
Wonders Why Media Took Routh Seriously — and Answers the Question. We
actually have two questions that require answers in the wake of Sunday's assassination
attempt on Donald Trump by a (well-)"known wolf". The first question: Why didn't federal
security and intel agencies take Ryan Wesley Routh seriously? He had a decades-long track
record of criminal activity, and numerous people tried to warn the FBI, Homeland Security, and the
State Department of his dangerous nature. [Advertisement] We may wait a long time
for a satisfactory explanation for that question. Thanks to Tanya Lukyanova, however, we have
a good answer to the second question: Why did American media outlets take Routh seriously?
Lukyanova reported for Semafor a couple of years ago and interviewed Routh, and was hardly alone. Lots
of news outlets — and Lukyanova brings receipts — treated Routh as a good source for
their narratives on Ukraine, even while Routh himself clearly had some mental health and judgment issues: [...]
The
worst debate in the history of presidential debates. Not one question Tuesday night
about the execution of Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages two weeks ago, or about any of
the Americans murdered by Hamas terrorists on October 7? Not one question on Iran, which
is within weeks of acquiring a nuclear weapon and which is paying and perhaps precisely directing
repeated attacks by its proxies on American forces in the Gulf or Arabia, the Red Sea, Iraq or
Jordan? Not one question about the capacity of President Joe Biden to continue as
president? And not one, single fleeting question about the People's Republic of China, and
its genocide against the Uyghurs, its oppression of Hong Kong, its threat against Taiwan or the
Philippines, or its military buildup, the largest, most expensive peacetime military buildup in
history? Perhaps ABC's parent Disney put the kibosh on questions that would upset the
People's Republic of China and endanger the company's theme parks in the country or the release of
its movies in China? Who knows?
Starve the collapsing
corporate media of their sham debates. I very much doubt that any of what transpired
last night moved the needle in any particular direction, and political pundits are often very
disconnected from the general public. So instead of wasting time on more highlights, it's
better to consider what can be done to avoid the absolute lunacy we witnessed last night from ABC.
This should be the last election cycle with legacy media debates. Ever. No more excuses,
GOP. Just stop accommodating this madness and being complicit in it. Last night was
much more an interrogation of Donald Trump than anything resembling a debate. "Why won't you
recognize the 2020 election? Do you wish you had done more on Jan 6? Why are you so
racist, sir? Why are you attacking our climate hoax?" How is any of that considered a
debate? It was the worst debate production of all time and the American people are the
biggest losers here. I don't recall a single question of importance. It was full
clownworld from beginning to end.
What
we know about the Butler shooting, and what we don't. Public discussion of the
Butler, Pennsylvania assassination attempt on President Trump seems to be going nowhere, with the
press asking all the wrong questions and taking the existing media narrative for granted despite
having no evidence to corroborate it, even after repeated corrections and enough false statements
from official sources that they should have no credibility left. But they do. Accused
would-be assassin Thomas Crooks came in a van, Crooks came in a car, Crooks came on a bike with a
giant ladder. Wait, the giant ladder was Secret Service's and he had a smaller one.
Wait, Secret Service climbed up on a pallet and Crooks on an A/C box, and he pulled himself up with
the plumbing. Wait, the plumbing was electrical conduit, made of PVC, which cannot support a
man's weight. But he climbed it anyway, because "Spa Guy" flew a drone overhead and saw
fingerprints, days later, still visible after FBI scrubbed the crime scene.
The
Media Still Turn Tricks For The Democrat Party. [Scroll down] That's how
business works. Toe the line, or you're out! The same can be said of all the
self-important newscasters, anchors, and hosts whose media bosses quite literally give them their
marching orders — or, more accurately, their talking orders. Not just talking
orders, but word-for-word memes, which is why no matter which lefty network or cable show you turn
to, they're all using the same vocabulary, the same expressions, and the same keywords. I
first noticed this when Dick Cheney was chosen as George W. Bush's VP candidate. Suddenly,
the media talking heads discovered the word "gravitas"! We still witness this echo chamber every
day. Objectivity has never been part of the media's agenda, only slavish obeisance to their
bosses. Watch for yourself. In fact, take notes. There is a remarkable absence of
originality in today's political reportage. It's all an echo chamber of talking points and
leftist propaganda that the anchors and reporters have received beforehand and have literally been
commanded to utilize at the risk of their jobs. There's not an original word, phrase, or sentence!
Reporters
need to learn to apologize. Two weeks ago, Georgetown University held a symposium
about the state of journalism. When asked what the main problem facing the press is, Erik
Wemple, a media critic at the Washington Post, came up with a surprisingly compelling and
honest answer: Journalists need to learn how to apologize when they make mistakes. [...] The
media once knew how to do this. The best example is the Richard Jewell story. In 1996,
after Jewell, a security guard, discovered a bomb at Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park and helped
clear the crowd, he was declared a hero by the press. Days later, reporter Kathy Scruggs was
told by a law enforcement source that Jewell was the FBI's foremost suspect. The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution ran the story that made Jewell the villain. CNN reported the AJC
article, and for the next 88 days, Jewell was hunted by reporters. He was one of the
first victims of what would become known as "trial by media." When his name was finally
cleared, Jewell, who died in 2007, sued the New York Post, NBC News, and CNN and settled
with all three.
If
You Were Duped On Biden's Cognitive Decline, You're Too Dumb To Be A Journalist. By
the time we saw Joe Biden's debate debacle, the media had spent four years covering up his mental
and physical decline to help Democrats. After Biden's fragile mental state was exposed, the
media instantaneously began pushing Biden out of the presidential race to help Democrats. The
goal remains the same. The Wall Street Journal reports this week that Biden's senior advisers
"aggressively stage-managed" the president's "schedule, movements and personal interactions, as
they sought to minimize signs of how age has taken a toll on the oldest president in U.S. history."
Basically, everyone in the White House — as well as big-money donors —
conspired to hide that the president of the United States was unable to perform even the most
rudimentary tasks associated with the most powerful job in the world. By 2022, the
president's advisors didn't even believe he was up to taking weekly cross-country trips. And
now we're supposed to accept the claim that not a single reporter embedded in the White House
(outside perhaps some who work at Fox News) hadn't figured it out?
The
media loses the game. What the media have done to America is beyond
reprehensible. It sinks to evil. They deliberately hid POTATUS' frailties and his
dementia. They deliberately ignored his inability to do the job. They deliberately
gaslighted us by continuously lying about the border being closed and the economy doing well and
EVs being environmental saviors, as though the environment needed actual saving. They
deliberately lied about Trump's nonexistent crimes and the imaginary danger he posed to the
American democratic process. [...] Their irrational hatred for Trump and for conservatives in
general prevented almost an entire industry from serving the American people by reporting the news,
digging for news, and telling the whole truth instead of half-truths, when they bothered telling
any truth at all. The media have become Manson. They need to be dissolved and flushed
down a deep, dark hole. If Americans would stop watching a Democrat-run media on TV and would
turn instead to alternative media, the truth would shock most of them.
TV
station duped into reporting Mossad agent 'Eli Copter' was pilot on doomed Iranian prez Raisi's
flight. A talking head for an Israeli TV network in France had oeuf on his face after
mistakenly reporting an internet meme about Ebrahim Raisi's deadly helicopter crash as actual
news. One of the many dark jokes that sling-shotted around social media in the wake of the
crash is that an agent for Mossad — Israel's spy agency — was actually
piloting the doomed whirly-bird that went down, killing the Iranian president and everyone on
board. That phantom Mossad agent's name? "Eli Copter."
BBC
apologises after repeatedly suggesting Tel Aviv is capital of Israel. The BBC has
apologised after one of its senior presenters suggested Tel Aviv was Israel's capital,
contradicting its own guidelines. The broadcaster initially defended the error, prompting
accusations of "systemic anti-Israel bias" from one of its former directors, but later
apologised. During a pre-recorded interview for BBC Radio 4's flagship Today programme, Gary
O'Donoghue, the corporation's Washington correspondent, used Tel Aviv as a metonym for Israel's
government, rather than Jerusalem. It is a common journalistic practice to use a nation's
capital city as a metonym for its centre of government but Jerusalem, rather than Tel Aviv, is the
site of Israel's parliament and all its main administrative arms. The status of Jerusalem as
Israel's capital is disputed internationally, with most countries, including the UK, choosing to
base their embassies in Tel Aviv.
Many
of the 'Climate Experts' Surveyed by the Guardian in Recent Propaganda Blitz Turn Out to be
Emotionally-Unstable Hysterics. The Guardian last week published its survey of
'climate experts'. The results are a predictable mush of fire-and-brimstone predictions and
emotional incontinence. This stunt may have convinced those already aligned to the
newspaper's ideological agenda to redouble their characteristically shrill rhetoric, but
encouraging scientists to speculate and emote about the future of the planet looks like an act of
political desperation, not scientific communication. For the purposes of creating this story,
the Guardian's Environment Editor Damian Carrington contacted 843 'lead authors' of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's reports (IPCC) and 383 responded to his questions.
The actual substance of the survey does not seem to have been published by the paper, but the main
response Carrington wanted to get from his respondents was an estimate of how much global warming
there will be by the end of the century.
Of
Journalists, Students and Power. [Scroll down] At writing, students at
Columbia and other universities are besieged by police in riot gear — or, at UCLA,
marauders, presumably students but maybe not, who swing sticks in defense of the Zionist
cause. Listen to the language of the demonstrators, not only for what they say but for how
they say it. The diction, simplicity and clarity of their placards and public statements have
the force of true conviction. [...] Put this next to the mainstream's coverage of the
protests. It is replete with foggy language, intentionally obscure pieces casting the
perfectly obvious distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism as some kind of insoluble
conundrum. Nonsense. I have heard any number of Jews complain that Zionism rips off
their religion, their beliefs and their identity, and in this way they consider Zionism what is
truly anti-Semitic in our midst. This business of anti-Semitism everywhere, or anti-Semitism
as "shadowing the demonstrations" — a phrase from The New York Times brimming with
mal-intended suggestion but with no discernible meaning — is a case of language misused
for the most cynical and corrupt of reasons.
Marijuana
grow busted in Maine as feds investigate trend in 20 states. The high
electricity consumption of a home, its cardboard-covered windows and odor of marijuana drew law
enforcement's attention to an illicit grow operation off the beaten path in rural Maine. The
bust of the home with a hidden grow operation and seizure of nearly 40 pounds
(18 kilograms) of processed marijuana marked the latest example of what authorities describe
as a yearslong trend of foreign nationals to exploit U.S. state laws that have legalized cannabis
for recreational or medical use to produce marijuana for the illicit markets in the U.S.
The Editor says...
"Grow" is a verb, not a noun.
Popular
Nullification of the State's Propaganda. [Scroll down] The news industry
exploits a related phenomenon: intellectual insecurity. The primary target in this
manipulation is news reporters themselves. You have surely noticed that a lot of well known
pundits aren't that smart. That's intentional. The people who control public narratives
don't want celebrity thinkers; they want eager repeaters — people who
mindlessly mimic whatever they're told. At the same time, most news repeaters have big
egos. That's intentional, too. People whose egos are larger than they merit are
particularly susceptible to manipulation. They fall victim to what you might call the "lone
genius effect." In any gathering of people, if one person sounds convincingly more intelligent
than everyone else, the surrounding group will accord that person with some measure of
authority. What's important is not whether the "lone genius" is telling the truth or even an
actual genius, but rather that the group perceives the person to be intellectually superior.
In the news industry, oversized egos are vulnerable to the propaganda of the "lone genius."
Because their psychological health depends upon a self-image of being smarter than they really are,
they gravitate toward any individual who appears to be the real deal. Reporters' intellectual
insecurity makes them easy targets.
The
Mayor Of Baltimore Attacks White People As The City Deals With Bridge Collapse. There
are evil people who think they're virtuous and there are dumb people who think they're smart:
Joy Reid falls into both categories. She even looks the part, with the bleach blond, short
cropped hair and permanent scowl she looks like the kind of middle aged woman who yells at the
pizza delivery guy because the pizza doesn't have pepperoni on it, even though it's not the
delivery guy's fault, and even though she didn't order pepperoni. The point is, I'm not
especially a fan of Joy Reid. But today we have to pay her some special attention once again,
unfortunately. In fact, we are covering this today because the Joy Reid segment in question
takes a certain turn that makes it even more relevant. So, Joy took to her low-rated cable
news show last night to call out the alleged racist conservatives who have been engaging in alleged
racist conspiracy theories surrounding the Baltimore bridge collapse. [... Video clip]
CNN
Reporter Fully Debases Herself During Kamala Harris Interview, 'Struck Just Being in Your
Presence'. There have been a lot of embarrassing, sycophantic moments between
reporters and Democrat politicians throughout history, and press bias is hardly a new
revelation. Some moments stand out more than others, though, and Laura Coates of CNN has just
entered her submission to be one of the worst ever. In an astonishing exchange, Coates
appeared to get choked up as she heaped praise on Kamala Harris. "I'm struck just being in your
presence," she says, teeing up the vice president to claim it's because she's a woman. [Tweet]
The Editor says...
At the upper levels, politicians can pick and choose the reporters they want to interview them.
Democrats don't want to be interviewed by Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity. They'd prefer to
interact with an awestruck female who will only ask the questions supplied by the party headquarters.
Why
Was a Winner Projected in Iowa With <1% Votes Counted? With less than 1% of the vote
in, Decision Desk HQ and various news networks have projected Donald Trump to win the 2024 GOP Iowa
caucuses. It was a victory declared in record time. CBS News was one of the first
networks to call the race at 8:30 PM ET. [Tweet] In other news, it's cold in Iowa.
In all seriousness, Trump was expected to win and won't be the most important story of the night unless
you're a Trump supporter. [...] Ron DeSantis's press secretary, Jeremy Redfern, blasted the move by
the media, pointing out that some precincts haven't even voted yet. "I'm at a precinct that hasn't
even voted yet, and the media are trying to call the race for Trump," he said in a post on X/Twitter.
Biden
Does Some Laughable Gaslighting About the US Having the 'Best Economy' in New
Interview. The Biden team has been limiting his contact with media for a long
time. As part of the new strategy that they're going to employ, they're going to have him out
meeting the people more, and doing smaller podcast-type interviews. They think that's going
to help sell him and get past the age problem. That didn't work out very well when they ran
him around to various stores in the Allentown, Pennsylvania, area and he looked very bad, and
contradicted himself on the Houthis, and other subjects. They also had him do a very short
interview with historian Heather Cox Richardson, who was asking him questions about his Valley
Forge speech on January 6. You would think a historian might question Biden's effort to
compare himself to George Washington, but her "interview" seemed to consist of nodding while he
talked. No piercing questions here, just a couple of softballs.
Sports
Illustrated Owner Fires CEO, COO After Bungled 'AI' Adoption. Last month, Sports
Illustrated found itself at the center of a firestorm after it was busted using fake
computer-generated authors and computer-generated content — without telling employees
and readers. The scandal came shortly after Gannett (which likely owns whatever's left of
your hometown newspaper) was busted doing the exact same thing. We've noted how most modern
media executives see "AI" (language learning models) not as a way to improve productivity, boost
product quality, or satisfy readership — but as a way to lazily cut corners and attack
labor (organized or otherwise). As a result, they're implementing these potentially useful
technologies in the most half-assed, nontransparent, and problematic way possible.
Israel
protest letters have grabbed headlines. But how real are they? NBC News broke
the news last week that more than 40 White House interns had sent an extraordinary letter to
President Biden opposing the administration's support of Israel's military action in Gaza. So
did HuffPost, when it reported Monday that 140 interns on Capitol Hill had sent an open letter
protesting the war; it alleges that members of Congress have suppressed a wave of constituent
support for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. [...] Except the letters, and the news stories about
them, left a few important questions unanswered -- namely, who wrote them and whether the number of
people reportedly supporting them actually did so. In each case, it was impossible to
identify or enumerate the letters' purported signatories. The stories said supporters
declined to make their names public. That left open claims that dozens of people stood behind
the underlying sentiments. The letters are part of a trendlet of anonymous protest letters
purportedly written by people connected to the administration and federal government. All of
the letters were sent without the names of signatories.
Leslie
Jones Admits She Thought the Electoral College Was a Real School. ABC's The
View has never been a place for smart and informed discussions about politics. And that
certainly wasn't the case on Monday's episode when Daily Show guest host and so-called
"comedian" Leslie Jones openly admitted that before she joined Saturday Night Live in 2014,
she seriously thought the Electoral College was a real place where politicians went to
school. In 2014, Jones was 47 years old.
Americans
Are Essential — Not Their Government. Tucker Carlson, one of the few
national figures willing to speak plainly about the threats to and concerns of the American people,
said some remarkable things in a speech last Tuesday. He warned that "abrupt change" is
heading our way. He argued that the United States may very well be on the "brink of
collapse." [...] Rigged elections, rampant censorship, political persecution, an economic death
spiral, and the growing prospect of this century's first truly global war — yes, bad
things are either here or quickly coming. Yet the media's brainwashed minions prattle
about "climate change," "colonialism," "diversity," "equity," Taylor Swift, and other false,
foolish, or frivolous blather.
How
Dumb is CNN? Legacy media outlets are so grotesquely biased that it is easy to forget
how incompetent they are, as well. [Tweet with screenshot of CNN map of Israel] They've
got Tel Aviv on the Golan Heights, and Sderot, which is frequently in the news for being attacked
by Gazan rockets, on the West Bank. I think it is a matter of common knowledge that Tel Aviv
is on the Mediterranean. Would CNN produce a map showing Istanbul in the middle of Asia
Minor? Or Venice up in the Dolomites? I don't know, maybe they would. I know good
help is hard to find, but how do you hire someone to situate cities on a map who doesn't actually
look at a map?
The
Gaza Hospital Fiasco Offers A Vivid Example Of Journalism's Rot. When news broke
yesterday that Israel had bombed Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, killing patients, children, and
staff, every "anti-Zionist," "critic of Israel," and most big American journalism outfits ran with
the horrible story. The tale incited worldwide condemnation and recrimination. But it
wasn't true. Israel did not hit the hospital. The Islamic Jihad did. Hundreds of
people did not die. The missile landed in a parking lot. It was Hamas
disinformation. The media's disastrous failure on the Gaza hospital bombing story is one of
the most vivid and instructive examples of the structural and inherent problems plaguing
contemporary journalism. It mirrors many other fiascos of the past decade. It is clear
at this point that journalism schools are producing closed-minded, credulous ideologues who will
believe anything that comports with their worldview. It's either that, or we have a bunch of
closed-minded ideologues who are willing accomplices in spreading propaganda. Functionally
speaking, it doesn't really matter. In either case, their sympathies lie with Hamas.
How
low can you go? On the day that Gallup reported bad news for the U.S. news media, the
folks in the newsrooms lost their common sense over a hospital story. In a heartbeat they
confirmed why the public doesn't trust them. [...] The reputable "journos" bought it without any
hesitation. Why? I am not sure but maybe it was too easy to fall for those videos of
ambulances dragging people out of the area. A video speaks louder than the truth? Maybe
they like badgering Israel rather than doing any serious reporting about how Hamas is actually
hurting the Palestine people. Or maybe they are not serious people which is why more and more
Americans are not trusting them anymore.
Our
utterly bankrupt "mainstream" press. The so-called bombing of a hospital in the Gaza
strip yesterday has revealed better than anything the utter bankruptcy of our modern press.
Without any confirmation mainstream sources like CNN and MSNBC accepted without question the claims
by Hamas that the bombing was an "Israeli strike" and that 200 to 500+ people were killed.
The graphic to the right illustrates CNN's dishonesty. The report itself seemed eager to
accept the Hamas claims, without any checking, while simultaneously treating the Israeli reports
(that evidence showed that the impact was caused by a misfired Hamas rocket) with great skepticism
and doubt requiring double and maybe triple verification. MSNBC immediately reported the
claims of Hamas, without any verification, while also exaggerating the damage incredibly, as shown
by the second graphic to the right. The reporter first claims "the images coming out of Gaza
are absolutely harrowing," then notes that the known damage was in "the courtyard area of this
hospital," even as the video being shown during his report shows no damage, just ambulances
arriving at a hospital with a variety of patients. The irony is that not only have video and
audio evidence confirmed without question now that the rocket was from Hamas (including audio of
Hamas' agents admitting to this fact), the impact itself didn't appear to hit the hospital itself,
just that courtyard/parking lot. As noted at the tweet, "How did 500 people die in a parking
lot?" In fact, the death toll remains very unclear indeed. It could very well be that
very few were killed, though determining that fact will not be easy.
Lies and
Polling Questions. Looking back over three decades plus of climate hysteria one can
identify several phases in the narrative. Phase one was simple, the message being: the
climate is changing. The response from many (including this scientist) was: yes it is, and
it always has, and it always will. We then moved into phase two: the climate is changing,
and human activity bears some responsibility for the phenomenon. The question was always:
"if true, how much?" But once we started down that road, civilized discourse pretty much came to an
end. That's because the media professionals got involved, and they don't care about highly
technical. They're only interested in attracting eyeballs. [...] Media types, like the
propagandists they are, deplore complexity and nuance. They want messages that are simple and
powerful. Once those of us they've labeled "deniers" started to delve into the intricacies
involved in evaluating and responding to "climate change," the PR professionals put a stop to
discourse. They essentially said that this "crisis" was too important to dither about the
details. "Climate change is happening and mankind is responsible" — full stop.
Any further discussion was not desired.
Pay-For-Play
Journalism is Killing the Media. Good Riddance. Mainstream science reporting is
generally awful. Ideological zeal and ignorance on the part of reporters help explain why
we're regularly confronted by so much subpar journalism. But we need to factor another
important cause into the discussion: an increasing number of news outlets are paid to produce
politically skewed coverage on vitally important public health issues. The latest example of
this outright corruption of the press surfaced in late August when the Washington Free Beacon
released its investigation of the Associated Press (AP): ["]The AP takes in millions
more from philanthropies — the Hewlett Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, and
others — to fund reporting on climate change, such as stories that this summer's heat
wave is due to global warming ...["] The problem is obvious: journalists who sell
their coverage to the highest bidder are propagandizing the public for a paycheck instead of
informing them. Although this inappropriately cozy arrangement has skewed the public's
understanding of many important issues over the years, the problem appears to be resolving as a
growing number of Americans lose trust in the media.
CNN
Gets Roasted for Absurd Chyron Warning Constitution is 'Outdated, Puts Democracy at
Risk'. The few remaining viewers of CNN got a remarkable dose of news on
Saturday. Just in time for Constitution Day, CNN's dwindling audience learned that the
Consitution of the United States — the oldest written government charter in the world
and the document that gave birth to the nation that has spread democracy around the
globe — has become so "outdated" that it's actually a "threat to democracy." Of
course, that's democracy as CNN's scholars understand it. And you can't spell ignorance
without "C-N-N."
A
Reckoning on COVID Coverage. [Scroll down] In both the CDC and FDA
examples, you didn't need to be a virologist or epidemiologist to expose the glaring weakness of
their argument. Yet no major conservative media did so at the time. One Fox newscaster
repeated the FDA's "You're not a horse" tweet, but he made no mention that IVM comes in human
tablet form which the FDA has made hard to get. Why not? [...] There occurred no critical
analysis of an entire host of COVID issues, including lockdowns, medical establishment sabotage of
hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, vaccine side effects, issues with remdesivir, etc. (A
notable exception is the Epoch Times, which has offered extensive, scholarly and critical
COVID coverage throughout.) Another problem among conservative news outlets was that they
routinely, robotically and uncritically printed Reuters and AP articles, taking their COVID
reporting at face value.
They
are rubbing our noses in their filth. As long as President Trump is out of office, it
is felonious business as usual in Corruption City. There is no incentive for the crooked
Republicans in Congress to help Trump, which explains why John Fetterman is in the Senate and not
Dr. Oz. But that is not the narrative fake conservatives feed us. Over at Paul
Ryan's Express — a clever name for Fox News — Newt Gingrich is saying the dam
is going to break and the bribery scandals are going to bring Biden down. Sure they are,
right after Republicans repeal Obamacare. But the Bud Light of cable news believes false hope
will appease and entice enough conservatives so it can go back to beating MSNBC and CNN in the fake
ratings war.
NBC
just repeats climate predictions by the UN, no matter how many previous dire projections have been
100% wrong. It seems that every day the media will repeat a doomsday prediction about
the climate from the UN or elsewhere to scare the public. They never ask questions even
though previous dire predictions have been 100% wrong. The purpose is clearly to mislead the
public that predictions are equivalent to facts, and they must capitulate to radical leftist
policies to save the planet. The prediction below is that people in the southern U.S won't be
able to survive unless they give up gas cars, gas furnaces, and other conveniences. [...] What will
make the South more uninhabitable is if they succed in destroying the power grid and we have less
air conditioning.
Artificial
Intelligence: The Facts. Technical topics, of any sort at all, are generally subject
to serious distortion when they hit the level of public discussion. There are many reasons
for this — ideology, click-lust, and the sheer inability of the average journo school
grad to adequately wrap his head around whatever concept is under consideration. There's no
end of examples: Just think of the garbage written about global warming or COVID. The
latest of these topics is Artificial Intelligence (AI).
As
usual, the media's knee-jerk take on the Canadian wildfires was all wrong. There was
nothing new about springtime wildfires in Canada until the wind shifted unexpectedly last
week. That shift blew smoky air all over the northern and eastern US, producing memorably
apocalyptic-like orange air in New York City. Not wanting to waste a crisis, the lamestream
media jumped right in with both feet. They blamed the wildfires on the much-dreaded "climate
change," scared the daylights out of everyone about the air quality and then warned that more like
it was on the way unless we changed our fossil fuel-burning ways. Not unexpectedly, the
media's knee-jerk take was all wrong. Wildfires and smoky air have always occurred wherever
there are forests. At least eighteen of these dark or "yellow days" occurred in the US and
Canada from 1706 to 1910. George Washington even noted in his diary the one that occurred on
May 19, 1780 that reached as far south as Morristown, New Jersey.
There
is very little news delivered in your average hour of cable news. The "news" business
should really have the "business" part in scare quotes. No, they rarely do news reporting
anymore — replacing investigating with repurposing press releases and repeating rumors
whispered over drinks from interested parties. They are a business. And as a business,
it is their fiduciary duty to maximize profits. There are two ways these companies can
maximize profits: attract as large of an audience as possible or cultivate a loyal audience and
cater to them expressly. Literally no outlet has opted for the first choice. If, under
the banner of news, you operate in a way to maintain your audience's loyalty you will do nothing
that could possibly irritate them or cause them to leave. Though, occasionally, they do
stupid things like firing Tucker Carlson, most entities aren't dumb enough to rock their own boats
like that. Joy Reid's continued employment with no discernible skills, knowledge or talent is
a prime example. All you get is choir-preaching, not news delivery.
Blame
the Media for the National Debt. Democrats and Republicans reached an agreement to
lift the debt ceiling, and nothing is going to change in the disturbing pattern of America's
national debt climbing by leaps and bounds. The best reason for pessimism? Our
Democrat-messaging media. They can't be bothered to offer the most basic facts in budget
coverage. What is the budget for the current fiscal year? What was the last budget
deficit? How large is the national debt? These are questions that are rarely answered
by news anchors. What we get is a lot of horse-race jockeying and finger-pointing instead of
facts. They must think the viewers are too stupid to juggle numbers.
The
Statistics That Come Out of Nowhere. This winter, the university where one of us
works sent out an email urging employees to wear a hat on particularly cold days because "most body
heat is lost through the top of the head." Many people we know have childhood memories of a
specific figure — perhaps 50 percent or, by some accounts, 80 percent of the heat you
lose is through your head. But neither figure is scientific: One is flawed, and the
other is patently wrong. [...] (According to a hypothermia expert cited by the [New York]
Times, a more accurate figure is 10 percent.) This rather trivial piece of medical
folklore is an example of a more serious problem: Through endless repetition, numbers of
dubious origin take on the veneer of scientific fact, in many cases in the context of vital
public-policy debates. Unreliable numbers are always just an internet search away, and
serious people and institutions depend on and repeat seemingly precise quantitative measurements
that turn out to have no reliable support.
Most
of the media doesn't care about anything unless the story fits their radical leftist
agenda. Most of the media care as much about Tara Reade's credible accusations
against Trump as they did about all women that Bill and Hillary physically and mentally
abused. The media also has never seemed to care about all the young girls that Jeffrey
Epstein abused, or the men that enjoyed hanging around with Epstein. The Me-too movement was
fake. The number of supposed news stories that are fake, false, or intentionally misleading
the public is massive. Here is a small sample: Every day we hear that there have been
hundreds of mass shootings in the U.S this year yet we see the details on only a few. Why
don't we ever see the details of all the mass shootings in Chicago and elsewhere that involve black
gang members shooting other blacks? Why don't we see the names of the victims, the records of
the shooters, and the motives? The answer is it doesn't fit the agenda.
Joe
Biden says Hunter has done 'nothing wrong.' Really? Let's count the ways. In an
interview with MSNBC on Friday, Biden repeated the same mantra that he has maintained since the
2020 election when his son's laptop revealed an array of possible criminal acts: Hunter has "done
nothing wrong." In the interview, Biden declared "My son has done nothing wrong. I trust
him. I have faith in him, and it impacts my presidency by making me feel proud of him."
As with media over the last four years, MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle did not challenge the clearly
absurd statement. Instead, she prefaced her question by stressing that there are "no ties to
you" in any of his son's alleged crimes. That is, of course, ignoring the mounting evidence
of influence peddling, repeated references to the involvement of the president, and reports of a
whistleblower alleging the president's involvement in a bribery scheme.
Police
Hunt Suspect After NY Subway Rider Allegedly Stabbed with Ice Pick. A New York subway rider
was allegedly stabbed in the stomach with an ice pick in what police are calling an "unprovoked attack"
as they continue the search for the suspect. The incident happened on April 19 when the
victim, a 38-year-old man, and his friend, a 43-year-old man, were waiting on the northbound J train
platform at the Crescent Street train station in Cypress Hills at around 4:15 a.m. Fox 5 reports
the suspect approached the two men and stabbed the victim in the stomach with an ice pick before fleeing.
The Editor says...
The news media is infested with spineless weasels who wouldn't dare make an assertion of fact without
the ability to quote a government official saying the same thing. For example, this incident is
"what police are calling an 'unprovoked attack.'" What else would you call it?
Why hide behind the police spokesman?
Starship/Superheavy
did not explode! In the past twenty-four hours we have another wonderful
demonstration of the utter bankruptcy of the American press in the manner in which it has decided
to describe yesterday's first test launch of Starship/Superheavy. Here are just a few
headline examples: [Omitted for brevity] Every single one of those headlines implies that
the explosion was the launch's failure. If you read the linked articles you find that many
repeat that implication in their reports. None are correct. The explosion was in fact a
successful demonstration of the rocket's operation and engineering. Every rocket has what is
called a flight termination system, designed to allow mission control to manually self-destruct the
rocket should it start to fly out of control. [...] In other words, the failures occurred before
the self-destruct command was issued, and the explosion was merely the successful initiation of
that termination system. The explosion was not the failure, it was actually proof of working
engineering. What makes these headlines more damning to these news sources that many even
described the use of the flight termination system, but still implied that the failure was the
explosion. Many didn't even bother to do any research into what happened. Many articles
exhibited a complete and almost willful ignorance of the facts. The Verge and the Telegraph
articles are a good examples, but they are unfortunately very typical.
Media
Recruits "Muslim Jihadist" to Smear DeSantis. I remember when the media was defending
Islamic terrorists. It's a short step to making them our moral guides. ["]DeSantis
'is not a good guy,' says former Guantánamo detainee["] I don't know about you, but
when I set out to decide who's a good guy, I ask former Guantánamo detainees, followed by
serial killers, pedophiles and mass shooters.
The
media is clearly confused about the difference between made-up predictions and factual news. A
significant percentage of news stories are made-up predictions, not factual reporting. [...] Here is a small sample:
Prediction: In 1922, an article appeared in the Washington Post warning that because of warming, the icecaps are melting fast.
Fact: the icecaps are still there because the predictions were made up.
Prediction: In 1970, around the first Earth Day, after thirty years of global cooling,
we were told that an existential threat of a coming ice age would kill billions of people because of starvation.
Fact: The predictions were 100% wrong because they were made up to scare the people. [...]
Prediction: In 2000 we heard predictions that there would be snowless winters.
Fact: The predictions were 100% wrong.
Prediction: In 2005, after hurricane Katrina hit, we were told that global warming would cause more frequent and more severe hurricanes.
Fact: The predictions were 100% wrong because they were just made up. We actually had a very mild ten-year hurricane period after Katrina.
Prediction: In 2008, ABC predicted great disasters by 2015 because of global warming
Fact: The predictions were 100% wrong.
Miami
Herald Fell For Another Rebekah Jones Hoax, Whitewashes Sons Alleged Threat to Shoot Up
School. The Miami Herald just can't quit Rebekah Jones, even if it means whitewashing
alleged threats to shoot up a school. On Wednesday, Jones turned her 13-year-old son into the
Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office. He was wanted for intimidation, a second degree felony,
because of threats he allegedly made to carry out a mass shooting at his own school in
Florida. Classmates of Jones's son had said that he had repeatedly alluded to such a desire,
including in messages that read: "I want to shoot up the school." [Video clip]
The
more you trust the media, the less accurate you are. The other day I wrote about the
correlation between political ideology and assumptions about how many unarmed Blacks are killed by
police. In it I discussed a study done by the Skeptic Research Center that showed that people
who identify as liberal are least likely to guess how many unarmed Black men are killed by
police. Not by a little, but by a lot. Almost none of the liberals guessed in the right
range — the number is about 10 a year — and over half guessed that the number
was between 1000 to 10,000. [Numerous tweets] The most accurate group was conservatives,
with very conservative being the best, and very liberal being the worst. It's not even
close. Liberals have no idea what the truth is, and they believe the very worst to be the
case. Yesterday the organization released more data from their study, in order to explain why
that is the case. Their findings were equally interesting because they give a very strong
clue regarding what is driving that disparity. And it's exactly what you think: the greater
the education you have and the higher the trust in the news media the less likely you are to have a
grasp of reality.
Press
Make Absolutely Horrific Move in Dealing With the Psychotic Transgender Shooter. As
RedState reported, a militant transgender shooter with a manifesto murdered multiple people at a
Christian school in Nashville on Monday. The tragedy that rocked the community was revealed
to be politically motivated in short order with prior calls for a "Trans Day of Vengeance"
permeating the situation. That Tennessee had recently passed a law banning child mutilation
under the guise of "gender-affirming care," something the left described as a genocide, clearly
played a role in the shooter's psyche. But as the aftermath of the tragedy played out, the
national press latched onto what was really important: Ensuring that the "right" pronouns are used
to describe the murderous psychopath. Truly, this is one of the worst things I've ever seen
the news media do, [...]
American
Thinker was the first to call out the fraud of Dr. Anthony Fauci and was viciously attacked by
the WaPo, NYT other MSM outlets. Three years ago tomorrow, on March 21, 2020,
American Thinker published the first nationally-read critical article about Dr. Anthony Fauci,
the Deep State medical bureaucrat who would play a determinative role in the country's draconian
and failed response to Covid-19. I was the author of that blog. At the time, the United
States was in the first days of an unprecedented nationwide lockdown as a result of the
pandemic. The weeks and months ahead would witness the greatest disruption of life in the
U.S. since World War II — and arguably the most serious suspension of the constitutional
protection of civil liberties, as well as harm to hundreds of millions of Americans' health and
personal freedom — in the history of the country. Although Fauci, as director of
the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID),
had a four-decade-long history of questionable influence on the nation's health care, the media in
March 2020, both left and right, were largely swooning over him.
Huge
seaweed bloom that can be seen from space threatens Florida beaches. A giant seaweed
blob so large it can be seen from space is threatening to transform beaches along Florida's Gulf
coast into a brown morass, scientists say. The 5,000-mile-wide sargassum bloom —
believed to be the largest in history at twice the width of the continental US — is
drifting ominously toward the Sunshine State, NBC News reported. "It's incredible," Brian
LaPointe, a research professor at Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic
Institute, told the news outlet. "What we're seeing in the satellite imagery does not bode well
for a clean beach year," he added.
The Editor says...
Fake news alert: Nearly everything can be seen from space. That's why we have orbiting
telescopes pointing down. But other things can be easily seen, too, and astronauts have
really good vision. An seaweed bloom covers several acres, so it's no surprise that it can be
easily seen. Also, there is no such thing as a "clean beach." Nobody goes to the beach
to get clean. Everybody expects to get dirty.
CNBC's
Jim Cramer [was] eviscerated for touting Silicon Valley Bank weeks before disastrous collapse.
CNBC's "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer is being shredded across social media after footage resurfaced of
him urging viewers in February to invest in Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which collapsed on Friday.
SVB had been the 16th largest bank in the United States and was connected to a number of Silicon Valley
industries and startups. The closure of the bank was announced by the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation (FDIC), making it the worst U.S. financial institution failure in nearly 15 years.
Upon the news of SVB's collapse, a clip went viral of Cramer in February speaking positively about the
bank in a list of "The Biggest Winners of 2023... So Far."
Silicon
Valley Bank top bosses sold $4.5 million worth of shares before the collapse. Ahead
of the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), many of the company's top executives sold their
shares worth $4.5 million in the company. The bank's Chief Executive Officer Gregory
Becker, Chief Financial Officer Daniel Beck, and Chief Marketing Officer Michelle Draper sold their
shares of the bank's parent company SVB Financial Group.
The Editor says...
That lone assertion, presented without evidence, appears to be the entire article. The
rest of the page is just a warehouse of clickbait.
A Handy
January 6 Fact Sheet. In another example of Washington's inexorable slide into banana republic
territory, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) took to the floor of the U.S. Senate on
Tuesday to call for the removal of an American journalist. "I don't think I've ever seen an
anchor treat the American people, and American democracy, with such disdain," Schumer said during
his seven-minute authoritarian tirade. "And he's going to come back tonight with another
segment. Fox News should tell him not to. Fox News, Rupert Murdoch — tell
Mr. Carlson not to run a second segment of lies. You know it's a lie." Schumer
later reiterated his demand to a group of journalists who, rather than denounce one of the most
powerful government officials in the country attempting to silence an influential member of the
media, dutifully reported Schumer's bleating without question.
The Death
of Expertise. The "experts" told us that Obamacare wouldn't raise health care costs,
that a random YouTube video caused the 9/11 Benghazi attack, that Hillary's unsecured private email
server containing classified material was no big deal, that Donald Trump was a Russian spy, that
the Steele dossier was something more than Clinton campaign propaganda, that a Trump presidency
would bring economic depression and global war, that the Biden family had no financial interests in
Ukraine or China, that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation, that mail-in ballot dumps
without signature matching or other verifiable security checks were perfectly normal, and that the
2016 election was rigged — but that calling the 2020 election "rigged" is an attack on
democracy. The "experts" were wrong, but they held the most fashionable opinions.
The
DC anti-Trump brigade behind the 'big bad bot' stories that duped the media. Last week, the great Matt
Taibbi revealed that a shadowy group called "Hamilton 68" had been accusing anyone and anything they don't like of
being, or being influenced by, a Russian bot. "Instead of tracking how 'Russia' influenced American attitudes,"
Taibbi notes, "Hamilton 68 simply collected a handful of mostly real, mostly American accounts, and described their
organic conversations as Russian scheming." Simply in terms of volume, Taibbi estimates that Hamilton 68 "may go
down as the single greatest case of media fabulism in American history. Virtually every major news organization in
America is implicated, including NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Mother Jones alone did at least 14 stories pegged to the group's 'research.' Even fact-checking sites like Politifact
and Snopes cited Hamilton 68 as a source." But what is Hamilton 68? It is, Taibbi writes, a "computerized
'dashboard' designed to be used by reporters and academics to measure 'Russian disinformation.'"
[A]
Left-wing think tank [is] responsible for thousands of fake Russia stories: new Twitter Files. A left-wing
think tank erroneously claiming to track Russian online activity was responsible for thousands of bogus stories
asserting the nation's influence in US politics, according to the latest batch of Twitter Files. The Hamilton 68
"dashboard" was the brainchild of former FBI special agent and MSNBC contributor Clint Watts and operated under the
Alliance for Securing Democracy, a think tank founded in 2017 — shortly after former President Trump took
office. The ASD Advisory Council included such figures as top Clinton ally John Podesta, Obama-era acting CIA
Director Michael Morell, former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, and former conservative activist Bill
Kristol. The latest Twitter Files disclosure, the 15th so far, revealed how Hamilton 68's Russian bot
dashboard repeatedly insisted there was widespread and deep Russian penetration of social media and unveiled that
Twitter executives frequently challenged those claims internally.
Antagonizing
the Scapegoats. [Scroll down] [I]n view of the press' oft-repeated rush to smear its chosen
targets, sinister suspicions suggest themselves. The maudlin interviewer weepily bearing witness to the moving
testimony of Jussie Smollett; the glum commentators endlessly recycling the "fine people" hoax; the monotonous chorus
solemnly commemorating the all-but-sacred martyrdom of petty thugs like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown; the casual
assignment of guilt by accusation (to police officers, the Covington school kids, Kyle Rittenhouse) — all
this arouses our suspicion. Even when these obscene abuses of the public trust are exposed, there is no retraction
or apology; the brazen liars simply soldier on. Perhaps no institution is more conspicuous in its utter moral
failure than the contemporary American print, broadcast, and online media. [...] Contemporary journalists are, as a
general rule, embarrassingly unimpressive, poorly educated, self-promoting hacks having no understanding of (or loyalty
to) the American heritage (a phrase from which many would probably recoil as a "racist dog whistle"). Journalists
represent the worst the American university system has to offer a society its brainwashed graduates routinely
degrade. Any truth a media activist deems detrimental (like the Twitter files) is buried. Any lie deemed
serviceable — no matter how dubious the source or implausible the claim — is amplified and
promoted. Every cherished falsehood is blared at the public until it's exposed, then the activist simply trumpets
the next serviceable lie (e.g. "Russia Collusion," "hands up, don't shoot," and so on).
Fox's
Geraldo Rivera Slammed for Calling AR-15s 'Automatic Rifles'. Longtime journalist and Fox News co-host
Geraldo Rivera received a wave of criticism on Twitter Tuesday after incorrectly identifying the AR-15 as an "automatic
rifle." In an exchange on the opinion roundtable show, "The Five," Rivera discussed President Joe Biden's pledge
to ban assault rifles with his fellow co-hosts. "I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, there is no legitimate
reason ... to have an AR-15," Rivera tells the table.
"The
Science" Isn't Scientific. One of the saddest aspects of the Left's takeover of our institutions is what
it has done to the scientific establishment. This is a big topic, but for now let's stick to the Lancet, which
once was one of the world's most respected medical journals. Now, it is largely a joke, pushing hack
politics — race, gender, climate change — instead of seriously advancing medical science.
This degeneration long predates covid. In 2016, I wrote about the Lancet's editorial denunciation of Donald Trump,
which read like a parody. In 2017, I noted an article by Lancet's editor in chief, who argued that Marxism is the
key to public health. And in 2018, I mocked the Lancet's editorial calling for an end to eating meat. For
the climate!
Junk food
and junk news. [Scroll down] Everything about junk food can be said about junk news. Fast,
easy to swallow, no real informational value — it's not as if you'll come away with a healthy understanding
of current events. But you will feel as if you've packed away a lot of good stuff! Just the kind of
information that will sustain you. Just like junk food, junk news is not produced and provided for your mental
health or well-being, either. Junk news gives only the illusion of healthy information — e.g., "wasn't
there a piece of lettuce in there?" versus "wasn't there a kernel of truth in there?" Yes, but the rest of the
junk food is stuffing that clogs your arteries. The rest of the junk news is wrapped in lies and distortions
leading to the ignorance and prejudice that eventually kill inquiring minds and essential common sense.
Elon
Musk asks judge to move shareholder's lawsuit from San Francisco to Texas for fair trial. Elon Musk claims he
can't get a fair trial in San Francisco and wants the trial for a shareholder's lawsuit over a series of 2018 tweets moved
out of the Bay Area, according to a report. The Tesla mogul wants the lawsuit — accusing him of causing
volatility in Twitter's share price after he claimed he had enough financing to take the company private — heard
in West Texas, which includes the state capital of Austin, where he moved Tesla's headquarters in 2021. If not, the trial
should be delayed until the negative media coverage surrounding Musk's $44 billion acquisition of Twitter calms down.
The Editor says...
Attention New York Post writers: Austin is not in West Texas. The center of Texas is about a two-hour
drive to the west from Austin.
With all the cable TV news channels clamoring for your attention, fluff and filler replaces actual news. Attack
of the Megalomaniacal News Media. The mainstream news media have mutated from providing useful information into
multi-biased, overbearing, omnipresent purveyors of false, useless information that is critical for them to report and useless
for us to receive. This must stop. [...] Let us count some of these distortions:
[#1] News commentary in the form of space fillers telling us "what it really means," usually with bias.
[#2] News forecasting in the form of space fillers that forecast what will, or might, happen, again usually with bias.
[#3] Panel discussions from self-ordained "experts" on endless subjects. Does anybody really know what constitutes a "Democrat Strategist" or "Republican Strategist"?
[#4] Endless interviews of ancillary parties, politicians, and celebrities providing the usual bias.
[#5] Fake news that results when, having exhausted endless ways to discuss what really happened or might happen, the camera continues to run. The outlets effectively make things up to fill that space with more bias.
[#6] International news "crises" at thousands of miles distance presented as if the sky is falling here and now.
[#7] Journalists risking their lives standing on camera in seaside hurricane-force winds to inform us that wind blows during hurricanes. Who would have guessed?
[#8] 24/7 banners on the cable stations, e.g., Fox insisting there is a continuous stream of important "Alerts" and CNN perpetually hectoring us with "Breaking News."
The Editor says...
Many other topics are used as filler: "This day in history" is not news. At the end of every year,
there's always a long "year in review" story on every network-affiliated TV station. That's not news. Today's
"celebrity birthdays" is a well-known filler. That's not news. Traffic reports that almost always talk about
problems in the usual problem areas that regular commuters know all too well. (What good are TV traffic
reports? Who watches TV on the way to work?) The fluff also includes highly sensational reports of routine
weather, in which only the most severe weather — probably not in your area — is reported. Severe weather coverage
often includes a few hints that bad weather (hot or cold!) is caused by global warming. The "weather" segment also
talks about the pollen count, the ultraviolet index, and the air pollution level, none of which is mentioned unless it's
couched as a foreboding pronouncement. Local TV mews is mostly sizzle and very little steak. A house fire
isn't newsworthy, except to the people in adjacent houses. (Suzie Plastique, reporting from the scene of the fire,
which was probably extinguished before she got there, invariably concludes her live report with an assertion that "the
cause of the fire is still under investigation." Of course it is, Suzie, since we can see the house is still
smoldering behind you.) The local news is written by people who think the viewers are stupid. We know icy roads
are slippery and outdoor faucets should be covered in the winter. Everybody knows it's a bad idea to celebrate
holidays with gunshots into the air. We know the batteries in our smoke detectors need to be checked. We know
what a school zone is. We can figure out how to stay cool in the summer. (In fact, there's some kind of "How to stay
safe while you _______" advice every couple of weeks.) Most people understand that every other telemarketing call is
a scam. Everybody knows when the income tax deadline is. By and large, local TV news is just the filler
between commercials breaks, which are the only indispensible parts of the show.
Idaho
Suspect's Classmates Accuse Him of 'Anti-LGBTQ' Statements but Reporters Don't Verify.
[Scroll down] "We had quite a long conversation in class about it too. I don't believe I remember him
commenting about it at all," classmate B.K. Norton told the New York Times. Norton, a lesbian, weirdly
accused Kohberger of making "anti-LGBTQ" comments but did not tell the reporters what those comments were. Her
accusation was repeated in many news publications that lifted her quotes from the Times. At least one other
student, who did not want to be named, backed up Norton's account but didn't elaborate on the actual comments, though
they said the incident "somewhat isolated" Kohberger from other students and he had trouble making friends after
that. Was Kohberger canceled by his classmates for wrongthink? Why didn't the reporters who interviewed
Kohberger's classmates nail down what the "offensive" comments were? Instead, they chose to leave that part of
this story undisclosed and open to the interpretation of the reader to imagine some dastardly insult, when history
proves that LGBTQ activists are so easily offended that the things one can't say change almost hourly. Pardon my
skepticism, but anyone crying "anti-LGBTQ" in the year 2022 needs serious vetting.
NYTimes
Uses Pictures of Shotgun Shells when Discussing AR-15s. The New York Times editorial board ran a
hit job bashing gun rights that put the leftist media organ's ignorance on full display, using a cover photo for the
op-ed that depicted shotgun shells instead of the piece's target, AR-15s. The article was entitled "America's
Toxic Gun Culture," and it was the fifth in a series entitled "The Danger Within," which NYT reports is an attempt to
convince its dwindling readership "to understand the danger of extremist violence and possible solutions."
We don't have a
free press. If we had a free press, 30 reporters would never pose with Nancy Pelosi as if they were her
ladies-in-waiting. If we did, Hillary's 30,000 emails sent to a trucking company in Red China would have stopped
her presidential bid. If we had a free press, Seth Rich's murder would have been bigger than George Floyd's
overdose death. If we had a free press, journalists would not seek the approval of John Podesta (Hillary's
henchman) as we learned in the DNC emails leaked by Seth Rich. If we had a free press, Hillary's fake charity
which laundered bribes from foreigners would have landed her in prison. If we had a free press, the FBI spying on
Donald Trump would have landed Barack Obama in prison as well. If we had a free press, Jim Comey would have been
Obama's cellmate.
Our Lying Idiot
Media Really Is That Dumb. One of the most astounding stories of media malfeasance is how the Associated
Press ran a story claiming that Russian missiles struck Poland after a 10 minute Slack chat with a reporter who told
colleagues, "I'm actually at a doctor's appointment." Nobody at the AP, including its Arab correspondent running
the European desk, did any kind of follow-up or got confirmation. When a scandal like this reveals the internal
workings of the media, it's almost laughable how little fact checking goes into stories and how thoroughly ignorant
everyone involved really is. But the only thing astounding about the story is how commonplace it is. The
media now routinely operates this way after discarding the layers of fact checking and runs reports based solely on
whether they fit a political narrative and whether there is some anonymous government source behind them. The
Russian missile strike story met both criteria. [...] The media's research methodologies are roughly about those of a
college freshman trying to finish a term paper due the next day after a night of heavy partying. Material is
thrown together in 10 minutes or less based on some casual googling or Slack chats by people who only have the job
that they do because of their parents, which professor they befriended in journalism school or because of their race or
other incidental attributes that qualify them for nothing.
The Unspoken
Genocide of Christians in Nigeria: The black lives that don't matter. Did you know that, all throughout
sub-Saharan Africa — in Nigeria, Mozambique, the Central African Republic, Mali, the Democratic Republic of
Congo — Muslims have for many years been terrorizing and slaughtering Christians? Nor is there any hope
on the horizon: problems that cannot be honestly addressed are doomed to persist in perpetuity. Enter the
so-called "mainstream media." As far as they are concerned, the persecution of Christians in Africa is a byproduct
of economic and territorial grievances. One report, titled, "How poverty and corruption fuel terrorism across
Africa," is emblematic. After citing an incident where "jihadis" connected to the Islamic State slaughtered
dozens, it insists that such terrorist attacks, which "are on the rise across the African continent," are "a
consequence of poverty, domestic grievances new and old..." This has been the mainstream media's argument, and
they're sticking to it — no matter all the mountains of contradictory evidence.
Report:
Journalism is the most regretted college major. Tens of millions of young Americans owe trillions of
dollars in debt they incurred for the sake of college degrees, not all of which were created equal. A new survey
published by the American employment marketplace ZipRecruiter has provided a valuable insight into the perceived
uselessness of certain college degrees, the most regretted of which is a journalism major.
Six
Reasons Corporate Media Failed to Frame MAGA for Paul Pelosi Incident. Watching the overpaid, blow-dried
hoaxsters who run the corporate media haplessly attempt to frame Republicans for whatever happened to Paul Pelosi last
week is like watching Lou Costello parallel park. [...] Outside of losing their moral authority and influence, the
corporate media are becoming more incompetent by the day. Fifteen years ago, with billions of corporate dollars
backing their lies and a near-monopoly on public information, this frame-up would have worked like a charm. But
the execution would not have been as ham-handed as this one. These people are not just fascist and corrupt;
they're idiots. So here are the six reasons why the media's attempt to frame us for whatever happened to Paul
Pelosi has so spectacularly failed. [...]
11
Years Ago, Democrats Got Everything Wrong. They Are Doing It Again. On January 8, 2011, shortly
after 10:00 AM, Democrat Representative Gabby Giffords and 18 other people were shot. Six died. Within
minutes, every form of media was set ablaze with speculation. [...] By early afternoon, Jared Loughner a white male, had
been identified as the shooter. Loughner was instantly linked to neo-Nazis and white supremacists. He was
linked to the Tea Party and then to the "right wing" generally. [...] By mid-afternoon, a graphic with crosshairs
"targeting" Democrat districts was shown on CNN, MSNBC, Huffington Post DailyKos, and dozens of other shows and internet
sites about every 30 seconds. The map, they loudly claimed, was definitive proof that Sarah Palin's PAC map had
incited Loughner. Palin was to blame. The right was to blame. All Republicans were to blame. By
nightfall, the torches were lit and the pitchforks were out. [...] Almost nothing media initially reported was
accurate. Palin had nothing to do with Loughner's personal grudge against Giffords. Within weeks, America
knew conclusively that Loughner never saw Palin's target map, and that "target maps" have been used for decades.
Twitter
fake out? Possible pranksters may have posed as fired data engineers. Two men claiming they were
Twitter data engineers recently let go under Elon Musk's reign may have been lying to the media. The potential
pranksters were spotted outside Twitter's San Francisco office Friday carrying cardboard boxes just a day after Musk
took control of Twitter for the hefty ticket price of $44 billion and ousted its top executives. One of the
alleged employees identified themselves as a software engineer named "Rahul Ligma" during an interview with reporters
outside, according to the Verge. However, the outlet confirmed that an employee by that name was not in Twitter's
Slack or email system and that there is no employee by that name on the online employment service LinkedIn.
'Fired
Twitter Employees' Execute the Greatest Troll of the News Media I've Ever Seen. Elon Musk officially
controls Twitter as of this writing, and the hysteria has been hard to miss. On Thursday, the billionaire dropped
the hammer, firing several top officials, including Vijaya Gadde, who was behind the censorship of the Hunter Biden
story. But what about the rest of the employees? Reports have emerged that up to 75 percent of the social
media giant's workforce could be cut, something members of the press have wrung their hands over the last several
weeks. That's the setup for the greatest troll of the news media I've ever seen, and I promise you I'm not being
hyperbolic. On Friday morning, videos began to circulate of "fired Twitter employees" standing outside the
company's San Francisco headquarters. Journalists rushed to interview them in order to show that Musk was a very
bad, no-good man. [Tweet]
Oops! Fox
station in Arizona accidentally airs election 'test results' showing Democrat defeating Kari Lake.
Phoenix's local news station Fox10 accidentally aired election "test results" declaring Democrat Katie Hobbs the winner
over Republican Kari Lake in the Arizona gubernatorial race. A screenshot of Thursday evening Fox10 air footage
shared by Charlie Kirk to Twitter shows a small graphic in the lower left corner of the TV screen displaying election
"results," with a red checkmark next to Hobbs' vote "tally," thus "declaring her the winner 53-47 over Kari Lake," Kirk noted.
Arizona
TV Station Airs Graphic Showing Kari Lake Losing 12 Days Before Midterms, Blames 'Error'. Just under two
weeks before the election, a local tv station in Arizona briefly aired a graphic that showed Katie Hobbs defeating
Republican challenger Kari Lake in the state's gubernatorial race. The graphic — which was displayed on
the left side of the screen during a newscast — showed Hobbs up 53% to 47% with close to 2.5 million "votes"
already tallied. Hobbs had a checkmark in her column, indicating her as the victor. [Tweet] The graphic
appeared on Thursday afternoon during an evening newscast on Fox 10 Phoenix.
"Don't Trust Experts, Experts
Say". I'm worried. "Is 'rainbow fentanyl' a threat to your kids this Halloween? Experts say no,"
NPR assures me. And if there's one thing we've learned in these past few years it's to believe the opposite of
what experts say. The media has given up trying to get people to trust it and now asks it to trust its handpicked
experts. And those experts say the same exact things that the media says. Every subject is now tackled by
experts. Do you think that a Senate candidate who can barely grasp a sentence is worrisome? "Fetterman's use of
captions is common in stroke recovery, experts say," the Washington Post wheedles. Experts tend to say that
Democrats should be elected and Republicans shouldn't be. They agree that when a Democrat does something it's very
different than when a Republican does it. And if you think the experts are biased, the experts will say that
they're not. Q.E.D. Experts warn of the rise of "misinformation". And misinformation has come to be
defined by people disagreeing with experts. Experts say that anyone who disagrees should be deplatformed. If
you disagree with the deplatforming, they say you should be deplatformed too.
Media
'punked' at Delaware airport, waiting for new round of DeSantis immigrants. Badly stung by Florida
Governor Ron DeSantis' brilliant idea to drop two planeloads of illegal immigrants in swanky Martha's Vineyard last
week, the media swarmed over rumors that more migrants were headed to President Biden's home state of Delaware, flocking
to the airport to greet them but being left with egg dripping from their faces when nobody showed up. The official
purveyors of disinformation have been having fits after DeSantis succeeded in putting the nation's border crisis back in
the headlines mere weeks before the crucial midterm elections that will determine whether Democrats can maintain their
one-party rule over the government, sending the migrants to the wealthy elite's very special island and suggesting that
he could similarly drop off more of the unwelcome guests in other prime locations.
While
Reporters Crowded Around Biden's Airport, 12 Suspected Terrorists Were Caught At The Actual Border. Think
America's legacy media can't get any worse at their job? Think again. Following reports that Gov. Ron
DeSantis, R-Fla., would be sending a plane full of illegal immigrants to a local airport in Georgetown, Delaware, near
the residence of President Joe Biden, reporters and self-proclaimed journalists flocked to the location of the supposed
drop-off on Tuesday, waiting with bated breath for an event they could spin to fit their anti-GOP agenda. The only
problem for the press, however, was that the plane in question wasn't carrying migrants and didn't even land in
Delaware. As reported by left-wing NBC News, "by late Tuesday, no plane had arrived [in Delaware]" and instead
"landed in Teterboro, New Jersey," with no migrants "aboard the plane." "Earlier in the day, DeSantis stoked the
coals of speculation by declining to confirm or deny whether the plane would even take off — his
administration later refused to say if the plane that landed in New Jersey was part of his program to relocate
migrants — in an intentional effort to keep the issue alive," the NBC report claimed, citing an unnamed,
anonymous source as evidence of its assertions.
60
Minutes' Scott Pelley Gets an 'F' for His Joe Biden Interview. Until last weekend, President Joe Biden
hadn't given an interview to an American news network in seven months, or some 223 days. Think about
that. We literally have a United States president who is not answerable to the public, and who spends his days
hiding behind his handlers, Teleprompters, cheat sheets, and wife Jill. He did finally deign to appear on CBS News
60 Minutes on Sunday, and he dropped enough news to keep RedState reporters working overtime. Yours
truly reported how Biden warned Putin not to use nukes in the Ukraine war; streiff reported how the president pledged to
defend Taiwan even though that is not the official U.S. position; Nick Arama told us how Joe bragged that he'd been busy
depleting the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and then dismissed any concerns about the business dealings of his troubled
son Hunter; Bonchie wrote about Joe's brushing off skyrocketing inflation before he suddenly declared that COVID is
over... Phew. The list goes on. [Tweet with video clip]
Give Him an Inch.
I would be embarrassed to conduct an interview with the president that was as lame as Scott Pelley's lovefest with
President Biden on 60 Minutes last night. The Biden administration accorded Pelley a substantial amount of time to
chat with Biden and Pelley returned the favor with a variety of softballs and dropped balls as well as his own
apologetics — to no one's surprise, of course, but still. It was an embarrassment. [...] The lack of
follow-up questions was one striking feature of the interview. You'd almost think that Pelley himself doesn't
follow the news. He appears to be somewhat less knowledgeable than the average voter. The good news is that
"the pandemic is over." That's what the man said. The pandemic is over — until it's not. You
may recall that the administration now relies entirely on the pandemic to support it's illegal student-loan
giveaway. It's an emergency. You may recall, but Pelley did not.
Anatomy
of a Really Vile Bit of Propaganda. Last week at American Thinker, in discussing the Dobbs case, I
prophesied, "and if your media sources resemble those I've seen, the moral angle will be played to the hilt with stories of
exceptional cases being treated as the rule." How right I was, as the story of a 10-year-old who was raped and had to
travel to Indiana from Ohio to get an abortion was highlighted in multiple media everywhere and used to discredit the Supreme
Court justices who decided Dobbs and pro-life politicians. Megan Fox has done a fine bit of journalism exposing this
propaganda coup and the Blaze details her work. [...] The sole source of the story is an ardent abortionist. The
story is unverifiable and peddled by those who share her views with no apparent independent efforts to confirm the
tale. If nothing else, this shows you how easy the job of a news editor at the named publications is. You don't
have to do anything — just let your reporters rattle off the headline-framing tales of a figure who advances the
desired narrative.
WSJ
Editors Eviscerate Hillary, Lapdog Media in Blistering Op-Ed About Russia Collusion Lies. [Scroll down]
Before we continue, lemme say this. I abhor whataboutism — from both sides of the aisle and
everywhere in between. That said, we're talking about the same lapdog media who, when shown images, transcripts,
receipts with signatures, and testimony from former associates of Joe Biden's wayward son, immediately dismissed the Hunter
Biden laptop scandal as "Russian disinformation." Yet, Hillary's lies? Hook, line, and sinker.
Retired
general, MSNBC contributor shares 'war footage', that turned out to be from a video game. Brian R. McCaffrey is
a retired four-star general and MSNBC contributor, but on Monday the distinguished former military officer made a faux pas
that he likely won't live down anytime soon. He posted a tweet that contained what he apparently thought was actual
wartime footage from the Russo-Ukraine conflict, showing what appeared to be a Russian MiG being shot down by Ukrainian
missile defenses. Twitter users, however, were quick to inform him it was actually just a clip from a video game.
McCaffrey quickly deleted the tweet and seemed to pretend the whole thing never happened. But the beauty of the
internet is that nothing can ever really be deleted, and plenty of Twitter users took a screenshot of McCaffrey's post to
ensure it will forever live in infamy.
VoterGA
Exposes Local TV Station that Posted Premature Primary Results Before the Upcoming Election. VoterGA released a
statement today about a local Georgia TV station that came out with artificial Georgia primary election results for all
statewide and US Congressional races in the Georgia primaries. The election hasn't even taken place yet.
According to VoterGA a local TV station shared primary results that they put together related to the upcoming primaries.
These artificial results showed a far-left basis. VoterGA found out that the results were produced for the local
channel WSB-TV by the Associated Press.
CNN's
Lemon Asks: Why Is The 2nd Amendment Sacrosanct But Not Roe? On Wednesday [5/4/2022], CNN's Don Lemon
proved once again how little he knows about anything he discusses on his low-rated primetime program Don Lemon Tonight.
Further evidence of this is the fact that he asked two of his guests, Atlantic senior editor Ron Brownstein, and
Washington Post columnist Max Boot why the Second Amendment is "sacrosanct" but Roe v. Wade is not.
'60 Minutes'
Enables FBI Dysfunction. Scott Pelley of "60 Minutes" didn't tell his viewers whether FBI Director Christopher
Wray imposed conditions before agreeing to be interviewed on camera by CBS. But his slobbering pro-FBI questions, which
aired Sunday, had the feel of something Wray's communication director may have fed the "news" program. [...] Under Wray, the
FBI has disgraced itself with misconduct and abuse of power. In the days leading up to the interview, victims of serial
child molestor and Olympic gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar sued the FBI for $130 million after agents charged with
investigating the abuse instead covered it up by fabricating victim statements. Pelly [sic] failed to ask Wray a single
question about the scandal. Pelley also failed to ask Wray about the humiliating acquittal of two men the FBI attempted
to entrap into the Governor Gretchen Whitmer plot engineered by the FBI to interfere in the 2020 election. Among the
FBI agents involved, one was accused of perjury, another of wife beating (now convicted), and a third of using the
investigation to help promote a side-business. Nor did Pelley ask about the FBI child rapist who rampaged across
multiple states for years under the noses of his colleagues responsible for protecting such victims, some younger than 13.
Nor did Pelley ask about the FBI's failure to stop the Jeffery Epstein child-rape-for-profit business. An FBI lawyer
pleaded guilty to falsifying evidence to help spy on a Trump campaign figure. Pelley didn't ask about that, either.
Social
Media: The Intimidation and Enforcement Arm of the American Left. The American left uses their dominant
position in social media to manipulate the legacy media, set the agenda, browbeat the elected members of the Democrat party,
and intimidate corporate America. [...] In a study to find out if journalists ascribe too much importance to Twitter, an
experiment was conducted with 200 journalists. The result: a majority of journalists ranked anonymous tweets as having
equal credibility or more than the actual fairly reported stories. This was particularly true for the younger,
considerably less experienced journalists, who are now in the majority. These researchers concluded that journalists
oftentimes get caught up in a pack mentality in which a story is seen as important and must be published because other
journalists on Twitter are talking about it, rather than because it is newsworthy and truthful. The examples are legion
but among the most egregious were the mad dash by virtually the entire cadre of mainstream journalists to condemn the
Covington Catholic boys based solely on a Twitter feed, the never-ending Russian collusion hoax, and now the "Don't Say Gay"
propaganda. It is not just a reliance on Twitter for stories. Editors and publishers oftentimes react to the
volume of tweets directed at their news outlets to determine what stories to publish, whether to rebuke a reporter or
commentator or to tint a story with a certain (in virtually all cases left-wing) point of view.
Anderson
Cooper's '60 Minutes' Softball Infomercial for Pete Buttigieg. The long-running CBS News program "60 Minutes"
has a manically split personality: Vicious attack dogs when Republicans are in power, but supportive infomercial
producers under Democrats. Take March 13 for example, when Anderson Cooper hosted a promotional segment for Transportation
Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the "bipartisan infrastructure bill." Buttigieg was touted as "40 years old, a Harvard
graduate, Rhodes Scholar, and former Navy Reserve officer who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. Now
he's dealing with a pandemic-related supply chain crisis and trying to ensure that hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are
well-spent on aging transportation systems in desperate need of repair." CBS began with a Pittsburgh bridge collapse from
January, as Cooper asked Buttigieg a series of bland softballs, such as: "When somebody's driving over a bridge, should
they feel confident?" Then Cooper followed up: "When grading the overall state of this country's infrastructure, the
American Society of Civil Engineers recently gave the U.S. a C-minus. How is it possible that a country like the United
States gets a C-minus on infrastructure?" These are easy pitches. They sound like questions Buttigieg's publicist
emailed to CBS.
On
the Alleged Moral Superiority of Intellectuals. [Scroll down] The sin of pride combined with a pliable
verbal medium that provides an easy escape from reality does not make for wisdom or common sense. When a farmer plants
the wrong kind of seed in a given year, he or she has to face the consequences. When a nurse gives the wrong injection,
he or she has to face the consequences. But when an intellectual writes a foolish article and 100,000 people lose their
jobs as a consequence, they generally need not face the consequences. Since word inflation is so easy, they
or their colleagues, other loyal members of the intellectual tribe, write new exculpatory words for them.
CNN
Admits Live On Air That Their Fact-Checking Is Based On Typing Words Into Google. These geniuses at CNN, who
have been wondering out loud how they lost 90% of their audience, admitted live on air that to debunk misinformation, they
type words into Google. The panel was talking about Senator Ron Johnson's hearing on vaccine safety when the topic of
over 100 pro athletes dying of sudden heart attacks was discussed. This greatly upset the panel at CNN where one of the
'investigative reporters' admitted he typed what was said into Google and it came back as misinformation. [Video clip]
A
Danish newspaper decided to finally ask questions. Sadly, most American journalists won't. A Danish
newspaper has finally figured out that it should not be a propaganda arm of the government and should have always asked
questions about COVID instead of just repeating what they were told like puppets. It is sad that most American
journalists continue to be propagandists pushing the fear agenda to get the public to submit to dictatorial edicts. [...] No
matter how often Dr. Fauci and the CDC have spread misinformation to the public, most of the media has treated their
statements as infallible and have sought to silence and disparage anyone who dares disagree.
Brilliant
Video Shows How Media, Joe Biden and Govt Health Officials Drove the Omicron Fear Narrative. The Omicron doom
and fear narrative became a parody of itself. One brilliant videographer has put together a mashup showing what took
place in the past ten days. It all started with ultra-progressive Harris County, Texas, Judge Lina Hidalgo holding a
dramatic press conference to report that an unvaccinated man in Houston, who was in his 50s, had died from the omicron
variant. However, only one journalist actually called the hospital to check the claim and discovered what progressive
Judge Lina Hildago claimed was actually false. There was no unvaccinated 50-year-old man who died from Omicron in the
hospital. It was all made up by the judicial version of AOC. Unfortunately, once the media, medical establishment
and politicians had that press conference soundbite, from a judge — not a doctor, they were off to the
races. This video brilliantly shows what happened next. [Video clip]
'Face
the Nation' Correspondent Stuns Fellow Panelists Into Silence, With Truth About COVID Policies Harming Kids.
Most of the time, the panel or roundtable portion of any weekly Sunday political program is a lively exchange among the
moderator and the panelists. But that wasn't the case during one segment of CBS News' "Face The Nation" this
week. As the show does once a year, it convened a panel made up entirely of the news division's correspondents,
ostensibly to review the big stories of 2021 and make some predictions about where those storylines will go in 2022 and
beyond. But at some point in the segment, the panel sat in stunned silence for over a minute-and-a-half, as one of
their own spoke the truth about how damaging the lockdowns and other governmental measures have been to our nation's
children. And it's implicit in her answer that the media is not off the hook for the blatant lack of reporting about it.
The Editor says...
There is always a lull at the end of the year, during which "news" people sometimes resort to interviewing each
other. To fill time, they also run the "year in review" recap, which they assembled weeks ago. The "predictions
for the coming year" show is also popular, because the Happy Team gets paid to pronounce the obvious.
Too
good to fact-check? Academic journal publishes hoax on conservative takeover of higher ed. A prestigious
academic journal has egg on its face for publishing a hoax paper that claimed to find widespread concerns about "undue"
conservative influence in higher education. "Right-wing money strongly appears to induce faculty and administrators ...
to believe that they are pressured to hire and promote people they regard as inferior candidates, to promote ideas they
regard as poor, and to suppress people and ideas they regard as superior," according to the abstract in Higher Education
Quarterly. Peer reviewers failed to perform basic due diligence on the paper submitted in April and approved in
October, neglecting, for example, to verify that authors "Sage Owens" and "Kal Alvers-Lynde III" were UCLA professors as they
claimed. Owens even used an encrypted email service for correspondence with the journal. They didn't check
whether the conservative foundations named as active funders of higher education actually existed. The "Randy Eller
Foundation" is made up, while the Olin Foundation shut down in 2005.
John
Fleck [was] rushed to [a] hospital after [the] Sheffield United star collapses. Sheffield United midfielder
John Fleck has been rushed to hospital after collapsing in worrying scenes during his side's 1-0 Championship win at
Reading. The Blades were leading at the time thanks to Jayden Bogle's second-half strike. Fleck collapsed to the
ground when off the ball and his team-mates immediately called for medical assistance. Fleck was helped back to his
feet by the medics after receiving attention for nearly 10 minutes and was given oxygen before being stretchered
off. He was put into an ambulance and taken to a nearby hospital. Sky Sports News claimed Fleck 'was able to
stand with the aid of an oxygen mask' and was 'conscious' when he left the stadium.
The Editor says...
Mr. Fleck did not rush to the hospital, as the headline states. He was rushed to the hospital.
There is a difference. Words matter. Omitted words don't help.
British
Newspaper Reports That Kyle Rittenhouse Shot Three Black Men. Not long after a jury in Kenosha, Wisconsin found
Rittenhouse not guilty of murder, attempted murder and reckless endangerment, The Independent newspaper updated its
front-page coverage of the trial. The sub-headline, which has now been taken down, said: "Full story:
Teenager who shot three black men with rifle found not guilty on all charges." All three of the men shot by Rittenhouse
were actually white.
The
Rittenhouse trial: Our corporate media and big tech are truly sinister. [Scroll down] Now they
carry out their Stalinist machinations right out in the open. Parents who show up to speak at school board
meetings? Domestic terrorists. Question the 2020 election results? Crazed conspiracy theorist. Be a
known Trump supporter in DC on January 6? Lock them up and throw away the key. How is it possible that these agencies
entrusted to enforce the law and uphold the Constitution are getting away with all this thuggery? For that we can blame
big tech: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc., and the mainstream media: CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, the
NYT, the WaPo, the Los Angeles Times and the wholly unobjective denizens of their print and electronic outlets. Big
tech censors whatever they don't like and hardly a word that comes out of the mouths of the men and women affiliated with
those media corporations is true. They are first and foremost in the business of lying to the naïve people who
watch or read them.
When
all the media narratives collapse. The news is a perilous business. It's perilous because the first draft
of history is almost always somewhat wrong, and needs a second draft, and a third, and so on, over time, until the historian
can investigate with more perspective and calm. The job of journalists is to do as best they can, day by day, and
respond swiftly when they screw up, correct the record, and move forward. I've learned this the hard way, not least in
the combination of credulousness and trauma I harbored in the wake of 9/11. But when the sources of news keep
getting things wrong, and all the errors lie in the exact same direction, and they are reluctant to acknowledge error, we
have a problem. If you look back at the last few years, the record of errors, small and large, about major stories, is
hard to deny. It's as if the more Donald Trump accused the MSM of being "fake news" the more assiduously they tried to
prove him right.
Our
mostly complicit, compliant, sycophant press has no concern about facts, only Democrat power. The corruption
and dishonesty of the media have been clear for decades. Here are some things they haven't cared about or have lied
about as they campaigned for Democrats and set out to destroy their political opponents. Didn't care about how many
women the Clintons physically and mentally abused. People who we are told respect women called them bimbos and trailer
trash. The women were disposable as the media, entertainers, and other Democrats campaigned for Bill. Didn't care
about Bill committing perjury and causing a young subordinate to commit perjury and obstruct justice. Monica was
disposable. Didn't care how many trips Bill took with known pedophile Epstein. The young girls were disposable if
the Clintons wanted power. How many women and young girls were sexually abused by powerful men because so many were
campaigning for the Clintons? Didn't vet Obama, or care that he associated with radical leftists such as Reverend
Wright and Bill Ayers. They also didn't care about Obama's record as they sought to destroy McCain and Palin. All
that mattered was electing Obama. Didn't care about all the lies used to pass Obamacare, nor did they care that Pelosi
wouldn't let members of Congress, the media, or the public see it before it was voted on. All the media cared about was
the agenda. Didn't care about the separation of powers when Obama illegally bypassed Congress to pay for shortfalls in
Obamacare. Didn't care when Obama and Holder obstructed justice for years on Fast and Furious. Didn't care when
Holder or others in the Obama administration committed perjury before Congress. They were above the law.
A Flood Of Superficial
Climate Reports. This past week, the Biden administration doubled down in its campaign against climate change
with the release of a suite of four reports, on national defense, financial risk, homeland security, and migration.
These reports all start with the common premise that the climate crisis is now upon us in full fury. Moreover, they
also all insist that the issues at hand are nonpolitical, and that the objective at all times is "to be guided by the best
available science and data." To say the least, however, the claim looks hollow, given that none of these reports offers
any data whatsoever to support its major contentions. [...] Sadly, instead of asking any hard questions, these reports just
take the worst-case scenario for granted and move on.
The Cult of the Vaccine.
[Scroll down] Since the start of the Trump years, we've been introduced to a new kind of news story, which assumes
adults can't handle multiple ideas at once, and has reporters frantically wrapping facts deemed dangerous, unorthodox, or
even just insufficiently obvious in layers of disclaimers. The fear of uncontrolled audience brain-drift is now so
great that even offhand references must come swaddled in these journalistic Surgeon General's warnings, which is why whenever
we read anything now, we almost always end up fighting through nests of phrases like "the debunked conspiracy theory that
COVID-19 was created in a lab" in order to get to whatever the author's main point might be.
Get
Him a Map! CNN Contributor Calls Manchin's West Virginia a 'Coastal State'. Liberal ignorance of flyover
country was on full display on CNN this morning [10/2/2021]. On New Day, CNN contributor Dr. Abdul
El-Sayed — a Bernie Sanders ally — suggested that West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin should support
the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill because it includes funds to address climate change. El-Sayed claimed that
"climate change is ravaging coastal states like his." As NewsBusters tweeted, "Someone get the Dr. a map." West
Virginia is — of course — a landlocked state. Even worse, El-Sayed grew up in Detroit, which is
less than 300 miles from West Virginia's panhandle.
The Editor says...
That's not the only thing he's completely wrong about.
Global warming (a/k/a climate change) is not hurting anybody in any state, coastal or otherwise.
A
'news' report that encapsulates what's wrong with today's media. [Scroll down] The article refers to the
police report and the House Committee on Ethics statement about Crenshaw's wrongdoing. It then explains how the extra
security was necessary "following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 during which five people were killed."
Wait! What? Insurrection? Five people killed? Well, not quite, Ms. Biased "Journalist." All
the evidence, including admissions from the FBI, is that there was no planned insurrection, that the FBI was involved well in
advance and may have been encouraging events, that the Capitol police invited people into the building, and that those who
entered treated the People's place of law with respect. And as for those "five people killed," implying that the
insurrectionists were murderers, only one person was killed when a Capitol police officer cold-bloodedly shot a woman who was
manifestly neither a threat to him nor anyone else. No other Capitol police officers even drew their weapons (some
insurrection!). The other people died either of natural causes (including a police officer) or, in the cases of one
person, from an apparent drug overdose.
There
Are No Bathrooms at the Border, and Other Shocking Revelations. Molly Hennessy-Fiske of the Los Angeles
State Media Times was literally shook to discover just how "dismal" things have become in
migrant camps along the border. I don't mean to make light of the harrowing conditions at the border. Regardless
of the cause, it's not nice to witness humans in peril, even of their own making. What I am making light of is the L.A.
Times and their ilk finding a "story" in the obvious and calling it news. The very obvious truth is and has always been
the same: there aren't restrooms at the border. It's not because the United States hates desperate immigrants or
even desperate Haitian immigrants or the despotic coyotes who exploit them. There are no bathrooms at the border
because bathrooms don't belong in the middle of nowhere. [...] It obviously comes as a shock to people like Molly Hennessy-Fiske,
who clearly have not spent much time in the middle of nowhere and thus do not understand that bathrooms don't grow in the wild.
Fake
News: Ignorant media confuse horse reins with 'whips,' claiming Border Patrol whipped Haitian migrants.
City boys don't know much about horse-riding out West, do they? Various tenderfoots in the media, followed by assorted
Democrats, including the White House itself, have ignorantly claimed that the Border Patrol was using "whips" on migrants in
Del Rio, Texas, following a series of misleading pictures published in the press.
Another
story about ivermectin that was spread by the left goes bust. Monday [9/6/2021] I wrote about the fact that
some big name progressives on Twitter, including Rachel Maddow, were spreading a local news story which claimed hospitals in
Oklahoma were being flooded with patients who'd taken ivermectin and were experiencing serious side effects. The same
story was picked up by left wing outlets including Rolling Stone. It turned out that story wasn't accurate. One
hospital said they hadn't seen any ivermectin patients and another hospital said they'd only seen a "handful." It
turned out that the local news outlet may have misunderstood the doctor who told them Oklahoma emergency rooms were full of
COVID patients and that some people taking ivermectin had wound up in the hospital. But the doctor wasn't necessarily
saying ivermectin patients were filling up the ERs. Lots of people on the left ran with the story without looking into
the facts because they liked the sound of it.
Breaking
Down Medical 'Fact-Checking' Propaganda. When reading any kind of supposed "fact-checking" report like this, I
always go to the bottom of the article and read the last paragraph because it represents the conclusion. In this case,
the last paragraph states, "Scientific evidence to date shows that vaccines against Covid-19 are overwhelmingly safe and
that they reduce serious illness and rates of hospitalisation due to the virus." Aha. This sounds exactly like
something the vaccine makers would say. Overwhelmingly safe? Reduce serious illness? Reduce rates of
hospitalization? Not. The bigger question should be, just how many vaccine deaths are acceptable before anyone
should be concerned? One hundred? One thousand? Ten thousand? This "debunking" and "fact-checking" is
pedestrian journalism of the lowest caliber, but it is always predictable in style and approach. It says everything but
says nothing at the same time, never offering any concrete or tangible evidence to support its claims while sewing doubt and
confusion in your mind. In short, it is partisan propaganda and nothing more.
The
Media's Failure to Vet Candidate Biden Is Linked to the Afghanistan Debacle. It was obvious to any sentient
observer in 2020. In defending himself on Afghanistan, Joe Biden fumbled his words, made weird comments and generally didn't
seem up to the job of being president. And the media pretended there was nothing to see. This week Newsmax
host Greg Kelly took the problem head on from a media perspective. Afghanistan, Kelly observed with accompanying quite
vivid video, "is a full blown disaster." Which is most decidedly true. After a video montage of Biden doing his
bizarre kissing and hair-smelling routines, Kelly zeroed in again on Biden's competence — and the media.
The real fraud
of 2020. We saw a lot of disappointment from the media about what just happened in Afghanistan, as reported by
Joe Cunningham: ["]If for one brief moment, it appears that the love affair between the Biden Administration and
most of our legacy media is on the rocks. [... "] Where were these reporters during the campaign? What
about the optics of a candidate who stayed in the basement and did not do press conferences? I guess that those optics
were O.K. because the objective was to defeat Trump. Yes, there was fraud in 2020. It was the media protecting a
candidate from rigorous questions or questions period. They all knew that Biden could not put in a full day on the job
but that was overlooked to get Trump. [...] Yes, we are stuck with a diminished president and everyone in the media knew it
in 2020. That's the real fraud of 2020.
Why Don't
They Believe Us? Imagine your confusion as the same people who spent three months telling you not only that
masks don't work, but that there are several reasons you shouldn't wear or purchase them, suddenly introduce mask
mandates. We're "following the science," they tell you. This seems to make little sense, but a pandemic is no
time for questions. [...] The same people who told you Brexit would never happen, that Trump would never win, that when he
did win it was because of Russian collusion but also because of racism, that you must follow lockdowns while they don't, that
masks don't work, that masks do work, that social justice protests during pandemic lockdowns are a form of "health
intervention," that ransacking African American communities in the name of fighting racism is a "mostly peaceful" form of
protest, that poor and underserved children locked out of shuttered schools are "still learning," that Jussie Smollett was a
victim of a hate crime, that men are toxic, that there is an infinite number of genders, that COVID couldn't have come from a
lab until maybe it did, that closing borders is racist until maybe it isn't, that you shouldn't take Trump's vaccine, that
you must take the vaccine developed during the Trump administration, that Andrew Cuomo is a great leader, that Andrew Cuomo
is a granny killer, that the number of COVID deaths is one thing and then another ... are the same people telling you now
that the vaccine is safe, that you must take it, and that if you don't, you will be a second-class citizen. Understand
vaccine hesitancy now?
Another
Opinion Columnist Pushing War With Iran Who Doesn't Actually Exist. There is at least one more foreign policy
opinion writer from the Mujahideen-eKhalq (MEK) whose existence is dubious, based on a study by a social media analyst and
statements from a defector from the group. Amir Basiri, who contributed to Forbes 9 times, the Washington
Examiner 52 times, OpenDemocracy, Algemeiner, and The Hill once also appears to be a fabrication.
It's
Fun Watching The Press Humiliate Itself. [Scroll down] [T]ry again to imagine being these people.
They all grew up wanting to be the crusading Woodward and/or Bernstein — who themselves were less ace reporters
than eager conduits for a disgruntled bureaucrat hack who exploited the callow correspondents to settle his personal
scores — and instead they grew up to be the Gimp in the less interesting version of Pulp Fiction that is the DC
milieu. They aren't breaking stories. They aren't uncovering wrongdoing. They certainly are not comforting
the afflicted or afflicting the comfortable. They are the ruling caste's janitors. They are drones, thralls to
their elite masters, marching in grim conformity in step to the official narrative, never complaining, never questioning,
never dissenting. These are licensed, registered, regime journalists.
Joe
Biden wants amnesty, but US tally of illegal immigrants is deeply flawed. Having indulged an unhealthy interest
in human migration for decades, I've been intrigued by how the number of illegal immigrants that journalists cite as living
in the United States never changes. For years on end, I've read that the population of America's "undocumented" —
a euphemism that seems to upbraid the receiving country's bureaucrats for failing to issue its woefully overlooked residents the
proper papers — is 11 million. With the artificial precision that often attends these unverifiable figures,
which derive their authority from sheer repetition, some journalists will quote the number as 11.3 million. Oh, there
was a brief period about 15 years ago when that standard statistic rose to 13 million, but then it popped right back down to
11 again, without any headlines about a stampede of 2 million suddenly ploughing over the Mexican border in the southern direction.
Glenn
Greenwald skewers sketchy new Russia/Trump 'bombshell' as journos salivate. The entire mainstream press is
abuzz over another Russian collusion delusion story. Making matters worse, the story was written by a known Russian
collusion delusion smear merchant who was repeatedly exposed for publishing pure garbage during the Trump presidency.
Published in The Guardian, the most recent story by so-called "journalist" Luke Harding claims that, equipped with
compromising information on former President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin sought in 2016 to install him in
the White House. After the story's publication, it immediately went uber-viral among "journalists" eager to share it
without offering any critical pushback. Here's a sample of what that looked like: [Tweets]
Explaining
the Full Armor of God to an Ignorant Media. When Ron DeSantis, Florida's conservative Republican governor and
likely presidential candidate, said recently we need to put on the "full armor of God," the media looked at him like he was
crazy — or from another planet. But his supporters gave him a standing ovation. As secular liberals,
most of the press have no familiarity with the phrase, its origins, theology, or importance. They are bigots against
religion and unschooled in what used to be the norms of American life, churches, and culture. The press and nearly our
entire elite ruling class, in academia, sports, politics, media, business, and culture are biblically illiterate and have no
idea what the Jar of Nar (John 12:3) refers to; where the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) led or who travelled
on it; or even what happened in the garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-46).
MSM
Saves Us From Not Knowing When We Shouldn't Drink Coffee. When the MSM hits the hottest take of a hot story, it
is nigh impossible to not stand back in awe of the pearls of great wisdom from on high with which it blesses us mere
mortals. Such a moment came about the other day, when television station CW 39 in Houston saw fit to pass along this
hitherto unknown and unsuspected of existing drop of wisdom: ["]When to stop drinking coffee, so it won't keep you
up at night["] Do tell, do tell. (In case you're wondering, the answer is six hours before bedtime.)
Making this story all the more authoritative is how it is based in the work of a team of researchers in Scotland.
The Biden No-Go Zones.
In American journalism, there are supposed to be some clear, nonnegotiable third-rails. One is zero tolerance for
overtly racist language and comportment among our movers and shakers. [...] Another no-go zone is any hint of contextualizing
sexual harassment or assault. [...] A third zero-tolerance zone is any hint of presidential debility. [...] Finally, lying,
fibbing, and even presidential exaggeration are deemed intolerable — or so we are told by the media. It does
not matter that the newsroom is currently one of the great purveyors of untruth, as we saw in the Russian collusion hoax, the
dubious Wuhan wet-market narrative, or the yarn about the Lafayette Square militarization to green-light a Trump photo-op.
[...] Yet it is arguable that while no other president in modern memory has trespassed more egregiously on these no-go
areas than Joe Biden, he has received no criticism for his transgressions.
Leftist
Lies and Media Deceit About Florida Pride Accident — Even Claiming 'Assassination Attempt' Against
Dem. As we reported earlier, there was what appears, at this point, to be a horrible accident at a Florida
Pride event with a pickup truck hitting multiple people and killing at least one at the event. But it turns out that
the driver of the pick-up truck was, according to reports, a member of the gay men's chorus, was wearing one of their
t-shirts and had a Pride flag on his truck. The Chorus confirmed that he was one of their members. The man is
claiming it was an accident. That was known relatively early on after the incident last night. [Tweets] But
that didn't stop people on the left and media, who were off to the races spreading lies about what had occurred. Not
only did they claim that it was a terrorist attack aimed at gay people, but they also claimed that it was an assassination
attempt against Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), again without any evidence at all.
Univision
Fangirling of VP Harris at Mexico Presser, or MAJOR Security Breach? When "MarÃa Fernanda from Univision" took the mic on
Tuesday night [6/8/2021] and asked Vice President Kamala Harris a flattering question to cap off her trip to Mexico, it seemed like
Univision's sycophantic day had taken a turn for the worse. But the truth might be far worse than what it seems. Watch as
"Maria Fernanda from Univision" asked what seemed like a question totally in line with Univision's editorial line, "I voted for you" aside:
[Video clip, transcript, tweets] Further complicating the issue is the fact that Univision Mexico City correspondent Jésica Zermeño was on site at the Harris press conference (who retweeted Coronell's statement). Given all these elements, we are faced with one of only two possible scenarios which are, by degrees of exponential magnitude, far worse than the original "Univision reporter fangirls over Kamala, says 'I voted for you'" story:
• Coronell's statement is true, in which case we are talking about a MAJOR security breach and vetting failure from the Secret Service, Mexican state security, and the White House press team (led by former CNN political commentator Symone Sanders)
• Coronell is lying, in which case (as my colleague Curtis Houck pointed out) Univision has a major journalistic scandal on their hands.
This is a developing story with multiple angles, and we will keep you posted as they unfold.
Nicolle
Wallace brings the hard-hitting journalism, asks James Clyburn: 'I need you to fill me up with wisdom'. In an
interview oddly reminiscent of Brian Stelter's softball questioning of White House press secretary Jen Psaki, MSNBC anchor
Nicolle Wallace sat down with Democratic Majority Whip James Clyburn to discuss the House's voting rights legislation better
known as the "For the People Act." Wallace opened up the cringeworthy interview on "Deadline: White House" Monday
[6/7/2021] by telling Clyburn: "I'm going to be really brief because I just need you to fill me up with wisdom here."
Coming Up Next.
There are very few Covid-related topics we aren't sick of at this point, so we're not really enjoying the media's
tiptoe approach into speculation that the virus was manipulated in, and escaped from, a lab in Wuhan, China. People who
were paying any freaking attention at all have known this for more than a year. But the truth had to be covered up,
lest the reality help Donald Trump's reelection effort. With very few exceptions, every news source has gotten so much
wrong (often deliberately) about Covid that we just don't [care] anymore.
How
Fact-Checkers 'Deceived The Public' About Possible Virus Outbreak From Wuhan Lab. It's not an accident that
most Americans are just starting to hear about the lab leak theory of COVID-19 origin as a potential legitimate source for
the global pandemic's outbreak. It's because the theory was suppressed for more than a year by corporate media
fact-checkers and their allies in Big Tech. The pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post have been filled
with articles in recent weeks about the newfound potential legitimacy of the lab-leak theory. [...] Evidence for the lab-leak
theory has been publicly available but censored from the public on social media. When the theory first began to surface
in early 2020, fact-checkers far and wide decried it as a conspiracy theory. In September 2020, PolitiFact labeled the
lab leak theory as a "pants-on-fire" lie that was "inaccurate and ridiculous." The premature fact-check has now been
retracted in May.
Liberal
media Finally admit they made a mistake dismissing Wuhan Lab leak theory. Liberal media reporters and pundits
admitted over the weekend they were wrong to dismiss the Wuhan lab leak theory just because it was espoused by former
President Donald Trump. Mainstream reporters had pushed back at the idea that COVID-19 may have originated in a
virology lab in Wuhan, China, and openly ridiculed the idea as Trump spoke openly about it in the early days of the
pandemic. But now, those same reporters have admitted that it is possible that the virus came from a lab
leak — as more scientists and political officials openly question the virus' origins.
Keywords: Softball, simpletons, giggling stenographers, incompetent partisan hacks. Biden
soft-serve ice cream inquiries keep enthralling media: 'Oh! Chocolate-chocolate chip!' Reporters aren't
tired of dishing out soft-serve ice cream questions for President Biden — and he isn't tired of answering.
The Democrat was greeting with a round of "oh!" and "yeah!" responses Thursday after once again fielding inquiries on his
favorite flavors of ice cream. "Mr. President! What did you order?" a reporter exclaimed as Mr. Biden
stopped in at Honey Hut Ice Cream in Cleveland. "Chocolate-chocolate chip," the commander-in-chief responded to his
rapt audience.
Matt
Yglesias: The media really did screw up the lab leak story. Yesterday [5/25/2021]Jonathan Chait wrote a
pretty good summary of how the media messed up the lab leak story early last year. The Washington Post's fact-checker
also published a timeline which attempted to tell the same story. Chait's piece was good and the Post's timeline was
less so, mostly because it minimized how the Post itself helped launch the crusade against the idea. In any case, today
Matt Yglesias wrote his own summary of the media history of this story which I think is the best one I've seen so far.
Without
serious reform, the BBC is damaged beyond repair: That's what one of its greatest journalists John Humphrys says.
In the past 48 hours the nation has been exposed to a litany of revelations that have shocked anyone with even a smidgeon of
concern about the future of journalism in this great country. The most sensational interview with the most famous woman of
her time turns out to have been a terrible fraud. Princess Diana had been led to the microphone by a rogue reporter who lied
and lied and lied again. His bosses suspected the truth but used every device in the book to cover it up. The BBC,
which has stood for a century for all that is decent and honest about this country, has been dragged into the gutter.
Disgraced
Lincoln Project Targets Children. The Lincoln Project, the same disgraced organization that shielded a credibly
accused child predator for months, is now looking to target your children through something called The Franklin
Project. The far-left Axios reports the news and does so in that hilarious way only the corporate media can: by
pretending it has a "scoop" when it's basically rewriting a press release sent to them first. This is stenography, not
journalism.
Ri-i-i-ght. AP
Denies Any Knowledge Gaza Office Building Was Shared with Hamas Terrorists. The Associated Press (AP) denied
any knowledge that Jala Tower, the building housing its offices in Gaza, was also shared by Hamas terrorists, as claimed by
the Israeli military and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the office block was bombed on Saturday [5/15/2021].
AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt denied that the news organization knew Hamas was in the building.
The Editor says...
To put this as politely as I can, I find it impossible to believe that the people working in a professional news-gathering organization, in
a volatile part of the world, would have been oblivious to terrorists in their office building. That level of cluelessness is almost
incomprehensible. I'm not the only one who's skeptical.
AP
Pretends It Didn't Know It Was Sharing a Building With Hamas. After an airstrike struck a building with
terrorist tenants that included Hamas and Al Jazeera, controlled by Qatar, a backer of Hamas, the main story in the media was
about... the media. Specifically the AP's presence in the same building. "We are shocked and horrified that the
Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP's bureau and other news organizations in Gaza. They
have long known the location of our bureau and knew journalists were there. We received a warning that the building
would be hit," the AP's statement says. And the AP is complaining about what? Israel warned it that the building
was a target. AP chose to share a building with Hamas and pretend not to know about it.
Confirmed:
the AP Is Incredibly Ignorant and Yes, Hamas Was in the Building. We reported yesterday how the AP was furious
that Israel had leveled the building in which they had offices in Gaza because they were sharing it was Hamas. We asked
the basic question: how could they not know they were sharing the building with Hamas? The AP issued a statement saying
they'd been in the building for 15 years — and had no indication that Hamas was in the building.
When Fools Rule. [Scroll down] This
phenomenon is not exclusive to politics. The media is stocked with carnies who maybe waited tables once, but otherwise
have no contact with present reality. Their life is on stage, playing the role written for them by equally obtuse and
ignorant people. The mass media is a circus, but the audience is out of sight from the performers. The media
carnies cannot hear the laughter and jeering. It is nothing but piped-in applause, which they assume is the real thing.
Grandpa Knew
Best. My grandpa once told me, "All my grandchildren were born smart. The longer they go to school, the
dumber they get." I thought he was teasing, but now that I'm his age, I see his point: You have to have spent
a lot of time in school to be as dumb as the experts on everything including economics, energy policy, and even vote
fraud. [...] Ask a first grader if he'd do his household chores if he got the same amount of money or even more from just
sitting home and playing video games and you'd get the right answer: No. This is something that escapes the brain
trust running this administration. It also escapes the ninnies who write for corporate media. The Jobs Report that
came out this week was terrible, making widespread expectations by experts and the media the subject of well-deserved ridicule.
Playing Fast and Loose
with Numbers. Far from being settled, climate science is tricky: we don't know well what happens to global
temperatures when atmospheric CO2 doubles ("climate sensitivity"); we can't properly model clouds and cloud formation, crucial
for how much of the sun's incoming heat will be reflected away; the range for best-guesses as to what the global temperature
rise over the coming century will be is vast (maybe 1° Celsius — maybe 5° Celsius) — so vast,
in fact, that it hardly warrants a quantification. Yet, the science is "settled," we hear, and we must "listen to
the scientists." But the worst crime are the subtle throwaway lines that journalists tuck onto their coverage of
impending doom that give a completely mistaken impression about the future of the world.
The
Annual White House Correspondents Dinner Is Cancelled — Did These Leftist Hacks Finally Realize How Much They Are
Reviled? The White House correspondents dinner has been canceled again this year. Does anyone in America
care? [...] No God-loving American is going to miss this nasty self-congratulatory celebration by the fake news elites.
These evil people who push liberal lies all day long while ignoring the destruction of America, get together each year to pat
each other on the back. They think they are smart and intelligent and end up showing the world how dumb and
disgusting they really are.
Another,
Clearer Take on the Chauvin Trial. I leave it to you to decide why, from the Trayvon Martin case to the George
Floyd case, the media has so consistently misrepresented the facts. Whether it is that unskilled reporters are covering
these matters, or that the press is simply looking to attract consumers with florid tales, or that the media looks forward to
destroying urban areas with false tales of murderous white racists (amid a shortage of real ones), I cannot say. [...] (I'd
also note that it is my experience that reporters' deadlines often conflict with the way trials proceed, so that too often
the prosecution (or in civil matters, the plaintiff) case is presented just before deadline and the cross examination occurs
too late to be covered in that day's edition, leaving only a false, one-sided version of the day's action.)
The Death
of Science, and of Scientific American. The great legacy publication, Scientific American, is
dead. It's still in print, but it is no longer either scientific or American. In an article described by a friend
as, "a hailstorm of impenetrable academic verbiage, dictated by a Ph.D. trying to outpreen the race and climate-change virtue
signalers," the publication has stepped through the woke looking-glass and emerged as self-parody. How else can one
explain "Climate Anxiety Is an Overwhelmingly White Phenomenon"? The nonsensical article's apparent points are that
"climate anxiety [is] just code for white people wishing to hold onto their way of life or get 'back to normal,' to the
comforts of their privilege", and "Climate anxiety can operate like white fragility, sucking up all the oxygen in the room
and devoting resources toward appeasing the dominant group."
MSM
Journalists Claim That The Capitol Attacker Was A White Trump Supporter, Video Shows That The Attacker Was Young Black
Man. The U.S. Capitol is under lockdown after a car crashed into a security barrier near the building located
on Constitution Avenue. The driver rammed the barrier on the Senate side and exited the vehicle. Capitol Police
shot dead the driver after he jumped out of the car and lunged at them with a knife, Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman told
reporters. Two Capitol Police officers were wounded in the attack, and Fox News is reporting one of the officers has died.
Master List Of Official
Russia Claims That Proved To Be Bogus. We've spent the last five years watching as anonymous officials make
major Russia-related claims, only to have those evidence-free claims fizzle. From the much-ballyhooed "changed RNC
platform" story (Robert Mueller found no evidence the changed Republican platform was "undertaken at the behest of candidate
Trump or Russia"), to the notion that Julian Assange was engaged in a conspiracy with the Russians (Mueller found no evidence
for this either), to the story that Trump directed lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress ("not accurate," said Mueller), to
wild stories about Paul Manafort meeting Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, to a "bombshell" tale about Trump foreknowledge
of Wikileaks releases that blew up in CNN's face in spectacular fashion, reporters for years chased unsubstantiated claims
instead of waiting to see what they were based upon.
USA Today
editor fired for tweet blaming Boulder shooting on 'White man', blames 'alt-right Twitter'. A USA Today editor
announced Friday [3/26/2021] that she was terminated over a tweet she posted in reaction to Monday's deadly shooting in
Boulder, Colorado that erroneously blamed a "White man" for the attack. Hemal Jhaveri, who served as the "race and
inclusion" editor of USA Today's Sports Media Group, was one of many liberals who rushed to trumpet their judgment that a
"White man" was responsible for the massacre at a grocery store that left 10 dead. "It's always an angry [W]hite man.
always," Jhaveri wrote in agreement with Deadspin writer Emily Julia DiCaro, who had similarly written, "Extremely tired of
people's lives depending on whether a [W]hite man with an AR-15 is having a good day or not." After police identified the
suspect as Syria-born Colorado resident Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, critics accused Jhaveri and the others who assumed the gunman
was White of racism.
Ahmad
al Aliwi Alissa isn't a 'white man,' so can we make assumptions about what motivated him? We know now that the
man who shot up a grocery store Monday in Boulder, Colorado, is an immigrant from Syria named Ahmad al Aliwi Alissa. In
the context of recent history, this means there's reason to think he might be a Muslim terrorist. But saying that aloud
will get you called a racist by the media. For now, we'll just have to pretend that this is another "lone wolf" who in
no way fits into the totally not-real pattern (according to the media) of mass violence perpetrated by Muslim extremists in
places as far-flung as Mumbai, Rouen, and Chattanooga and as close as Orlando, San Bernardino and New York. If Aliwi
Alissa were white, we could at least assume, without any evidence, like the media are doing with the recent killing spree in
Atlanta, that this was an act of white supremacism. Instead, it looks like we're back to square one. Of course,
before the shooter was identified by police, liberals had been very eager to draw early conclusions about him. They
were 100% certain he was white and perhaps even an anti-masker — i.e., a Trump supporter. I'm serious.
Liberal journalist Kurt Eichenwald mused on Twitter that the details might reveal that the shooting, which left 10 people
dead, was an episode of "anti-masker violence."
Noted
Biblical Scholar Don Lemon Says God Not About Judging People. CNN's Don Lemon recently appeared on The View and
commented on a recent declaration from the Pope that the Catholic Church will not bless gay marriages. Lemon claimed
that God doesn't judge people. Has he ever read any of the Bible? Judging the living and the dead is mentioned
pretty explicitly.
The
Woefully Ignorant Media Is Getting America's Anger Over the Cancelation of Dr. Seuss Books so Wrong, so Let Me
Help. Looking at how the media reacted to the reaction by Americans at the cancelation of some of
Dr. Seuss's books, it's hard to tell whether they're being obtuse on purpose or if they truly misunderstand the American
people so much that their bubble stops them from experiencing reality as it is. Case in point, here's what one Business
Insider reporter had to say about why conservatives were mad about Dr. Seuss, and I'm going to warn you, the explanation
is so stupid that you may get dumber for having read it: [...]
The
Media's Miserable Record on Getting It Right. About a month ago, news consumers were belatedly informed that
New York governor Andrew Cuomo was not a pandemic hero, the Lincoln Project was not filled with noble Republican idealists
who were effectively persuading conservatives to stop supporting Donald Trump, and progressive policies were not helping the
least fortunate in California. This week, the media belatedly recognize that the evidence for soaring hate crimes
against Asian Americans is much less reliable than initially reported, that the survey data reveal that liberal perceptions
of police shootings are wildly at odds with the verifiable facts, and that recent headlines exaggerated the conclusions of a
CDC report on government mask mandates.
Attack of the
Woke Teen Career Killers. I was a mere 70 pages into Donald McNeil's brief about his firing from The New
York Times when I emailed a dozen of my friends to demand they read it immediately. But they don't have my
perseverance, so here are the highlights. [...] These holy terrors are tormenting newsrooms across New York City —
at New York magazine, The New Yorker and The New York Times. They are true believers, not original
thinkers — race-obsessed, gender-obsessed, anti-white, anti-American, and much, much stupider than reporters used
to be. Just tell me what I'm supposed to think and I'll think it. These are the sort of people who ought to be
office managers ordering staples and mousepads, not people who report news.
Michigan
National Guard [was] Served Undercooked, Moldy Food While in Washington D.C.. Politicians love to talk about
solutions to problems that they helped create and while they do, everyday Americans get caught in the crosshairs of their
idiocy. For this story though, it is not just any everyday Americans but those who serve in the Michigan National Guard
who have been entangled in a political mess not of their doing.
The Editor says...
The National Guard did not serve the food. The food was served to them. The omission of verbs is the difference
between English and Headline-ese.
Brian
Stelter Asks Politifact About Andrew Cuomo, and the Interview Was Everything Wrong With Journalism.
Fact-checkers and journalists alike have done major damage to their respective professions over the years — the
last four years especially, and two of the most notable examples of such are Politifact and CNN's Brian Stelter. On
Sunday during his "Reliable Sources" program, Stelter had on his network's resident fact-checker and fellow Joe Biden
apologist Daniel Dale as well as Politifact's editor-in-chief Angie Drobnic Holan to discuss fact-checking in the Biden
era. We've been told in the past by our intellectual betters like Dale about how Biden supposedly doesn't lie a
lot. So you'd think Stelter and his guests wouldn't have had much to say during the segment. But they did,
especially when Stelter asked Holan about Gov. Andrew Cuomo's nursing home scandal and the fallout from it.
Fake News Wannabes.
The staple of my local morning news has been, for several decades now, a dreary litany of local murders, typically with
persons of color on both ends of the gun. One can only imagine that good liberals despise reporting these things.
In the first place it runs counter to their narrative, and in the second it makes them stand around looking nervous in the
worst parts of the ghetto in the middle of the night. They have to interview people whose English skills are even more
marginal than their own.
CNN
says Chris Cuomo is no longer allowed to interview his brother, Gov. Cuomo. Chris Cuomo is not allowed to
interview his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, CNN said, claiming that appearances the governor made on his show in
2020 were an exception to the outlet's normal rule. CNN defended its decision to allow those appearances but did not
acknowledge wrongdoing on its part. The interviews were criticized for apparently being too focused on banter between
the brothers and not enough on difficult questions about how the governor was handling the pandemic in his state.
Bill Gates's Climate
Hysteria. This past Sunday, Bill Gates (net worth, $133 billion) and Anderson Cooper ($110 million) got
together on 60 Minutes to discuss the numerous sacrifices Americans will be expected to make to avert an imminent climate
catastrophe. First, we should refrain from referring to these sorts of conversations as "journalism," since Cooper never
challenges any of Gates's wild predictions nor displays even a hint of professional skepticism regarding the subject matter.
Cooper simply cues up the next talking point like a host of an in-house corporate video.
The Impeachment Show.
Lost in the tedium and general lack of interest in the impeachment show put on by the Democrats last week is the general
weirdness of our ruling class. What we see in politics and in the media is presented as if it is completely normal.
No one ever points out the facts or the contradictions with reality. The presenters and their subjects are all
super-serious, as if everything they are saying and doing is completely normal. The reaction to the very peaceful
demonstrations by Trump fans last month is a great example of this weird disconnect. We live in an age where everything
is monitored by millions of mobile-phone cameras. As a result, everyone got to see hours of amateur video shot during
the subdued protests in Washington back in January. Yet the carrying-on by the politicians and media is disconnected
from what we saw online. If you are a left-wing partisan, all of it confirms your belief that Trump is a magical orange
Hitler commanding an invisible army of Hitlers. Of course, for these people, everything confirms this belief.
They are insane.
We're
supposed to believe that only 11 million illegal immigrants are in the USA and that the number has been the same since
2003. Some numbers are constants, a fixed numeric value established by physics, mathematics, geometry, law,
literature, or logic. They never change. Take for example pi, (3.1416), the Ten Commandments, the Three
Musketeers, 12 inches in a foot, and 11 million illegal aliens. That's right: eleven million illegal aliens
in the United States. In recent years we have seen once immutable values changed before our eyes — nine planets,
two sexes, and more. But since 2003, the number of unauthorized aliens present, illegally (need to emphasize
that), in our supposedly sovereign nation has been wired in at 11 million. With little sense of media curiosity, or
fact-checking, that number, primarily sourced by a left-leaning research group (Pew) and copied by others, has remained a
constant. For nearly two decades now, we must believe that the waves of unconstrained illegal entries in the Bush and
Obama years, the unenforced overstays, and the catch-and-release judicial free passes have not altered the number one digit.
Media
"news" is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. [Scroll down] First, why
get snarky with Senator Cruz to begin with? Why not just report that his reference was incorrect if she thought it was,
as a news reporter should? The answer, of course, is that news reporters do that — get snarky —
these days when their target is a Republican. Second, why not double-check that you're right before correcting someone
in front of millions of people? The answer is that journalists are too lazy to double check things, especially when
they think it reflects badly on Republicans. Third, why not double-check that you're right when the person you're
correcting is a genuine intellectual? Ted Cruz graduated cum laude from Princeton and magna cum laude
from Harvard Law School, then went on to clerk for Chief Justice William Rehnquist at the U.S. Supreme Court. In
practicing law, Cruz argued nine cases before the Supreme Court. The answer is that Mitchell is pathologically arrogant.
Are
we not fact-checking evidence-free claims anymore? At what point are journalists going to hold Democratic
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accountable for her evidence-free conspiracy-mongering? [...] The congresswoman has been
on a roll recently, lobbing serious allegations of wrongdoing. She even claims Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas
"almost" had her "murdered." Perhaps unsurprisingly, few, if any, in the press have bothered to challenge what are by all
objective standards deadly serious and verifiable accusations. Indeed, many journalists seem perfectly content merely
to repeat the charges and leave it at that. And that's the obvious problem here, that there is basically no pushback
against Ocasio-Cortez from the industry that spent the past four years telling us how good it is at holding the powerful to
account. Who is the police officer in the congresswoman's story? What is his take on her version of events?
Will he have a chance to defend himself? Will establishment journalists even bother to uncover his identity? This
is no small thing, accusing a member of the U.S. Capitol police of possibly conspiring with a seditious, murderous mob.
Biden
is planning more ice-cream stories. Slightly inquisitive reporters with no President Trump to kick around, have
gotten Joe Biden on the spot. What better, then, than more ice-cream stories? What's Joe Biden's choice of ice
cream flavors at this visit to this local shop? [...] [I]n general, news of car crashes through walls, pet rescues, and high
school valedictorian service projects tend to form the backbone of much local news, speaking anecdotally. Don't forget
the happy talk, or the weather girls in tight dresses. Blue city machine corruption, which ought to be their forte, is
not usually spotted, not when the local garden club's doings is likely to draw more viewers. Neither will hard
questions of Biden, which is the actual job of any self-respecting news.
You
Can Thank Our Elites For Proliferating Conspiracies. [Scroll down] Let's focus in on the second
point. Rep. Ilhan "All-About-The-Benjamins" Omar, D-Minn., is corrupt and nearly as conspiratorial as
[Rep. Marjorie Taylor] Greene. She also seems to be antisemitic. But the media doesn't make Omar the subject
of breathless coverage about her party's moral bankruptcy. They put her on magazine covers. The same goes for the
likes of Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory. Hillary Clinton and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are currently
trafficking in bizarre conspiratorial theories that Donald Trump talked to and took direction from Vladimir Putin on the day
of the Capitol riot without being treated as menacing representations of rot in their party. Clinton never accepted the
results of her 2016 loss, and continues to recklessly advance baseless notions of "hacking." That brings us to the Russia
collusion hoax, which for years consumed the entire Democratic Party (even Sen. Bernie Sanders!) in a silly conspiracy
replete with prostitutes and urine. Because this comported with the media's basic political narrative, they failed to
approach it with appropriate skepticism.
"This
is Such a Good Question!" — WH Press Sec When asked if Biden will Change the Paint on Air Force One.
Joe Biden's White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki held her first press briefing a few hours after Biden was sworn into office
and it's all rainbows and unicorns. A brave reporter asked Psaki if Joe Biden will keep Trump's Air Force One color
scheme. "This is such a good question!" Psaki said smiling. "I have not had the opportunity to dig into that
today..." Rather than ask questions about the investigation into Hunter Biden's money laundering scheme and how Joe
Biden turned his son into a bagman, the reporters ask about paint.
This is news? DC
police investigate vandalism of Bernie Sanders mural as a 'hate crime' after it was defaced with 'alt-right' Pepe the
Frog. The vandalism of a mural of Bernie Sanders in Washington DC that was defaced with a picture of Pepe the
Frog is being investigated as a hate crime, police have said. D.C. police confirmed their investigation into the
vandalism of the mural in the Navy Yard area. They said that it was not clear exactly when the mural was defaced, with
a police report listing December 15, 2020 to January 14, 2021 as a possible time period.
CBS:
'So Many' Are So Proud of Kamala Harris: 'How Will You Support Her?' The abrupt switch from media attack dogs
to stenographers for power was always going to be jarring. But get ready for "democracy dying in darkness" giving way
to "everything is swell." CBS This Morning on Monday [1/18/2021] cheered on Kamala Harris by talking to the Vice
President-elect's former sorority sisters. The full-on puff piece featured Gayle King insisting that "so many" are so
proud of the Democrat. Of course, no mention was made of just how liberal Harris is. Instead, reporter Michelle
Miller asked questions like this: "How are you going to support your line sister as she becomes vice president?"
Fourth
U.S. lawmaker tests positive for COVID-19 after U.S. Capitol attack. U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat said
Thursday he had tested positive for COVID-19, becoming the fourth member of Congress to announce they had contracted the
coronavirus following a mob attack on the U.S. Capitol last week. "I am following guidance from my physician and
quarantining at home after having tested positive for COVID-19," he wrote on Twitter. Espaillat is the latest lawmaker
to test positive for the coronavirus in what has become a partisan issue, with Democrats blaming Republicans for not wearing
masks while sheltering in secure areas on Jan. 6, as violent supporters of Republican President Donald Trump stormed
the building.
The Editor says...
Or he could have picked up the virus from anywhere else he has been in the last two weeks, but this makes a
much better story, doesn't it? The writer further errs by presuming that the people who violently invaded
the U.S. Capitol were Trump supporters, and not Antifa infiltrators.
Liberal
Journalist Calls For Pelosi To Be Expelled From House. Whatever you think of Twitter, it does have one virtue:
it has exposed the carelessness and low intelligence of American journalists. Gohmert couldn't have been clearer, and
yet these dim bulbs didn't get the point. More importantly, though: these journalists thought the quote was shocking
when they attributed it to Gohmert. One wanted to expel Gohmert from the House. So, does that mean that she now
wants Nancy Pelosi expelled? And do the other journalists quoted above now think that Pelosi's quote was reprehensible?
Will they jump to condemn Pelosi, as they did Gohmert? Or are statements tolerant of rioting, or even encouraging rioting,
perfectly fine when they are made by Democrats?
Explaining
the Twelfth Amendment for Those in the Media Who Seem to Be Reading Impaired. The Twelfth Amendment was adopted
in June 1804 — ahead of the Presidential election of 1804 — and replaced the provision regarding the
function of the Electoral College that was set forth in Art. II, Sec. 1, Clause 3 of the Constitution as originally
drafted. The purpose of the Amendment was to address the extraordinarily close outcomes of the Presidential election in
1796 and 1800. The process set forth in the Constitution had resulted in the election of a President and Vice President
from different political parties in 1796 — which turned out to be problematic since the one-party was pro-British
and the other was pro-French in the armed hostilities between the two countries at the time. In 1800, a tie in the
Electoral College vote led to 36 ballots in the House of Representatives before it finally elected Thomas Jefferson over
Aaron Burr — both from the Democrat-Republican Party. Both had received the same number of Electoral Votes
since under the original system each elector cast 2 votes without distinguishing between a vote for President and a vote
for Vice President.
Our
self-appointed media overlords aren't very bright. In February 2017, Mika Brzezinski gave the media's game
away. She explained that Donald Trump, by trying to bypass media bias, "could have undermined the messaging so much
that he can actually control exactly what people think." Mika wasn't upset that Americans might be subject to thought
control. Instead, she was outraged because, when it comes to thought control "that is our job." Jennifer Bendery,
a HuffPost senior politics reporter, is Mika's spiritual heir because she is stupid, hostile to the Trump administration,
believes that she owns the facts, and intractable about her ignorance and bias. Normally, I wouldn't comment on the
idiocies of a HuffPost journalist because that's pretty much a "dog bites man" story. However, sometimes you must point
these things out so that people understand the people in the mainstream media. Remember, these journalists (sadly)
control American discourse, despite being governed by an unsavory mix of hatred, ignorance, and arrogance.
The
Worst People In Media 2020. This year was a disaster in just about every respect, but nothing compares to the
overall disaster that is the media. Informing the public and seeking the truth took a backseat to agenda pushing and
straight-up advocacy. While everyone in the media soiled themselves this year, to one degree or another, some people
are just so awful they deserve special recognition.
WaPo's
reporting on Kamala Harris' marriage is painful prelude to the next four years. An essay in the Washington
Post about the "inspirational" relationship between Kamala Harris and husband Doug Emhoff has prompted justified ridicule
on social media. The obsequious, nearly 1,000-word article, which is almost painful to read or even skim, claims that
people who see Harris's alleged "struggles" in themselves also have hope that they too can "find a long, loving partner" in
middle age. Citing Harris's memoir that probably only the journalist read or even was aware of, the Post writer
praises the couple's courtship process "that offers hope, inspiration, and a little instruction." Harris and her
husband share a mutual admiration that causes the Democrat vice presidential nominee to "beam" whenever she mentions his
name, the article notes.
Computer
repairman who made Hunter Biden hard-drive contents public sues Twitter for $500 million after moderators 'labeled him a
hacker'. A computer repair shop owner who Hunter Biden handed his laptops over to in April 2019 is suing
Twitter for defamation, claiming moderators labeled him a hacker. John Paul Mac Isaac is seeking $500 million in
damages from Twitter after The New York Post's story about Biden, obtained from the 50-year-old's laptop, was labeled as
potentially coming from hacked material. Facebook and Twitter both restricted viewing of the Post's story, and Twitter
pointed to its ban on posting 'hacked materials' as an explanation.
Media
heap praise upon themselves as 'heroes' of 2020. Ace, at Ace of Spades, has uncovered a yucky little
trend — the press seems to be intent on praising itself as the heroes of 2020. [...] Never have journalistic
standards been lower. From CBS's once-formidable 60 Minutes dismissing the Hunter Biden story as "not news" to Big
Media's complicity with Big Social Media to cover up and in the case of the New York Post, literally censor its news, never
has the press disgraced itself. They promoted the lies of Russia collusion, then the lies of impeachment, then the lies
of COVID, and finally, covered up for Joe Biden's corruption, opting instead to ask him about his ordered ice cream flavor,
not his record of growing rich while in public office, or the computer evidence of Chinese and Russian influence
peddling. As Ace notes, few lost their jobs, which is an ironic thing, given that few did their jobs. They
impressed no one. After all, if you have to praise yourself to get any praise, maybe there's a reason for ...
not getting the praise.
Good
news, bad news... the left can't discern the difference. The most puzzling thing about leftists is their
stubborn resistance to good news. Tell them the actual death rate for COVID sufferers is 0.05% and they will come after
you like a rabid animal. Explain to them that the COVID numbers are hugely inflated — nearly all deaths of
the usual things people die of are now attributed to COVID — and they will do everything in their power to silence
you. Let a Stanford doctor suggest that face masks are useless in preventing the spread of COVID, a fact that should be
obvious to everyone by now, and that doctor will be cancelled, shadow-banned, deleted. Months ago, if any doctor
uttered the truth about hydroxychloroquine, he or she would be called a charlatan, a freak, a liar, all because President
Trump mentioned it early on as one possible treatment. Thousands of lives might have been saved had the media told the
truth about HCQ — used early, it works.
CNN wastes your valuable time with meaningless filler like this: Don't
Worry, Kids: Dr. Fauci Says Santa Is Vaccinated Against the Coronavirus. Jolly Kris Kringle has been
cleared for travel this Christmas season, allaying the worries of some children who didn't want him to catch the coronavirus
while traveling all over the world. On CNN Saturday [12/19/2020], Elmo from Sesame Street presented questions from
three children who wanted to know: Would Santa Claus be protected from the virus?
If
the Media Doesn't Report on Crime, It Won't Exist. The Nieman Foundation for Journalism was set up at
Harvard. Like everything touching old foundations and journalism, it's a toxic disaster. And this one is right up
there with In Defense of Looting. [...] No this stuff isn't marginal. Nieman is influential and it's part of the
larger pro-crime push. And the reshaping of the legacy media. Even at this late date, one of the few things the
local news does anymore is sports, weather, and crime. Lefty virtue signaling destroyed sports. The push to make
every weather report about global warmunism while firing any weatherman who doesn't go along has been underway for years.
China,
Spies, And Sexual Harassment: 3 Bombshell Stories The Legacy Media Are Hiding From You. Early last week, Axios
reported that an alleged Chinese spy, a woman named Fang Fang or Christine Fang, had "forged ties with Swalwell while he was
a city council member in Dublin, California." Fang had helped fundraise for Swalwell's 2014 reelection campaign, and
even placed an intern in his office. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany excoriated the legacy media for their
complete disinterest in the possibility that Swalwell — who still sits on the House Intelligence Committee
and was a vocal instigator in the Russia collusion hoax — could have been compromised by a Chinese spy. On
December 17th, The Hill reported that the "CBS, NBC and ABC evening newscasts haven't dedicated one second to the story,"
that Rep. Swalwell was "barely pressed" during an interview with CNN, and that The New York Times had failed to report
on the story in any fashion. One would imagine that had it been a Republican Congressman who was accused of sleeping
with a spy, the legacy media may have expressed more interest.
Here
Are the Ten Worst Softball Exchanges from the Colbert/Biden Interview. This, dear NewsBusters readers, is what
counts as journalism from our liberal media in 2020. On Thursday night [12/17/2020], CBS's The Late Show host
Stephen Colbert spent an hour fluffing the pillows of President-Elect Joe Biden and incoming First Lady Jill Biden.
Whether it was defending Jill Biden's doctorate in English, lamenting Hunter Biden being under federal investigation, nudging
Biden from the left to screw Republicans and be openly partisan, Colbert closed out 2020 with one of the suck-ups of the year.
Stephen
Colbert's embarrassing interview misses the mark. After a blackout on the Hunter Biden scandal before the
election, it often seems like the media is struggling to offer the appearance of coverage without actually asking questions
that could be damaging for the president-elect. That view of many was reinforced in the first interview with Biden
about his son since the November election. It was conducted by CBS' Stephen Colbert, host of "The Late Show with
Stephen Colbert." Biden has refused to answer questions on the expanding scandal surrounding his son's China connections
so this was a big deal. However, the president-elect's team arranged for the all-important question to be asked by a
comedian on a late-night show.
New
York Times admits award-winning doc 'Caliphate' did not meet 'standards for accuracy'. The New York Times
revealed Friday morning [12/18/2020] that its award-winning 2018 podcast "Caliphate" about the Islamic State terrorist group
did not meet the paper's "standards for accuracy." Following a more than two-month internal investigation, The Times
found that the 12-part audio documentary, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won a Peabody Award in 2019,
focused too heavily on the false or exaggerated accounts of Shehroze Chaudhry, a man who was charged by Canadian authorities
in September with perpetrating a terrorist hoax. "When The New York Times does deep, big, ambitious journalism in any
format, we put it to a tremendous amount of scrutiny at the upper levels of the newsroom," executive editor Dean Baquet said
in a podcast interview Friday.
'Oh,
they do this to me every day': Trump rubs salt in NY Times' fail after mega-retraction. President Donald Trump
is justifiably calling out the New York Times after the far-left news organization to acknowledged that a podcast
contained bogus information. "Oh, they do this to me every day. When will they apologize?" the president tweeted
with feelings of vindication upon the disclosure that the Times had to retract a key premise of its 2018 "Caliphate"
podcast. Shehroze Chaudhry, the purported central figure of the 12-part Times podcast, who allegedly claimed to
be a terrorist executioner, apparently made it up, and the news outlet fell for it. After a four-year investigation,
Canadian authorities have charged him with carrying out an alleged terrorist hoax, which could land him in prison for up to
five years should he be convicted in a court of law.
New York
Times: 'Caliphate' podcast didn't meet standards. The New York Times admitted Friday [12/18/2020] that it could
not verify the claims of a Canadian man whose account of committing atrocities for the Islamic State in Syria was a central
part of its 2018 podcast "Caliphate." The series was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and had won a Peabody Award, the first
ever for a podcast produced by the newspaper. Peabody administrators said the Times would return the award.
The Vaccine
Naysayers Got It Wrong. Today I'm reminded of the host of media experts who flogged the seriousness and
reliability of the Steele dossier for months and years only to evaporate when we later learned that document wasn't
reliable. To his great credit, the Washington Post's Erik Wemple devoted 10 articles to tracking down some of the
dossier's promoters and asking them how they felt about it in retrospect. As I pointed out at the time, a lot of the
journalists he spoke with had no comment. People like MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who made the dossier a key part of her
program for years simply moved on to greener pastures. There was zero price to pay for being so wrong for so long
about something so important. I'm reminded of that today because of this Twitter thread by Glenn Greenwald highlighted by
Twitchy. Greenwald points out that some of the same outlets flogging the the dossier were also confident that a vaccine
by the end of the year was a pipe dream. Stop and enjoy the smug condescension in this first clip from MSNBC:
[Video clip]
This is a commercial disguised as news: Top
supplier warns of possible cookie shortage over holidays. There may be a shortage of cookies on the shelves
this holiday season, one of the biggest commercial producers of confections is warning. Campbell's Soup Company, which
makes cookies under the Pepperidge Farms brand, warned that it is facing a shortage ahead of its busiest season —
including of popular varieties like Milano and Chessman. In an earnings call with investors, Campbell's CEO Mark Clouse
blamed the shortage on an increase in demand and a labor shortage, both of which are results of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
John
Brennan Lies About the Steele Dossier, Fox News' Chris Wallace Just Nods Along. I'm assured by some
conservatives (most of which also happen to have Fox News gigs) that Chris Wallace is a serious newsman whose more recent
bias against Republicans is really just him be a fair arbiter of the facts. Of course, we all know that's nonsense, and
it was never more evidenced than his embarrassing performance during the first presidential debate. That was hardly the
only example though, and the level of bias with which Wallace is willing to operate with was on display again today.
John
Brennan on Fox News Sunday blatantly lies to Chris Wallace, who doesn't call him out. To be honest, I didn't
watch the much-hyped interview of former CIA chief, and now CNN contributor, John Brennan by Chris Wallace on Fox News
Sunday. I detest both men, and did not want to vomit on the TV or floor. But my thanks go out to those like
Bonchie of RedState, who did the job this American (and many other former Fox News viewers) refuses to do. Tom Elliott,
the founder of Grabien, tweeted out video of the lie: [Video clip]
The
Left-Wing Media Fell for China's COVID Lies. This week, CNN aired an "exclusive" report about a "vast trove of
leaked documents" showing "China underreported Covid-19 numbers, took weeks to diagnose new cases and didn't disclose a
December flu spike in Hubei." Well, yes. Anyone willing to be honest about the longtime antics of the Chinese
Communist Party concluded this in January. [...] When the White House Coronavirus Taskforce was officially launched on
January 29, 2020, newsrooms in Washington, D.C., missed an enormous opportunity to deliver crucial information to the
American people. Editors and executives could have swapped out political reporters in the White House Press Corps for
healthcare reporters. This way, there would have been a higher chance legitimate questions about the disease would have
been asked. Instead, they chose to keep their partisan, anti-Trump reporters in the room and focused on President
Trump's (accurate) language rather than the details of the disease, lockdowns, hospital preparation and more.
Biden
Acolytes Are Abuzz Over 'First All-Woman WH Comms Team,' They Forgot to Check in With Who's There Now. If
anyone is known for putting a foot firmly in her mouth on a regular basis, it's Hillary Clinton. So naturally, after
news broke on Sunday [11/29/2020] that the top roles in Joe Biden's theoretical, White House press office would be made up of
all women — for the first time ever — the former senator and first lady couldn't resist sharing a feminist,
virtue-signaling tweet about it on Monday morning.
Hey
MSM, Affidavits are Considered Evidence. As a lawyer, including the former lawyer for the Maricopa County
Elections Department, it has been appalling for me to see the MSM breathlessly blabbing over and over that there is no
"evidence" of election fraud. They even had the nerve to claim that Sidney Powell, a former high-level attorney in the
DOJ who served as lead counsel in more than 500 appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, had no
evidence of fraud in the presidential election. They pretended she just put her hard-earned reputation on the line to
hold a press conference with Rudy Giuliani based on lies. Sadly, the MSM is able to fool a lot of the public because
the public doesn't understand the law. Powell and the Trump legal team have compiled hundreds, if not thousands, of
affidavits from people swearing to election fraud in the presidential election. Affidavits are evidence. Many
court cases are decided based on evidence from affidavits alone.
'Pet
Psychic' Says She Communicated Telepathically With Biden's Dogs. The Daily Beast Runs With It. The Daily
Beast published a lengthy story on Friday about Beth Lee-Crowther, a so-called "pet psychic" who claims to have communicated
telepathically with Democratic nominee Joe Biden's two pet dogs. According to The Daily Beast, Lee-Crowther says her
"mind-to-mind communication" with Biden's two dogs occurred on a British television show, when she was presented with a
picture of them. The pet psychic said that the two dogs proceeded to give her insight into Biden as a person and how he
would govern the country as president.
The Editor says...
Red herring alert! Articles of this sort make no mention of any doubts about the legitimacy of the election results.
The Biden-friendly journalist expects the reader to assume that Biden was elected in a fair process.
Hard-hitting
journalists break riveting news about Joe and Jill Biden's pets. The liberal media seems to prove that
journalism may indeed be dead with the latest "breaking news" report about Democrat Joe Biden. After four years of
presenting leaked lies from unnamed sources as hit pieces on President Donald Trump, the mainstream media now seems to be
shifting its tone in readiness for a journalistic vacation under a potential Biden administration. Hence, CBS Sunday
Morning dropped a new kind of bombshell as the Bidens "exclusively" shared news about their pets. Not only are Biden
and his wife Jill planning to bring their two German shepherds to the White House, if the former vice president is actually
certified as the winner of the 2020 race, but CBS Sunday Morning revealed that the couple "tell us, exclusively, that soon
they'll be joined by a cat."
The Editor says...
This is part of the news media's distraction program, drawing attention away from the obvious theft of the election, and concentrating
on Biden's media-generated status of president-elect. It is also an example of the Left encouraging you to use
your emotions in place of rational thought.
Media
Childishly Dismissive of Gettysburg Vote Fraud Hearing. The mainstream media, rather than cover in any real
detail the serious allegations of voting fraud that were presented at a Gettysburg hearing of the Pennsylvania Senate
Majority Policy Committee on Wednesday, instead mocked and dismissed the event. CNN made no effort to hide its extreme
bias over the hearing in its headline which described it as a "baseless voter fraud event," "Trump invites Pennsylvania GOP
lawmakers to White House after calling in to baseless voter fraud event." In addition, the story put "hearing" in quotes
so as to present it as somehow not a real hearing.
Fox
News continues to alienate its viewers. Fox News continues to insult its audience. This time, the insults
came from Kristin Fisher, who was speaking from either ignorance or malice when she attacked Rudy Giuliani after Trump's
legal team gave a press conference. The press conference was the equivalent of an opening argument in a trial.
Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis each stated one aspect of the upcoming case: Giuliani described on-the-ground
voter fraud, Powell described a sophisticated computer system created in Venezuela to steal votes, and Ellis reminded people
that this was an opening argument rather than an evidentiary hearing. The evidence, she said, will come. The
conference was essentially a preview of coming attractions. In a trial, first you tell your story, then you prove your
story, and then you summarize your story. The legal team is at Phase One. That didn't stop Kristin Fisher
from proving that she's a lousy listener and is staggeringly ignorant about how the American legal system works.
Embarrassing:
Lapdog Biden Journalists Debase Their Profession in Latest Presser. If anyone was hoping the third time would
be the charm for consistently constructive or tough questions at a post-election Joe Biden press conference, Thursday
illustrated that such a hope was a fool's errand. Over the course of the 15-minute availability, the Biden team had the
former vice president receive questions from only four reporters with three of them offering softballs. ABC senior
congressional correspondent Mary Bruce continued her accumulation of quite a highlight reel if she ever wanted to join the
Biden administration, wondering to Biden in the first of two questions: "How many lives do you think are at risk here
if this transition remains stalled?" Her second and third questions weren't any better [...]
60
Minutes' Scarily Ignorant Interview of Barack Obama. Interviewer Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes supplied the
ignorance. He appears to have no more knowledge of what transpired during the past four years than does, say, a Whoopi
Goldberg or a Kathy Griffin. Barack Obama supplied the scare. His solution to make the right half of America as
ignorant as the left would do Trotsky proud. Pelley's ignorance flared throughout the embarrassingly sycophantic interview,
but it reached something of a crescendo with his and Obama's elaborate discussion on the etiquette of presidential transitions.
THIS is NEWS? Suspended
NASCAR driver says he didn't intentionally draw a swastika on his toaster strudel. Truck Series driver Josh
Reaume was suspended indefinitely by NASCAR on Tuesday for violating its social media policy. And according to Reaume,
that violation was unintentional. Reaume, who owns a team in the Truck Series, says he posted a picture to Snapchat of
a toaster strudel last week. That seems pretty innocuous, right? Well, the icing on that strudel was drawn in the
shape of a swastika. And Reaume said he somehow didn't realize that he had drawn a strudel swastika when he posted the
picture to Snapchat.
Fox
Corporation shares down 12% since Election Day, 6% yesterday alone, since hopping on the 'Biden elected' media
bandwagon. First, its "Decision Desk" prematurely called Arizona for Biden, though a recount continues with
Biden's lead shrinking every day, and then on Saturday, 10 minutes after CNN and MSNBC, it went all in on selling the fake
news that Joseph Robinette Biden was "elected." Speaking for myself, my sense of affiliation with Fox News has been
destroyed. They are selling what I believe to be a stolen election long before the constitutional processes to
safeguard a presidential election have been followed. Yesterday, eight days late, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum both
broadcast brief acknowledgements from the "Decision Desk" that it had blown its call that Democrats would enlarge their House
majority. Interestingly, they waited until they felt they could "call" that Democrats would retain their majority
before acknowledging their error. And they offered no explanation at all as to how they could have been so wrong.
The
Red Wave No One Saw Coming. Had you spent any time in this northern suburb of Pittsburgh listening to voters,
finding out what matters to them when it comes to schools, community growth, economic prosperity and the emotional impact of
the COVID-19 lockdowns, you would have at least been skeptical of the media narrative and the polls that claimed suburban
voters here are no longer center-right. Not Republican per se, just center-right. Most reporters certainly didn't
take the time to do so. Instead, they relied on the scolding of our cultural curators in sports, media and Hollywood as
an indicator of how these affluent, college-educated voters would vote. Surely, reporters thought, these suburbs had
fully embraced "wokeism" and rejected center-right values and principles. They thought they would cave under the
cultural pressure, push left and send a blue shock wave across the country with their votes.
The
Media Should Not Have 'Called' This Election. Joe Biden has made it clear that he will do his best to "unify"
the country following an election in which more than 71 million Americans — nearly half the
electorate — voted for Donald Trump. It is an admirable goal. But any chance of that happening depends
on the American people having confidence that the election outcome resulted from a fair and honest process. Though
never perfect, our electoral system has generally instilled confidence for the past 231 years, which is why it has worked so
well. Under the contentious circumstances of this election, the traditional media's decision to declare a victor before
the official process had run its course has diminished the confidence of Trump voters in the announced result. Even if
the declaration of a Biden victory is found to be accurate, the call was premature, and it will make the effort to unify our
nation far more difficult.
The
'Anonymous' saga ended with a dud — a perfect example of the problem of Trump-era media. There will
be many incidents from the past four years of the Trump era that will erode the public's faith in the press to provide fair,
accurate information — all the nonsense from the Russia collusion story, pings in Prague, the Steele dossier mess,
false promises of what would be in the Mueller report and more. These will leave lasting, damaging marks. But no
story better exemplifies the core problem with the media's anti-Trump instincts to elevate every crumb of a story to an 11
out of 10, only to be let down consistently for their exaggeration or outright falsehood, than the saga of "Anonymous."
For those who don't remember [...] The New York Times published a column in September 2018 from someone identified as
"Anonymous," whom the Times described as a "senior official inside the Trump administration." [...] If [Miles] Taylor
published the column under his own name and title, it wouldn't pack nearly the punch it did the way it was shrouded in
mystery and secrecy.
The
Atlantic gave Ruth Shalit a 'second chance' 25 years after a journalism scandal. It ended with an ugly
correction. Two weeks after publishing a long, juicy and instantly viral story about the world of competitive
niche sports and the wealthy parents who push their children to play them, the Atlantic on late Friday [10/30/2020] appended
a nearly 800-word editor's note informing readers that it was "deceived" by the story's author, Ruth Shalit Barrett. In
particular, the magazine said Barrett incorrectly asserted that the story's main character, who was identified by her middle
name (Sloane), had a son in addition to three daughters in an attempt to blur her identity, and gave a misleading and highly
exaggerated description of a fencing injury allegedly sustained by the woman's daughter. The author had described the
incident at a 2019 competition as a "massacre," in which the girl was stabbed in the neck; in the Atlantic's updated version
of the story, the injury is now portrayed as "not severe."
Captain
Anonymous Exposes Lapsed Media Ethics. It was the wrong time for 33-year-old Miles Taylor to announce he is the
much-celebrated "Anonymous" Trump official who wrote a New York Times op-ed and then a New York Times-bestselling book in
which he trashed the president. The announcement came in the last days of the presidential election campaign, as the
establishment media are bloviating that they can't rush to cover the New York Post's evidence about Hunter Biden because they
have such high standards for confirming facts. None of them had such a standard when they gushed over Captain Anonymous
in September 2018. No one needed to know who he was to spread his claims far and wide. ABC, CBS and NBC
poured out nearly 15 minutes of excitable coverage the night the story broke.
Chris
Cuomo confronts CNN colleague Miles Taylor over 'Anonymous' revelation: 'You lied to us'. CNN's Chris Cuomo
confronted Miles Taylor, a former U.S. government official recently hired by the network, over revelations Wednesday
[10/28/2020] about him anonymously writing an anti-Trump op-ed and book. The "Cuomo Prime Time" host questioned his
colleague's credibility during an interview done shortly after Mr. Taylor revealed he wrote the 2018 op-ed and
subsequent book slamming President Trump. Mr. Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security official who
resigned from the agency in 2019, previously denied being the anonymous author, Mr. Cuomo reminded him during the
discussion.
The
New York Times' 'Anonymous' is an insignificant pipsqueak. In 2018, the New York Times proudly published
an anonymously written piece from a purported "senior official in the Trump administration," knowing that this statement was
a lie. "Anonymous" claimed that Trump was an idiot, but that a brave band of "senior officials in his own
administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda." In fact, the author was Miles Taylor, a
low-level functionary in DHS when he wrote the hit piece. The anonymous article, published on Sept. 5, 2018, bore the
lofty title, "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration: I work for the president but like-minded
colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations." As noted above, to give the piece
heft, the New York Times claimed it came from a "senior official in the Trump administration." We now know this
statement was an outright lie, for the Times admitted that the author's "identity is known to us." The article was a
nauseating glue of arrogant piety and self-serving condescension.
Infamous
'Anonymous' Op-Ed Writer and Trump Official Has Been Revealed, and It's Hilarious. Some years ago, a supposed
"high-level" Trump administration official penned a scathing op-ed in the pages of The New York Times. That set off a
wave of speculation. Was it Nikki Haley? Was it Jared or Ivanka Trump? There was even talk it could be Mike
Pence. Well, the identity of that person has finally been revealed and it's absolutely hilarious. The media have
egg all over their face after this revelation. [...] You probably had the same reaction I did. Who is this guy?
And how does this qualify as a "senior level" Trump administration official? Further, given his meager rank at DHS, how
exactly was he even in a position to influence policy the way he asserted he could in his original op-ed? Remember,
this guy painted himself as literally steering Trump away from tyranny. This was an absolute grift, nothing more, and
the media fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
Trump
calls for firings after 'Anonymous' revealed as little-known official. President Trump on Wednesday
[10/28/2020] called for the New York Times to fire employees responsible for an explosive 2018 op-ed after its anonymous
author was revealed as little-known former Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor. "Who is Miles
Taylor? Said he was 'anonymous', but I don't know him — never even heard of him," Trump tweeted during a
campaign trip in Arizona. "Just another @nytimes SCAM — he worked in conjunction with them. Also
worked for Big Tech's @Google. Now works for Fake News @CNN. They should fire, shame, and punish everybody associated
with this FRAUD on the American people!" Trump said moments later at a campaign rally, "Anonymous turned out to be a
low-level staffer. A sleazebag. He's never worked in the White House. Anonymous was a nobody, a disgruntled
employee who was quickly removed from this job a long time ago for, they tell me, incompetence."
Famed 'Anonymous' Trump
Official Is Actually Junior Staffer Who Never Worked w/ POTUS. Miles Taylor, a former Trump appointee who
publicly endorsed Joe Biden for President, has revealed himself as the author of an infamous New York Times op-ed rebuking
the Trump administration. The former Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Homeland Security from 2017 to 2019 claims to
be "Anonymous" — the author of a 2018 article "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration." [...]
The article garnered considerable traction in establishment circles, bolstering mainstream media's claims about President
Trump as an incompetent leader. Taylor's claims, however, are undermined by the fact he was a junior staffer in the
administration who never worked directly with President Trump.
Former "Senior Administration Official" (According
to the Media) Who Penned Anti-Trump Diatribe As "Anonymous" Reveals Himself, and It's.. a Nobody. Why call
yourself "Anonymous" when you can use your real name and no one would know who [...] you are? Ah well, the media was
able to take this minor flunkie and get people to speculate that it was actually John Kelly or even Mike Pence writing the
diatribe. It's Miles Taylor. That's right, you heard me — the Miles Taylor. He claims
that he joined the Trump Administration in a minor position because he rilly rilly rilly wanted Trump to succeed, which is
why he... joined other liberals and NeverTrumpers who had infiltrated the government to subvert and "resist" Trump.
Tony
Bobulinski's evidence means media should push Biden to answer big questions. Journalists had a rare chance to
ask Joe Biden a few questions Wednesday and — of course — failed to ask him anything about his
knowledge of his son's business dealings. Even though former ally Tony Bobulinski gave sitdown interviews with Fox News
and The Post's Michael Goodwin outlining in detail his evidence disproving Joe's repeated claims of lifelong ignorance of son
Hunter's profitable affairs. And even though Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was testifying to the Senate about the company's
censoring of stories about the Bidens. Two big developments that the press felt wasn't worthy of mention.
Rudy Giuliani
explodes at anchor for 'outrageous defamation' as she likens him to 'Trump dossier' spy in fiery interview.
Rudy Giuliani exploded at Lisa "Kennedy" Montgomery for "outrageous defamation" after she likened him to the "Donald Trump
dossier" spy during a fiery interview on Tuesday [10/27/2020]. The Fox Business anchor asked Trump's personal attorney
about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, saying "Some could say you are acting like Christopher Steele." Kennedy was
referring to the former British spy who was behind an unverified dossier on Trump that came to light during the 2016 election
campaign. "You better apologize for that!" Giuliani hit back. "I've been a United States attorney, associate
attorney general, mayor of New York City and a member of the bar for 50 years." Giuliani also called Kennedy's comment
an "outrageous defamation."
Rudy
Giuliani demands an apology from Fox host Kennedy and threatens to walk out after she compared him to Christopher
Steele. Rudy Giuliani demanded an apology from Fox Business host Kennedy on Tuesday evening and threatened to
walk out of their interview after she compared him to British ex-spy Christopher Steele. The president's personal
attorney had been on the show to discuss the laptop said to belong to Hunter Biden and the evidence he says is on it.
But when probed by Lisa 'Kennedy' Montgomery about the credibility of the documents in a line of questioning that compared
him to Steele, Giuliani said: 'You got to be kidding me. I was acting like Christopher Steele?' [...] Kennedy said:
'Some can say that you're acting like Christopher Steele, that you were abstracting information.' Giuliani hit back:
'You better apologize for that. I mean I've been a United States attorney, associate attorney general, mayor of New
York City and a member of the bar for 50 years. I've never been accused of anything, and you're accusing me of being
Christopher Steele.' 'What you're saying is an outrageous defamation of me, of my reputation', he added.
'Truth' Over Facts.
In his memoir, Banana Sunday, the late British newspaperman Christopher Munnion described his first encounter with
what was then called New Journalism. This was a style of newswriting that got going in the 1960s and 1970s. It
was more like long-form fiction than conventional reporting. [...] The new style of journalist came to the story with a
narrative in mind. He was a storyteller who would provide the reader with a sense of what it was like to be in the
story, at least the story the writer wanted to tell. As Munnion explained, the journalist showed up with a prepared
narrative and then went around looking for people, events, and images to fill in the details. The facts were mere
ornaments to decorate the story, not the point of the story.
The New York Times Discovers
China. The latest revelations about Biden family influence peddling in China are having an adverse effect on
the patriarch's prospects of becoming President. Despite the best efforts of the Fourth Estate and the big social media
platforms to censor the story, it is eroding Biden's lead in the polls and has driven his campaign back into its Delaware
hideout. Thus, with the grim inevitability of Greek tragedy, the New York Times has suddenly discovered that
President Trump is the true villain of the piece. Before he became President, it seems, Trump pursued a few unconsummated
business deals in China and has a dormant bank account there. This soporific Times story has received more coverage
by the media during the past 48 hours than the Biden corruption story has received during the past 48 months.
No More Debate Moderators.
A Knight Foundation survey on trust in the media taken earlier this year found that 86 percent of Americans —
including 94 percent of Republicans and 88 percent of Independents — see "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of
political bias in news coverage, compared with 62 percent in 2017. Further, Americans perceive inaccurate news to be
intentional, either because the reporter is misrepresenting the facts (54 percent) or making them up entirely (28 percent).
[...] Media bias isn't new, but in this election cycle, the press has taken agenda-driven coverage to a new level, effectively building
a wall around their preferred candidate, Joe Biden. [...] The result of this nakedly partisan news coverage is that Americans will go
to the polls well versed on matters such as Trump's ill-advised tweets over the years but with no sense of where candidate Biden stands
on many important issues.
Chuck
Todd: The Michigan Supreme Court Did Not "Cite Any Law" In Ruling Whitmer's Actions Unconstitutional.
Chuck Todd interviewed Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer this morning and turned to the recent decision of the Michigan
Supreme Court that ruled that she had violated the Michigan Constitution in her extended pandemic orders. Todd did not
challenge Whitmer stating falsely that the opinion was a "partisan" decision. It was not. The "Democrat justices"
agreed that Whitmer violated the Constitution. They only disagreed on the remedy. However, that untruth was
quickly lost in what was a flagrantly untrue statement by Todd himself. He told NBC viewers that the justices did not
cite any law to support their decision against Whitmer. Todd stated as fact that the Court did not "cite any Michigan
law, they didn't cite any law in deciding that you didn't have this power." The roughly 50 page opinion contains over
60 cases discussed in support of the decision. It does not seem to matter anymore at Meet The Press or NBC.
NBC is not alone.
Mainstream
media treats Joe Biden like he's incapable of handling challenges. Mainstream media has zero respect for Joe
Biden. None. They've learned from multiple experiences the last few months that anytime he's asked a question
that does not have a simple answer given to him on a silver platter, he botches it badly. Last night's town hall was no
exception. He wasn't just lobbed softballs. They walked the balls over to him and threw them at the bat.
And sometimes, he still found a way to miss. In lieu of a question-by-question breakdown, I'll skip the torture and cut
to the chase. Biden was not asked about the extraordinarily credible accusations against him and his son, Hunter.
If it were President Trump, they would have asked. If it were Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, they would have asked
and had the confidence that either of them would be prepared to properly diffuse the situation and put Americans' minds at
ease. But with Joe Biden, they won't ask him. They know he'll butcher it because they know the accusations are
spot on.
ABC's
George Stephanopoulos Fails to Ask Joe Biden About Hunter Biden Emails. ABC News' George Stephanopoulos failed
to ask former Vice President Joe Biden at a town hall Thursday night about new email evidence that his son, Hunter Biden,
arranged a meeting with him for an adviser to the corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma in 2015. As Breitbart News
noted Wednesday, the New York Post reported on emails it had obtained from an abandoned laptop in which Hunter Biden's
correspondence with a senior Burisma official was preserved.
Biden
Muddles Through Gentle, Hunter-Free Town Hall. Joe Biden came into Thursday night's town hall, which was
originally supposed to be a debate, stung by new allegations of influence-peddling involving his son Hunter. The
question on everyone's mind going in was whether he would be allowed to answer any question harder than chocolate or tapioca?
[...] What didn't come up was Hunter Biden. What didn't come up was credible claims from the New York Post, the oldest
daily newspaper in America, showing that the former vice president met with a Ukrainian businessman connected to his
son. The biggest story in America right now was just ignored. That tells us pretty much everything.
Behind the social-media blackout of Biden family corruption.
Hunter Biden is now the subject of multiple stories involving serious corruption. Whether he committed any crimes is a
question for prosecutors and the courts. Whether he was paid handsomely for his family's political clout is a question
for voters. You wouldn't know that from ABC's pathetic town hall with his father Joe Biden on Thursday night
[10/25/2020]. They spoke with him for 90 minutes and didn't ask a single question about the shocking emails published
by the New York Post. That's either journalistic malpractice or public-relations work. After all, the
emails raise profound questions that the candidate needs to answer. They appear to show his son, Hunter, repeatedly
using his last name to fill his pockets. Hunter's family is his only asset. How else did someone with no special
skills manage to collect such huge payments from foreign companies with deep interests in US policy? He has no
knowledge of Ukraine or China, no experience in energy or banking, and a crack pipe full of personal problems. So, how
exactly did he get rich?
Media
risks malpractice by dismissing alleged anti-Biden bombshell. The New York Post story alleging
additional nefarious doings among the Biden family and Ukrainian entities put nearly as great an onus on the establishment
media as it does on the Bidens. Yes, let's stipulate that the involvement of President Trump's political henchman Rudy
Giuliani in the provenance of the Post's story makes the anti-Biden report immediately suspect. Still, the
simple reality is that there's ample reason, both internal to the alleged emails in question and regarding other things we
know about the Bidens' practices, that make the story plausible. Because of that plausibility, every major media outlet
in the country should now rush to follow up on the story with neutral, open minds and no agenda pro or con, so as to shed
more light on its level of accuracy. The actions of leftist social-media giants Facebook and Twitter to spike the story
make it more imperative that real news outlets do even more reporting for the public's benefit.
Why
are networks afraid to let voters ask Joe Biden some tough questions? TV networks are airing free infomercials
to help Joe Biden, then pretend, absurdly, that they are being even-handed. ABC, CNN and NBC call them "town halls."
NBC this week even tried to fraudulently pass off blatant Biden backers as neutral, uncommitted voters. "We are
surrounded by dozens of undecided voters," NBC's Lester Holt claimed. Yet what followed was a nonstop volley of
softballs and loaded, anti-Trump questions: Was Biden surprised President Trump got COVID? How will Biden lead the
nation when faced with "bullies" like Trump? Not asked were questions like: Does Biden embrace Democrats' threat
to pack the Supreme Court if Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed? And why hasn't he blasted Antifa or Black Lives Matter
violence? Nor did anyone ask about his waffling on fracking or the Green New Deal. Or grill him on the millions
his family earned from foreign sources while he was in office.
Corporate
Media Is Vomiting Trump Coronavirus Reporting All Over The Bed. The latest news cycle over President Trump's
COVID-19 diagnosis illustrates yet again how destructive the U.S. corporate media are to national unity and a clear
understanding of reality. While we are all aware that COVID-19 can be a truly devastating and deadly disease for some,
despite the volume of media coverage dedicated to it in the past seven months, the American public still lacks crucial
context for understanding Trump's diagnosis. Not only has major media coverage not brought clarity, but it has also, as
usual, obscured reality. This is especially harmful to a story with such significant potential ramifications for the
nation and world. As the president himself has alluded to in his post-diagnosis social media posts, it's common
knowledge that the Wuhan virus hits the elderly especially hard. Trump is 74. Yet even among his age demographic,
surviving the disease, not death, is by far the norm.
The Shame
of Chris Wallace. America's cities have been burning over the last four months. Seattle, Portland, New
York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kenosha, Louisville — all have suffered tremendous and possibly irreversible
damage. This destruction has come at the hands of the Left, in the persons of Antifa and Black Lives Matter.
There has been no rioting, no arson, no looting, by any conservative groups. All such criminality has come from the
Left, specifically Antifa and Black Lives Matter, two organizations that act so consistently in concert that there no longer
seems to be any distinction between them. That is the background to Chris Wallace's disgraceful conduct on Tuesday:
[...] Note that Wallace never asked Biden to disavow Antifa or BLM, and in fact Biden has not done so. The riots in
Portland and Kenosha were carried out by Antifa and BLM, not by any right-wing groups. Apparently Wallace's theory is
that leftists are entitled to riot, loot and burn down cities with impunity and without criticism or opposition.
Liberal
Hack Chris Wallace Asked President Trump the Exact Same Question on Racism in 2016 as in 2020 When He Spoke Over
Trump. The latest planned and coordinated attack on President Donald Trump by the Democrat-Media coup cabal is
their attempt to pin the racism card on this great president. President Trump is THE ONLY politician in history who has
had to condemn the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists on numerous occasions! And when he or his advisors do this, just
like today at the White House press briefing, the Democrats and their media lackeys refuse to listen. It really is
disgusting. President Trump has one of the most favorable records in history in his treatment of blacks and gays.
But the media has to create a hoax to take him down. Joe Biden is the one who has repeatedly dropped racist and hateful
comments throughout his career.
The
downfall of Fox News's Chris Wallace and John Roberts. Some men are alphas, like President Trump, and some men
are betas, like Al Gore and the sneering, puffing Biden. And then there are men who aren't even strong enough to be
betas. They are, instead, weak, mewling creatures who lack either presence or power, and who then cry about it
afterward. Chris Wallace and John Roberts, both employees at Fox News, have exhibited behavior that's so craven and
humiliated themselves so badly in the eyes of Fox News's core audience that they should be retired immediately. It all
started with Chris Wallace's stint as a debate moderator for the first presidential debate. Right out of the gate, he
failed to stop Biden from interrupting Donald Trump: [...]
Chris
Wallace Just Gave The Most Embarrassing Moderator Performance In History. Debating one person is difficult,
especially if he's had oodles of alone time in his basement to prepare while you've been a little busy leading the
country. Debating that person and a partisan media hack at the same time is just BS. That, however, was President
Donald Trump's exact plight Tuesday night at the first 2020 presidential debate, when he was treated to a two-on-one showdown
with his actual opponent Joe Biden and his honorary rival, Fox News moderator Chris Wallace. Wallace, a registered
Democrat, failed to maintain any control over the debate. Even members of the left pointed out what a chaotic
"disgrace" the whole ordeal was. But after a while, it was hard to pay attention to anything but Wallace's Biden
bias. Media moderators playing favorites with presidential contenders is nothing new, but Wallace's persistent
partisanship reached a new low.
Joe
Biden's Vacant Debate (And Eyes). [Scroll down] Moderator Chris Wallace, who was locked in seclusion with
his team in preparation for the debate, must've decided to just Netflix and chill rather than familiarize themselves Biden's
policies and history. Wallace also didn't bother discussing truthfully the president's history of condemning white
supremacists, which he has done multiple times. Instead, he repeated the Charlottesville lie, claiming he didn't
condemn neo-Nazis (which he did). When the president happily condemned it again, Wallace and Biden, as if a tag team in the
WWE, talked over him, then denied he'd said it.
The
Stupidest Fact-Check in the History of Fact-Checking. Last week, conservative Christian satire site The
Babylon Bee published one of its daily array of gags, headlined "Ninth Circuit Court Overturns Death Of Ruth Bader
Ginsburg." [...] A week later, USAToday found it necessary, for some reason, to publish a "Fact Check" of this, by
fact-checker Chelsey Cox, entitled "Fact check: Satirical claim that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned
Ginsburg's death." [...] You read that right. An editor at a national newspaper assigned a "fact-checker" to determine
whether Ruth Bader Ginsburg had been raised from the dead by court order. It took that fact-checker a week to review
over a dozen sources of information and conclude "based on our research" that this had not happened. Imagine being the
editor who thought this was a good use of journalistic resources, or the writer who took this assignment this seriously.
On the editor's part, that is an admission that you either have too many reporters working for you or that you have the
world's worst news judgment and should never work as an editor of anything ever again.
Here
Are The 11 Dumbest, Most Slanted Questions Asked By Chris Wallace. Chris Wallace has received negative marks
for his constant interruptions of President Donald Trump, and for his poor time management, but the worst thing about his
moderation of the first presidential debate on Wednesday were the questions he asked. [... For example, question #3]
'Why are you holding big rallies?' "Are you not worried about the disease issues, sir?" Wallace asked, minutes after Trump
explained his COVID-19 vaccine plan. Wallace felt the need to ask why a presidential candidate was campaigning
on-the-ground and then insinuated that maybe he shouldn't be campaigning because of COVID-19. This matches the Democrat Party
talking point about COVID-19 requiring the banning of children from schools, the closure of businesses, and the denial of
conservative First Amendment activities such as church and political gathering. But as demonstrated by the widespread
media support for mass gatherings and riots in support of the BLM agenda, this is not a genuine concern but one deployed for
partisan political gain.
Civil
War At Fox News? Ingraham, Gutfeld, Others Attack Chris Wallace After Debate. Multiple Fox News hosts
attacked one of their own, anchor Chris Wallace, after Tuesday's [9/29/2020] first presidential debate. Wallace
struggled to control Tuesday's debate, which saw President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden clash
and insult each other numerous times. Following the debate, some of Wallace's co-workers began to criticize how he
handled the evening, with many saying Trump was forced to debate him in addition to Biden. "Trump is debating the
moderator and Biden," Fox's Laura Ingraham tweeted. Host Greg Gutfeld seemed to agree with Ingraham, re-tweeting
multiple comments about Trump debating two people. In one retweet, podcast host Stephen L. Miller wrote that "Wallace
is grilling Trump on his supporters taking to the streets when antifa is burning businesses down right now."
Chris
Wallace Calls Out Trump to Tell His Supporters to Not Riot!. The final question of the night by debate
"moderator" Chris Wallace was to ask President Trump and Joe Biden to tell his supporters not to riot. Violent leftist
groups have rioted and looted in city after city across the US since May. Leftist rioters have caused over a billion
dollars in damage. In Minneapolis over 1,500 buildings and businesses have been damaged or destroyed. For Wallace
to ask Trump supporters to quit rioting is an absolute disgrace! Chris Wallace was an embarrassment to journalism.
Chris
Wallace Faces Intense Backlash, Including From Colleagues, Over Bias During Debate. Fox News host Chris
Wallace, a registered Democrat, faced intense backlash on Tuesday night for what was widely deemed as bias in the debate in
the favor of Democrat Joe Biden and against Republican President Donald Trump. [...] Attorney Harmeet Dhillon wrote on
Twitter: "Chris Wallace is a disgrace. Republicans need to stop allowing the slanted media to have any role in
debates in future years." Actor James Woods wrote on Twitter: "Chris Wallace is shamelessly biased. It's a
beautiful demonstration of fake news in action. I'm actually glad it's happening, because you can see it for yourself."
Journalist Yashar Ali, who was Hillary Clinton's co-chair on her 2008 presidential campaign, wrote on Twitter that there
was "no doubt" that "Wallace is not doing a good job as a debate moderator." Newsweek editor Josh Hammer wrote on
Twitter: "Just an inexcusable effort tonight from Chris Wallace. And I say that as someone who is generally a fan
of his." Federal co-founder Sean Davis wrote on Twitter: "Chris Wallace is now reading Biden's energy plan back to
him to remind Biden what's in his plan. I have never, never seen anything like this from a moderator."
Chris
Wallace is a miserable debate moderator. Chris Wallace was always going to be a terrible choice as a moderator
for any of the three presidential debates, let alone the first one, but good God, did he fulfill that destiny with flying
colors. We knew it back in July when Wallace attempted to fact-check President Trump on the accurate claim that former
Vice President Joe Biden was on the record committing to defunding police departments. Biden is, in fact, on record
committing to that, and yet, Wallace pretended we hadn't heard it with our own ears. The Fox News anchor was supposed
to show up and moderate a debate, with it having expressly been stated that he wouldn't operate as a fact-checker, and yet,
that's all he did for at least the first hour of the debate.
Ric
Grenell Tears Into CNN's Jake Tapper for Allowing Jill Biden to Shut Down Question on Biden's Gaffes. That CNN
treats the Biden campaign with kid gloves by routinely "asking" biased questions to senior spokespeople, advisors, and Biden
himself is not a new development. But watching them allow the terms of an interview to be dictated to them as cameras
roll for all to see is something else entirely. On Sunday [9/27/2020], "State of the Union" host Jake Tapper
interviewed the Democratic presidential nominee's wife Jill Biden. As expected, softball after softball was thrown,
with Tapper at times coming off as a campaign spokesman himself. [...] Though it's been said many times before, it needs to
be said again: CNN is not a news network. They just aren't.
Why Are They Capitalizing 'Black'?
A few months ago, I noticed that my published column spelled "black" "Black." As I had submitted the column with "black"
spelled with a lower case "b," I contacted my editor to find out why what I had written was changed. She responded that
the syndicate was following the Associated Press' rules of style, a common practice in journalism and book writing. On
July 20, 2020, the AP published "Explaining AP style on Black and white," in which it explained: "AP's style is
now to capitalize Black in a racial, ethnic or cultural sense, conveying an essential and shared sense of history, identity
and community among people who identify as Black, including those in the African diaspora and within Africa. The
lowercase black is a color, not a person. AP style will continue to lowercase the term white in racial, ethnic and
cultural senses." The AP explanation is drivel. There is no "shared sense of history, identity and community
among people who identify as Black, including those in the African diaspora and within Africa."
Biden's
Town Hall Event Shows Why CNN Isn't Moderating the Presidential Debates. Joe Biden praised the idea of
incorporating fact-checkers into the presidential debates, but those desperately needed fact-checkers were nowhere to be
found at CNN's town hall event with Biden on Thursday [9/17/2020]. In stark contrast to President Trump's town hall
event with ABC's George Stephanopoulos earlier this week, CNN's Anderson Cooper and a crowd of mostly friendly supporters
took turns asking the 77-year-old candidate softball questions. Biden told all sorts of lies during the one-hour event
on CNN, a fitting location for such fake news. Biden lied when he accused President Trump of not mentioning the
coronavirus in his State of the Union Address. "My administration will take all necessary steps to safeguard our
citizens from this threat," Trump said in his State of the Union Address, which Nancy Pelosi ripped up in anger.
The Ghost Media.
[Scroll down] There are few things more spooky than the modern journalists who live inside the abandoned structures and
pretensions of a once respectable profession. They can embrace a position for or against any set of
circumstances. The New York Times made this the establishment view 40 years ago. The people running that
paper announced that there is no objective reality, only a reporter's feelings and prejudices. Nothing is real but the
reporter's unreality. [...] Journalism's formula used to be factual: who, what, when, where, and why. Now
reporting is different. You fabricate. You tell what George Soros wants you to tell. You create alternative
realities, not even knowing that this is what you do. Once upon a time, a reporter needed to know history,
geography, and science. Now those things only get in the way.
Thanks,
Fox News, for reminding us of the Soros role in creating America's riot-coddling DAs. Fox News has drawn our
attention to the fact that George Soros is bankrolling the leftist district attorneys who are fostering so much rioting in
America's blue cities, based on their refusal to prosecute looters and rioters. But probably not in the way they meant
to. Here's what went down over at the semi-cheesy news commentary show called 'Outnumbered' whose format is a group of
leggy women sitting on a circular sofa with some man in the news and grilling him with chick-like excited shouts and
exclamations. It's now a Zoom thing without the leg business. And in this case, it led to a very unexpected
outcome: [...] [Former Speaker of the House Newt] Gingrich pointed out that the riots were happing because of district
attorneys, financed by George Soros, who refuse to prosecute rioting. It wasn't really news. Nor was it
controversial. It's been reported in detail by conservative outfits for years. Fox News itself, news division,
reported it. What was strange was that bizarrely unprofessional reaction from this one show, [...]
Some
tough questions for Biden, instead of the softballs the press has been pitching. Joe Biden finally held what
was billed as a news conference. The result was a truly embarrassing display of hackery from the media. A
reporter asked the ex-veep about anonymously sourced claims that President Trump had belittled veterans: "When you hear
these remarks ... what does it tell you about Trump's soul and the life he leads?" Another query: "We ... know
that Russia has been trying to sow doubt about the system. Are you concerned at all that this messaging may be working,
that your supporters may give up on voting by mail because they're concerned that it may be rigged?" Still
another: "You said today is the angriest you've been as a presidential candidate, but you said you're trying to
restrain yourself. Aren't there a lot of people out there who are supporting you or inclined to not vote for the
president, who would say, 'Why isn't Joe Biden angrier about all of this?'" And so on.
Video montage
shows how media take it easy on Biden. A new video montage from The Washington Free Beacon shows how easy the
questions Joe Biden receives from the media truly are. Free Beacon senior writer and "video guy" David Rutz put
together a sampling of the rather simplistic line of questioning the Democratic candidate has received in recent weeks.
"Really, your strength is in traveling around the country and connecting with people... you can't do any of that right
now. Mr. Vice President, does that worry you?" CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin is seen asking Biden at the beginning of
the interview. The video featured multiple journalists who asked softball questions at last week's rare Biden press
conference.
Woodward
and Bernstein's take on anonymous sources reveals media incompetence. Famed Washington Post reporters
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein ("Woodstein") have recently weighed in on the use of anonymous sources in the reporting of
President Trump's alleged slurs of deceased soldiers. While they use their iconic status to support the "truth" spoken
by such unnamed witnesses, they unwittingly prove the profound incapability of modern journalism in its assumed role as the
arbiter of truth. There can be no better example of this than Woodstein's discussion of their use of anonymous sources
in Watergate. These sources, Woodstein argues, were all proven truthful and brought down a sitting president.
Therefore, they contend, the present anonymous sources must be telling the truth. But this jejune reasoning shows
precisely how modern journalism got out over its skis in Watergate and continues to careen wildly downhill.
Time to
Bury the Corpse. Journalism died years ago, not long after publishers sold the soul of the front page for a few
dollars. "Journalists" now violate virtually every previous standard and principle once held dear. From anonymous
sources who may or not exist, to outright deceptive coverage, journalists' goals are now self-serving and focused only on the
goals determined by the masters who control them. In their hasty pursuit of money, influence, and power, they never
bothered to bury the body.
NPR
regrets elevating pro-looting anti-Semite. National Public Radio is scrambling to do damage control this week
after it promoted the views of a dangerously ignorant pro-looting activist who is also a gigantic anti-Semite. In late
August, NPR's Code Switch department published an interview with Vicky Osterweil, author of In Defense of Looting.
In the interview, Osterweil was given free rein to spout several major falsehoods, drawing little to no pushback from NPR.
"This Q&A with a provocative author did not serve NPR's audience," the newsgroup's public editor, Kelly McBride, said Thursday
[9/3/2020]. "On top of being wrong about recent events, the author's characterization of the Civil Rights Movement is a
distortion and oversimplification."
The media and those who want to
curry favor with the media have a dual agenda. All of what has made the media even less trusted by the public
than Congress and used car salesmen was on display last week with the reporting from Kenosha, Wisconsin. Over the past
few days due to the shooting of Jacob Blake, the media converged on the city using the same playbook that worked for them in
Minneapolis earlier this summer. First, spread misinformation and half-baked reporting, then help light the fuse for
violent riots and social chaos, then staggeringly pretend that the protests are "fiery but mostly peaceful." In the case
of Blake, the initial reporting indicated that the man was simply walking away from police for no apparent reason before
being shot seven times. That reporting alone, with no context or additional information touched off a level of
violence, looting, property damage, and physical harm more common to the nightly rioting in Chicago than a suburban community
in Wisconsin.
Bogus
Fact Checks on Suburban Zoning Issue. Although a small army of media fact-checkers claim otherwise, Joe Biden
wants to end single-family zoning in America's suburbs. On the first night Republican National Convention, Patricia
McClosky said that Joe Biden and the radicals now running the Democratic Party "want to abolish the suburbs altogether by
ending single-family home zoning." McCloskey's claim set off a frenzy of media fact-checks, all insisting that it just isn't
so. Nonetheless, McCloskey had it right. The most egregiously mistaken McCloskey fact check was also the most widely
disseminated. Thomas Beaumont's fact check for the Associated Press was, like many other AP stories, reposted and reprinted
at scores of local news outlets. Yet this supposed fact check was utterly confused and thoroughly mistaken.
Larry
Schweikart: How the 24-Hour News Cycle is Leading the Loss of the English Language. Plenty of
commentators have dealt with the lunacy that affects the English language today, from banning certain words as "racist,"
"sexist," or "something-ist." Certainly that's obvious to all. But there is another, more subtle change going on,
even among the "friendly" or "reliable news pages. It began when the 24-hour news cycle started to run out of, well,
news. It took more than a decade for this development to settle in. At first, the networks filled the void with
simply more talking heads, guests, and "analysts" telling you what the news was. More recently however — I
started really noticing it during the Mueller investigation — a host of non-news words began to creep into news
stories. We began to see mush phrases such as "Mueller mulling demand that Trump testify," or "Mueller
considering charging Don, Jr." These kinds of hourly non-news stories utterly took over, for reporters weren't
supposed to know what was happening in the first place (the investigation after all — wink, wink, nudge,
nudge — was to be secret. Since the Mueller team was leaking like the Titanic however, so-called
journalists could not produce actual documents to prove anything. As it turned out, in fact, they had nothing to prove
anything with. Instead, reporters reverted to the post-1980 favorite journalistic trick, the "unnamed source." Realize
it was not all that long ago that no reputable newspaper would ever run a piece with a single "anonymous source." Indeed,
according to a Chicago Tribune reporter I interviewed during a foreword I wrote for Professor Jim Kuypers' book,
Partisan Journalism (2013), every major fact in a story was to be doubly sourced with public sources. In case
you didn't notice, "mulling," "considering," "poised to," "about to," "prepared to," "intends," and other
such mush words are utterly unprovable.
Media Rose Garden Outrage is
the Stuff of Fertilizer as They Get Every Detail Wrong. It seems the derangement in the press to demean
anything the president and his wife are connected with can be limitless. As Becca Lower mentioned there was an
immediate backlash from the press when it was announced that the First Lady Melania Trump was unveiling the restored White
House Rose Garden. Rather than praise, or at least some introspection as to what had been undertaken in the process,
members of the media were content to simply lash out, and in so doing avoided anything resembling facts. A number of
journalists were content to just leap at the First Lady for trashing Jaqueline Kennedy's beloved garden, for chopping down
her cherry blossom trees, and for smearing the honor of John F. Kennedy. Some of these vaunted minds in the press
felt they made a stinging point by showing pictures of the garden in full bloom during the Obama years and then showing the
"joyless", oblivious to growing seasons and the flower types. They of course went as far to call the light colors of
the new roses "racist".
Florida
And New York: Examining A Media Coronavirus Narrative Failure. Florida and New York are two of the four
most populous states in the country. Since March both states have received among the most media attention in the
country for their responses to the coronavirus. The mainstream media has almost universally praised New York governor
Andrew Cuomo for his leadership while almost universally denigrating the leadership of Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
New York has been held up as a model for all states to follow — lauded as a success story by almost all mainstream
media — while Florida has been ridiculed as representing all that is wrong with the nation's response to the
coronavirus. Yet when you look at the data, it's quite clear the media has gotten this completely wrong.
CBS
News in Palm Beach posts 2020 primary election results before election day. Early voting has just ended in
Florida and election day is on Tuesday, August 18th, but that hasn't stopped CBS12 in Palm Beach County, Florida from posting
their election results in the 2020 primary election. President Donald Trump and Republicans have warned of voter fraud
and voter suppression in the 2020 presidential election, so could CBS12 pre-election day, election results be a sampling of
what is to come in the coming months? How can CBS12 be reporting the election results before election day? Or
better yet, why is CBS12 reporting 100% precincts reporting 48 hours before the polls even open.
CBS
News Posts Results In Laura Loomer's Race, Days Before Election!. A South Florida CBS affiliate, CBS 12, posted
the primary election results for over a half-dozen races last night to their website, days before the final votes are to be
counted. Florida's final absentee ballots and in-person election day voting occurs on Tuesday from 7am to 7pm.
Despite this, congressional candidate Laura Loomer, who is running in the Republican primary to take on far-left career
politician Lois Frankel, found herself shocked to see that 100% of precincts reporting their tallies late Sunday night.
Florida
Is A Case Study In Media-Induced COVID-19 Panic. What do all these news accounts have in common?
"Florida Sets Yet Another Coronavirus Record: 173 Deaths In A Day." "A record 173 Floridians died from the virus Thursday,
an average of more than one every eight minutes." "The 134 new confirmed deaths is the second-largest increase on record,
coming five days after the largest one-day jump of 156 last week." "COVID-19 has ravaged Florida, with more than 237,000
people testing positive and 2,013 dying from the virus in July alone." So what characteristic do all of the reports
share? They are all false. It is not true that 173 people died from COVID-19 "in a day" in Florida. Nor did
134, or 156 on previous days. It is also untrue than 2,013 had died in July when that story was published. All of
these scary headlines are based on the number of deaths reported by the state on any given day. This is not the
same as the number of deaths that occurred on those days.
CNN's Stelter
accused of breaching network's confidentiality agreement with Sandmann: 'May cost him his job'. CNN's chief
media correspondent Brian Stelter may have landed himself in hot water, according to the attorney of Covington Catholic High
School student Nicholas Sandmann. Last week, Sandmann announced that The Washington Post settled the $250 million
defamation lawsuit he filed over its botched coverage of a viral confrontation with a Native American elder that had
portrayed the Kentucky teen as the aggressor. This followed the multi-million dollar settlement CNN made with the
teenager back in January. However, Sandmann's attorney Lin Wood spotted a retweet from Stelter of a tweet written by
attorney Mark Zaid, who speculated about how much money the teen walked away with from the settlement. "Those with zero
legal experience (as far as I can tell) should not be conjecturing on lawsuits they know nothing about. What kind of
journalism is that?" Zaid asked.
Don
Lemon Takes Cognitive Test On Air to Own the Orange Man, Screws It Up. One of the cardinal rules about mocking
someone is that you yourself should not do worse than the person you are mocking in your attempts to mock them. CNN's
Don Lemon, in all his brilliance, apparently didn't realize that last night when he took the airwaves. In what I'm sure
he thought was going to be an absolutely killer segment owning the orange man, he decided to take a cognitive test on
air. This was an attempt to make fun of Trump for talking about the cognitive test he had recently taken. That
discussion happened during a Fox News interview. The problem? Lemon screwed up the cognitive test on live TV.
Progressive
Policies Wreck Everything. I laughed when I saw The Washington Post headline: "Minneapolis had
progressive policies, but its economy still left black families behind." The media are so clueless. Instead of "but,"
the headline should have said, "therefore," or "so, obviously." Of course, progressive policies failed! They
almost always do.
New
York Times-Hyped Korean Report Actually Shows Kids Are Not Spreading Coronavirus. In an incredible redux of
when they hyped the Christian Drosten fake paper claiming children were highly infectious — when his math actually
showed the opposite — the New York Times and Chicago Tribune pushed screaming headlines that a new Korean
government report proves children ages 10 to 19 are highly infectious. The Korean government report, based on data from
March and ignoring all newer research, does make that claim, with qualifications, in its narrative summary. Its actual
math, however, shows exactly the opposite. Do the elite newspapers even bother to consult anyone numerate? As
Professor Francois Balloux of the University of Lausanne Genetics Institute immediately replied, the New York Times writer
completely misunderstood the report.
The
Insidious Impact of Twitter. Twitter claims to be a modern-day public square wherein those without a forum can
discuss, debate and share their opinions and views. However, it has evolved into a primary source of fabricated stories
and copy farming for the media, the principal driver of policy for the political parties, particularly the Democrats, and a
vehicle to intimidate businesses and major corporations. [...] It is not just a reliance on Twitter for stories.
Editors and publishers oftentimes react to the volume of tweets directed at their news outlet to determine what stories to
publish, whether to rebuke a reporter or commentator or to tint a story with a certain, in virtually all cases left-wing,
point of view. Falsely believing that Twitter is representative of not only their readership but the viewpoint of a
vast swath of the citizenry, they react accordingly. It is not the accuracy or fairness of their reporting that is
paramount but clicks on the internet and the number of positive Twitter comments and likes.
Kayleigh
McEnany Schools Media on Federal Response in Portland and Jonathan Turley Finishes Them Off. The ignorance
and/or spin by the Democrats and the media in regard to what has been going on in Portland has been something else.
ABC's Jonathan Karl thought he was going to trap Kayleigh McEnany with questions about the federal response in Portland.
But Harvard Law School educated McEnany who is hyper-organized with tabbed briefing books showed him what it's like to be
informed, unlike much of the media.
Old
Joe's In a Pickle — Young People Are Not Getting Behind Senile Septuagenarian Joe Biden. The left
has been using polls since before Ann Coulter wrote her masterpiece "Slander" in 2002. In the book where she shows the many
liberal lies against the American right, Coulter points out how polls are used by Democrats to discourage conservatives, bias
and steal elections. We certainly say how Democrats and their Mainstream Media (MSM) used dishonest polls in the last
election. Day after day we were told how Hillary was going to run away with the election. Then came the election —
they were all wrong — Hillary was steamrolled with outsider Trump winning more than 30 states (30 states plus
one delegate in Maine) and crushing Hillary in the electoral college with a 3 to 2 margin.
Andrew Cuomo
Is Not a COVID Hero. The media have decided to play along with New York governor Andrew Cuomo's bizarre effort
to reinvent himself as the hero of the fight against COVID-19. Cuomo's motivation is transparent enough, and we are duly
impressed at the chutzpah required to even attempt such a thing. But there is no excuse for anyone else enabling him.
It's the Chicago NBC station. What do they know about NASCAR? NBC
Chicago forced to delete tweet after NASCAR fans point out massive photo error. An NBC affiliate in Chicago was
forced to delete a tweet promoting a NASCAR All-Star race after fans alerted them of a major photo gaffe. NBC Chicago
took to Twitter Wednesday to tout NASCAR's race at Bristol Motor Speedway later that night, noting that the sport would be
hosting the "largest sporting event crowd" since the coronavirus pandemic outbreak. But in its effort to make a visual
reference to the crowds in the speedway's grandstand, the NBC owned-and-operated affiliate used a photo featuring the late
Dale Earnhardt Sr. The image showed Earnhardt in 1999 standing in the foreground of a photo which included the
half-empty grandstand.
LA
Times article calls to cancel 'Star-Spangled Banner,' replace with 'Lean on Me'. An article published in the
Los Angeles Times Tuesday said that the "Star-Spangled Banner" should be replaced by Bill Withers' "Lean on Me."
LA Times contributor Jody Rosen cited "viral posts on social media" which said the anthem is racist, then argued it is
aesthetically a bad song in the article. Rosen concluded saying the message of "Lean on Me" can be a foundation for a
"decent" society. "If the point of a national anthem is to provide a mnemonic, a reminder in music and words of the
ideas and values that this place is supposed to stand for, you could do worse than 'Lean on Me,'" Rosen wrote.
Maybe
the media should do their job and fact check people like Fauci instead of just repeating what they are told. In
[January] WHO and others said COVID-19 would not spread human to human. In Jan., Feb., and early March, Fauci, the CDC,
most of the media, and other Democrats said the virus wasn't very dangerous in the U.S. In late Jan., Trump put a
travel ban on China, and he was widely criticized by the experts, Democrats, and most of the media. They called it an
overreaction and called Trump racist and xenophobic, which is what they have called Trump for four years. In early
March, the CDC, Fauci, the NIH, and others said don't wear face masks. On March 9, Fauci said it was OK to go on
cruise ships. Then, suddenly, on March 13, Fauci and the CDC made up numbers and said millions would die and
hundreds of millions would get the disease. There was no science to support this. [...] After months of saying
COVID-19 would pass easily on surfaces, they said never mind. Essentially, they just made it up, just like making up
the original modeling numbers.
The Wrong Governors.
[Scroll down] The decisions of Cuomo, Whitmer, Newsom, and Murphy regarding the movement of infected patients from
hospitals to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities might be the worst and most consequential of the crisis.
Whitmer made odd and difficult-to-justify decisions, including banning the purchase of seeds, and her husband apparently
"jokes" about being exempt from state orders. California's coronavirus-testing programs stumbled right out of the
gate. Murphy violated his own order on large gatherings. Very little of this has affected the job-approval
ratings of these governors — in part because only some portions of the media world are interested in the flaws of
the records of these governors. The others prefer to stick to their preselected happy narrative.
MSNBC
host dumbfounded as his panel of pediatricians unanimously support schools reopening. Here is a half-minute of
pure political pleasure for conservatives — and parents of school age children. With many European countries
already re-opening schools, and with science(!) telling us that otherwise healthy children almost ever get or transmit the
COVID-19 virus, it really isn't surprising that all 6 pediatricians on the video panel enthusiastically endorsed re-opening
the schools and sending their own children to them. But it pretty clearly came as a shock to the MSNBC host.
First-hand
account of Chinese COVID-19 censorship underscores just how much our media failed us. It was obvious in March,
back when members of the free press first began to praise China for supposedly defeating the coronavirus pandemic, that many
journalists and commentators were parroting literal Chinese Communist Party propaganda. [...] "We were all familiar with
China's growing censorship and had avoided using words and phrases that the Chinese government didn't like," writes freelance
journalist Tracy Wen Liu, "but we fell victim to an expanding system anyway. ... A wave of new censorship has grown during
the coronavirus pandemic, most of it focused on covering up the stories around COVID-19 itself."
The
Media and 2020: Deja vu All Over Again. As Michael Barboro wrote in the [New York] Times on November
9th, 2016, the morning of Trump's historic victory, "It's 3:30 a.m. in the newsroom, and we're in a state of
shock. Donald J. Trump, against what we thought were all odds, collected swing state after swing state after swing
state. Hillary Clinton has conceded the race. Mr. Trump has won. How did he pull off such a stunning
victory? How did almost no one — not the pundits, not the pollsters, not us in the media —
see it coming?" Well, here we are, nearly four years later, and the media and the so-called "intellectual elites" have
learned absolutely nothing from 2016. They have not even attempted to try to answer the most fundamental questions that
Barboro posed. Instead they have fully committed themselves to their ritualistic practice of hatred and antagonism
towards the president and his supporters in an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2020 election.
Fake
News Media Jumps the Shark. On Thursday [7/2/2020] the Trump economy created 4.8 million jobs. It was the
best economic report in US history! The unemployment rate dropped from 13.3% to 11%! President Trump made the
announcement today in front of the White House Press Corps. But rather than focus on the historic economic
news — The White House press corps asked if President Trump is "more focused in preserving the confederacy."
The
Insufferable and Political Media Stupidity Around "The Russian Bounty" Narrative. In case you might have missed
the latest faux-controversy assigned by political operatives to the media narrative engineers, the issue surrounds leaked
sketchy intelligence reports, to the New York Times, claiming Russians were willing to pay Taliban members to kill U.S.
soldiers in Afghanistan. [...] Setting aside for the moment that nothing claimed by media or the DNC political operatives
in/around capitol hill has any substantive intelligence to prove the claim, let's first look at the underlying premise:
'Russians are paying the Taliban to kill American soldiers.' First, obviously these same voices need to ignore that in
2010 Iran was paying insurgent fighters in multiple fields of combat including Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, to kill Americans.
Biden's
Puffballs From the Press. Everything about the June 30 press conference with Joe Biden underlines how the
snarling, vicious watchdogs of the Trump administration will transform into cuddly little lapdogs if Biden is elected
president. Biden began with a 20-minute speech, and CNN and MSNBC ran the whole speech live. These networks often
refuse to air White House press briefings and try not to give free air time to President Donald Trump ... just as CNN and
MSNBC refused to air 96% of Trump's Tulsa rally. Then came the questions. The one that would seriously cause the
president to tear out chunks of his hair came from Mike Memoli of NBC News. It can be summed up as this: "You
have a sizable lead. How do you keep winning?" By their softball questions, the press is signaling this question:
"And what can we do to help?"
Why
Did the Washington Post Get This Woman Fired? Last week, when Sue Schafer learned that the Washington
Post planned to publish a story about one of the dumbest things she had ever done, she had the same question that many
readers would have about the resulting 3,000-word article, "Blackface Incident at Post Cartoonist's 2018 Halloween
Party Resurfaces Amid Protests": Why is this newsworthy? Readers within the Post newsroom were asking the
question, too. "No one I've spoken with at the Post can figure out why we published this story," said one
prominent reporter at the paper. "We blew up this woman's life for no reason."
Hail
of late-night gunfire in Uptown kills 1, wounds 11. Gunmen unleashed a torrent of gunfire in a crowded Uptown
block early Sunday in Minneapolis, killing one person and wounding 11 others in one of the city's most violent shootings in
recent memory. Police said the 11 survivors were scattered at area hospitals with "various severity levels of
injuries." They said the victim who died was a man, but gave no other identifying details. All of the victims were
adults. Nor did they offer a motive for the shooting, which apparently involved people shooting each other.
The Editor says...
Yes, most shootings involve people shooting each other, as opposed to guns shooting each other.
All
that media praise for Andrew Cuomo looks pretty stupid now. The press, for the most part, got the story wrong,
as usual. The way most reporters and commentators told it, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo led one of the best, if not
the best, government responses to the coronavirus pandemic. The way members of the press told it, Cuomo's
wisdom, steely determination, and steady hand were guiding the Empire State through one of the most dangerous and deadly
episodes in its history. But these glowing characterizations of Cuomo have not been borne out by the facts.
Indeed, when it comes to the coronavirus, the governor of New York seems to be every bit as incompetent and out of his depth
as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, and that is saying a lot.
The
dangers of bowing to the mob and defunding the police. With the backdrop of an upcoming election in November,
many politicians are making knee-jerk reactions, frightened by their poll numbers and popularity amongst the fringe, yet
vocal, activists that confront them on Twitter and on the streets in protest. Many people do not realize that these
Twitter activists are NOT the majority, and do not speak for large portions of the country. In actuality, Twitter only
has a reported 48 million users, only 10% of which make up 80% of the tweets on the platform. From there, the platform
has had to address allegations from shareholders that up to 70% of all users on the platform are "bots", and they have purged
20% of their "userbase" in a single day in years past after evaluating the fact that they were fake accounts.
Statistically, if we assume a generous 2 million users are outraged about a particular political issue on Twitter out of
330 million Americans, that would be roughly 0.6% of the population. What are seemingly large political movements
across this country, are in reality very small groups, buying fake followers on twitter, and getting their messages shared by
fake users across social media, which are then regurgitated by mainstream media outlets as fact.
CNN's
Brian Stelter goes on the attack, only to have his prey turn on him. Brian Stelter, aged 34, rotund, and
squeaky, went from creating a college blog about TV and cable news, to working as a media reporter at the New York Times
right out of college, to becoming the host of CNN's (ahem) Reliable Sources and a chief media correspondent. He's had
that last gig for seven years. Stelter thinks he's a journalist. However, when he had senior Trump legal adviser
Jenna Ellis on his Sunday show and tried to humiliate her for daring to support Trump's entirely accurate attacks against the
drive-by media, Ellis called Stelter out for what he is: An activist, rather than a journalist. Before diving
into the Ellis beatdown on Stelter, it's worth remembering that Stelter does not report on the news. Instead, he serves
as a conduit for the Democrat party.
CNN
Anchor Who Sounds Like She'd Never Seen 'Live PD' Infuriates Former Host. "Live PD" is the latest victim of
cancel culture. The show, which followed law enforcement officers on duty, was deemed problematic because, according to
critics, it "glorified" police in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd and the racial and social unrest that has
resulted from it. "Live PD" was cancelled just a day after the cancellation of the classic TV show "COPS." The
former host of "Live PD," Dan Abrams, expressed some of his frustration on Fox News's "Bill Hemmer Reports" on Thursday.
Abrams said he hoped his show would survive because it focused on transparency among police departments, exactly what today's
protesters are demanding.
Celebrating the Talented Members
of the MSNBC All-Decade Team. [For example] Joy-Ann Reid: Forced to apologize, but never punished, for a
series of homophobic blog posts that resurfaced in 2018. Despite apologizing and accepting responsibility for the posts, Reid
later claimed she was the victim of a malicious hacker who planted "fabricated" posts on her old blog. FBI
cybersecurity experts were called in to investigate, but have yet to identify the hacker. Brian Williams:
Suspended in 2015 for telling false war stories about coming under fire in Iraq, continues to struggle with basic math.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Show canceled due to low ratings and the host's preference for discussing Beyoncé music
videos instead of politics, forced to apologize for making fun of Mitt Romney's adopted black grandchild. Once
described as "America's foremost public intellectual," she once argued that the word "Obamacare" was racist.
Far-Left
Professor Marc Lamont Hill Tells Black Protesters They're Messing up His Marxist Movement. I've been aware of
Marc Lamont Hill as a long-time political contributor at CNN, but apparently, he's weaseled his way into not only a professorship
(Professor of Media Studies and Urban Education at Temple University) but a news gig at BET. Now, if what Hill does has
any connection to news, then I'm Minnie Mouse. He's one-hundred percent a radical, leftist activist who gives his opinion
all day long. The most recent example came Monday night, in a video Hill shared on Twitter. In the video, which
runs just over two minutes, he chides black protesters who he claims aren't down with the Revolution.
Mayhem
made in Venezuela?: Take a look at the photos of BLM leaders whooping it up with Nicolas Maduro in Harlem and
Caracas. The mainstream media would have you think the riots and looting that have erupted across the country
are just spontaneous explosions of pent-up anger over the callous killing of a black suspect, at the hands of a blue-city
Minneapolis police officer. Well, I've covered a lot of riots — from Indonesia to Argentina to Russia to
East Timor to Thailand to Venezuela, plus domestic ones in Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco — as a
journalist. The one thing that's always come out in the aftermath is that none of these mass rioting and looting events
was ever a simple spontaneous eruption. All big riot events are man-made. If the press had any curiosity at all,
it would look to where the current mayhem is coming from.
Watch
CNN's Sara Sidner Encourage More Riots in Democrat-Run Cities. CNNLOL's Sara Sidner, who identifies as a
"journalist," encouraged and championed rioting in Democrat-run cities on Sunday [5/31/2020]. Below is a clip of Sidner
"reporting" from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Minneapolis is, of course, a Democrat-run city (and has been for 48 years)
that, on Sunday, was still facing a devastating series of riots led by left-wing terrorist groups like Antifa.
[Video clip]
Greg
Gutfeld Blasts Liberal Media's Biased Coverage Of Riots, Dishonest Blaming Of Trump. The liberal media's
coverage of the riots has been as awful as anyone would expect. They are defending rioters while falsely blaming Trump
and trying to politicize the crimes and destruction whenever possible. Greg Gutfeld of FOX News tore into the media on
Tuesday [6/2/2020] during 'The Five.'
D.C. media is now focused on confrontational
coverage and approved narratives. Speaking from some decades of personal experience, in bygone times, each
individual story was generally constructed to recount the who, what, when, where and why of the subject at hand, including
select background as necessary. It was a stand-alone story. No longer. Today, there is a narrative, a story
template that each report must fit into. Those that don't fit, like your high school jersey, get dismissed or
ignored. Oh, and narratives prefer actors, not reporters. We've witnessed numerous confrontational performances
by journalists, who could gain lucrative book contracts from such virtuous notoriety. Professional journalists should
be adversaries questioning, challenging authority, not antagonists. Truth be told, in an Age of Outrage that assesses
little consequence for incorrect, incomplete or even fictitious "news," confrontational coverage does produce more profitable
clicks and viewers. That was reflected in last week's media layoffs, deleting some more of the few surviving
play-it-straight journalists.
CNN
Is Basically InfoWars Now as Don Lemon Has a Mental Break Live on Air. CNN's evening broadcasts are typically a
lesson is partisan ridiculousness, which would be somewhat palatable if they didn't pretend that their prime time lineup are
unbiased journalists. But last night [6/1/2020] was different. Last night, we witnessed CNN walk up to the edge
of the cliff and jump off with a mixture of hysterical laughter and mumbling about aliens. [...] This came shortly after a
fairly mundane speech by the President in which he warned that he would take action against widespread violence and looting
currently hampering many cities. Somehow, that was code to Don Lemon that we are now about to become a dictatorship and
that a declaration of war has been made on Americans. This is the kind of delusion that used to get you thrown into a
straight jacket, not broadcast on national TV.
Journalists
Forget Their Own Predictions: Millions of Americans to Die. [Scroll down] By this point, there were
estimates aplenty in the media that there would be anywhere from almost a half million to 1.5 million to 2.2 million dead
Americans. But mysteriously in all the stories about the 100,000 dead Americans there is no mention — zero —
of earlier media predictions that there would be ten or twenty times that number of deaths. Not to mention that the media
seems reluctant to focus on just why the number is up to 100,000 in the first place.
Andrew
Cuomo and brother Chris make a mockery of journalism, viewers and CNN. The news media that gave us Bill
Clinton, "The Man from Hope," are now trying to sell us on New York Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo, The Candidate From
CNN — where his brother Chris anchors. From Hope to hopeless. The Brothers Cuomo created yet another
journalism outrage Wednesday night. Younger brother Chris, who anchors for CNN, once again interviewed his older, more
successful brother. It wasn't news. In fact, it was so horrific that it made news.
Obamagate
Must Result in Criminal Prosecutions. [Scroll down] A reporter recently asked White House Press
Secretary Kayleigh McEnany what crimes had allegedly been committed during the Obamagate scandal. The question struck
me as weird because I thought that journalists normally investigated that sort of thing themselves, rather than asking to be
spoon-fed by press secretaries. McEnany did an outstanding job ignoring the "gotcha" potential of the question and
rattled off a number of crimes connected to the case against Flynn, which included Andrew McCabe for leaking to the Wall
Street Journal and lying about it, and James Clapper and John Brennan for both lying to Congress under oath.
Trump
Gives CBS News Journo Paula Reid the Answer She Deserves After Ridiculous Jobs Plan Question. The latest
instance of a credentialed White House press corps "journalist" showing out came earlier today [5/19/2020], when CBS News
White House correspondent Paula Reid asked one of the most ridiculously biased questions any of the press corps reporters
have since the start of the daily coronavirus task force briefings back in early March. Reid, who has clashed with
Trump and other members of the administration in recent weeks, grabbed for another moment in the media spotlight by asking
this question of Trump: "Mr. President, why haven't you announced a plan to get 36 million unemployed Americans
back to work? You are overseeing historic economic despair. What's the delay? Where's the plan?" It was
an idiotic question, considering journalists like Reid have been dunking on him non-stop for wanting states to reopen sooner
which, you know, is actually the only thing that can revive the economy.
Does Greta Thunberg have the answer to COVID-19?
COVID-19 is a riddle wrapped inside an enigma and hidden within a Chinese wet market, or possibly a CCP laboratory.
World leaders are baffled by how to respond. The science keeps contradicting itself. The world's greatest
mathematicians can't keep up with the ever-changing data sets. Who can the poor and frightened public turn to for
help? Never fear, Greta's here. That's right. Little Miss Thunberg, a 17-year-old Swedish girl who dropped
out of high school to sound the climate change alarm, is turning her mega-brain towards COVID-19, just when we need her
most. On Thursday evening [5/14/2020], CNN will host a live town hall called 'Coronavirus: Facts and Fears',
featuring former acting CDC director Richard Besser, former HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Miss Thunberg.
CNN
Hit with Widespread Criticism After Announcing Coronavirus Town Hall To Feature Greta Thunberg. CNN is facing
widespread mockery and condemnation after the network announced it will welcome teen climate change activist Greta Thunberg
to a town hall event about the coronavirus. [...] For what reason she will appear, CNN did not disclose. But the
announcement ignited a firestorm of criticism online. The now-17-year-old climate activist will have some role in the
broadcast, and CNN is being hit hard by people who are asking what insight about the coronavirus, if any, Thunberg brings to
the table.
CNN's
'Expert' Coronavirus Panel Is a Must See and Will Have You Laughing Out Loud. I mean "must see" from the
standpoint of pointing and laughing, not that you should actually waste your time watching CNN. The network is hosting
an "expert" panel on the coronavirus pandemic in a town hall format on Thursday. Who's on the panel? Well, you'll
be less than shocked to learn two of the three people appearing are failed, former Obama officials who presided over
disastrous aspects of Obamacare. You may be more surprised, though, that CNN lacks enough shame for the third
participant to be none other than Greta Thunberg, the teen climate activist from Sweden.
Brooklyn
Police Arrest 40 People For Violations of "Social Distancing", The Media Worry What Color They Are. NBC has an
article today [5/8/2020] discussing forty people arrested in Brooklyn, New York, for violations of the "social distance"
rules. [...] That alone should be the jaw-dropping headline that shoots flares and warning signals into the stratosphere
alerting America that something is seriously screwed up in New York City. Alas, it is not the simple fact that police
are ridiculously arresting people; no, what concerns NBC media is the color of the people being ridiculously arrested.
A
Little Something for Everyone... to Hate. In the meantime, everyone should turn off cable news. All of
it. At least a few days per week. If the shows were reruns, most people wouldn't notice. With rare
exception, they're recycled monologues, repetitive questions posed to the same guests; you'll actually come away
dumber. Honestly, have you seen a show in the last month where you didn't know exactly what was going to be said, no
matter which cast member they turned to "for reaction"?
Who
Would Be Your First Pick if Americans Could Vote Reporters Off the White House Briefing Island? I have watched
nearly every Corona Task Force presser. I took a day off after the Lysol ridiculousness to lower my blood
pressure. However, I find the briefings to be very informative. The president gives an overview and then
introduces members of the Task Force to update on specific items. The media hates these forums, because they can't
control the information that is available to the public. This is a great reason to keep airing them. The most
tedious portion of the pressers are the questions from the members of the White House Press Corps. They are political
reporters trying to ingest health, science and business information. Either their employers do not pay for internet
access, or they are deliberately obtuse.
Media
Push Fake News About FDA Official Supposedly Fired Over Opposing Hydroxychloroquine, Then the Real Story Comes
Out. It's almost like The New York Times is nothing but a partisan gossip rag. Yesterday [4/22/2020], a
story was put out by Maggie Haberman that made a rather convenient claim that just so happened to reinforce every media
narrative. Namely, that an FDA official named Rick Bright was fired for selflessly sounding the alarm on the supposed
vast dangers of hydroxychloroquine. [Tweets] But, like all stories that appear in the Times and other mainstream
outlets, it's always best to give them a few hours. In this case, it didn't take long for the real story to start
coming out and you'll be shocked to learn that Haberman's original piece was completely wrong.
Media's
Latest Strategy To Fight Trump: Remove Him From His Press Conferences. For years, the media complained
that President Donald Trump wasn't holding enough press conferences. Now, as the media's poor performance in his daily
coronavirus press conferences is on worldwide display, they're begging him to leave his own press conferences, and leave them
alone to craft their anti-Trump storylines. When March polls showed Trump receiving unusually high marks for his
handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, and the media receiving their traditionally low marks for it, many journalists began
pushing for censorship of the press conferences. While many outlets tried this approach, it obviously failed with
viewers who turned to other outlets for the news they sought. The media, however, continued to be mocked for the
prevalence of silly and unserious questions from reporters who clearly think they come off better outside their echo chambers
than they do[.]
CNN's Jim Acosta: Great at Making a
Scene, Not So Great at Actual Reporting. When it comes to making a scene, Acosta is the best in the game.
However, not all of his colleagues in journalism are impressed by his unique skill set. ABC's Jon Karl, for example,
had some harsh words for Acosta in his own recently published book, Front Row at the Trump Show. Karl, the
president of the White House Correspondents' Association, criticized Acosta for frequently behaving like an "opinion
journalist" and taking a "soapbox" approach that played "right into the explicit Trump strategy of portraying the press as
the opposition party." When it comes to actual reporting, Acosta is at best mediocre — no better or worse than a
random college journalism student. If cable news did not exist, few if any newspapers would be scrambling to hire him.
Hack
Reporter Asks President Trump About Shutting Down Grocery Stores to Stop Spread of Coronavirus - So We All Can Starve.
President Trump on Sunday held another Coronavirus press conference. A hack reporter actually asked President Trump about
shutting down grocery stores and fast food joints. "So why even have a few businesses open? Why don't they shut
everything down? Groceries stores are open, fast food places — why even take a little chance? Just shut
all of it down temporarily," the reporter said. Really?! So we will all just starve to death — as long
as we don't die of Coronavirus!
Keywords: Insipid, fluff, filler, meaningless pap. News
station launches 'What Day Is It?' segment: 'Cleveland news has officially lost their minds'. [Scroll
down] Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson indicated Friday [4/3/2020] that the city will likely continue to ban mass
gatherings and events into the summer. "Anywhere there is a potential mass gathering, we will not be issuing a permit
for it," Jackson said, according to Cleveland.com. Confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. have climbed past 278,000
and Ohio has reported just over 3,300 cases with 91 deaths, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.
Extended periods of self-quarantine as people are ordered to stay at home have led to many facing a hard time remembering
which day of the week it is. The "What Day Is It?" feature on Fox 8 Cleveland has provided a public
service — and some levity.
A Sick Media. The other day Chris
Hayes of MSNBC was pouting about the media's coverage of Donald Trump's press briefings. He called the airing of them
"crazy." He particularly didn't like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell using one of them to talk about "reading the Bible." Hayes'
pouting captures the arrogance and secularist prejudice of the media perfectly. The media sees its role not as a reporter
of news but as a propagandistic arbiter — a Big Brother that will tell the public what it can and cannot take
seriously. [...] The more propagandistic the media becomes, the more it insists that its coverage is "factual." But
no one takes that seriously. As Trump once told the media, "You guys have a real problem. No one believes you
anymore." The media has become all opinion, all the time. All the journalistic rigors of yesteryear have disappeared.
Our
Super Smart Elite Shines During This Pandemic!. We Americans are truly blessed by having a mainstream media
full of brilliant renaissance men, women, and gender non-specific entities who are masters of so many varied and
intermittently useful skills and who are eager to share their knowledge with us benighted souls. The pandemic has
revealed that every urban Twitter blue check scribbler, MSNBCNN panelist, NYT/WaPo doofus, and barely legal "senior editor"
of a website you never heard of, is a Nobel Prize-winning epidemiologist, a master logistician, and a diversity consultant to
boot. [...] Each of them is an Official Junior Epidemiologist now, weighing-in on curve flattening and RO rates like they
have any idea what any of it means. What's really funny is how they now want to decide what we should hear by censoring
the president and his team's press conferences and then reporting to us only what they consider to be things we should
know. Yes, the media presumes to decide what we need to know, not Dr. Fauci, not Dr. Brix, no, the media.
Does
America need Journalists? Chris Cillizza of CNN sent one of the most unintentionally hilarious posts into the
Twittersphere when he proudly displayed his new (and ugly) sweater that read "America Needs Journalists." Apart from the
obvious tone-deafness of the message being sent at a time when most American would gladly trade the entire CNN staff for a
single grocery store worker, trucker, medic, or just about anything else, this intrepid CNN American hero stumbled upon a
sentiment that conservatives can fully get behind. America does need journalists. Too bad we have so few of them.
We
need press briefings without the press. In the high school of life, we have these grade schoolers sitting on
press row. They smirk at the the world. We are all rubes, say the people who blindly follow the Democrat
Narrative of the Day. The presidential press briefings are a ratings smash because President Donald John Trump puts on
a good show. He is large and in charge. Obama needed a teleprompter. His staff had to tell him what to
say. The Donald writes the script and directs the action. He surrounds himself with experts and idiots, and
remains at the center of attention the whole time. Doctor Fauci works for him. Doctor Birx works for him.
The idiots sit on press row.
How
the Partisan Media Are Harming America's Pandemic Response. The Founding Fathers had hoped a free and
unfettered press would remedy the toxic "factionalism" endemic to democracy. Unfortunately, today, a monolithic
mainstream media establishment has exacerbated rather than remedied this factionalism. This crisis shows how harmful
our dishonest partisan media can be. A postmortem on the pandemic will show that the mainstream media were our
country's most shameful crisis actors.
The
Political Media Are Failing America. [Scroll down] The institutional bias at the Washington Post
and the New York Times certainly isn't new. But there used to be a corresponding level of professional gravitas
that engendered reader trust. Some of that trust has been corroded over years of Obama adulation, echo chambers,
conspiracy mongering, and knee-jerk partisanship. Some of that trust has also been corroded by the litany of
Trump-slaying "bombshells" that have fizzled over the past years. I don't know how many times I've recently heard
people affix "if it turns out to be true" to a breaking news story.
CBS
Allows a Scant 10 Seconds on [Its] Own Poll Showing Majority Support for Trump on Corona. CBS This
Morning on Tuesday [3/24/2020] mostly ignored the findings of its own poll on the coronavirus and the government's
handling of it. The network allowed a scant 10 seconds to the news that a majority, 53 percent, approve of the
President's response. Relegated to online is the news that more Americans trust Donald Trump to given information than
the media itself. In total, the morning show allowed just 19 seconds on CBS's own poll. Co-host Gayle King
opened the show with this bit of data from the poll: "A new CBS news poll says three quarters of Americans,
72 percent, believe it will take months or longer for this virus to be contained."
The Editor says...
In other words, the news media is engaging in baseless speculation about other people's baseless speculation.
The virus situation will be contained (to the satisfaction of the power-hungry bureaucrats, who have an interest in
prolonging it) whenever the bureaucrats decide it's contained. The general public has no way of knowing when
that will be.
Ted
Cruz slaps down NBC reporter pushing obvious Chinese anti-US propaganda. In a bizarre report from NBC, reporter Keir
Simmons finishes their video by literally saying that China did a great job containing the definitely-not-Chinese-Wuhan-Chinese-coronavirus,
and that the U.S. is now threatening the world with re-infection. [...] It's amazing just how eager the media is to ape the propaganda
coming out of a communist government, but we see more and more examples every day.
We're
Paying The Price For The Death Of Journalism. That journalism is dead has been a punchline for so long that
we've forgotten how that fact has real world consequences. We're now paying the price for the failure of that
profession to hold itself to any semblance of standards. As worry and straight-up panic sweep large swaths of the
country, causing irrational toilet paper hoarding and runs on canned goods, there is no outlet and no journalist worthy of
trust when it comes to conveying truthful information to the public or to hold anyone in power accountable. Eight years
of sycophantic, throne sniffing coverage under President Barack Obama gave way to four years of nitpicking, hostility, and
conspiracy theories. There are no standards anymore; if someone on TV hates President Trump, there is no outrageous,
medically dubious statement they can make on CNN or MSNBC that will be challenged and if they love him, there is nothing that
will be challenged on Fox. The opposite is true on those networks if you replace "President Trump" with any Democrat.
Math
is hard, even for an MSNBC panic-spreading virology expert. It was just a few days ago that Brian Williams and
Mara Gay mindlessly repeated a meme saying that, instead of spending $500 million on advertising, Bloomberg should just have
given all 327 million Americans a million dollars each. The correct answer is that Bloomberg spent $1.52 per American.
On Monday [3/9/2020], a guest again went stupid about math, this time while trying to explain how many Americans will die from
coronavirus. According to Dr. Joseph Fair, only 80% of the population will survive: [...] Mediaite, from which the
above quotation comes, doesn't question Fair's math. Instead, it takes the numbers at face value and then attacks Trump.
[...] Fair made a foolish mistake (presumably he knows better), but both MSNBC and Mediaite ran with the error to undermine Trump's
presidency. These people are both evil and stupid. Here's the deal with the media: they don't know what they're
talking about, so analyze everything they say before you start to worry.
Wash
Post Journalist Responds to Humiliating '$1 Million For Every American' Fail. As we highlighted earlier, Mekita
Rivas responded to Bloomberg dropping out of the presidential race by claiming that the money he spent on campaign
commercials could have made every American a millionaire with lots of spare change. With math obviously not being
Rivas' strong point, it was immediately pointed out that Bloomberg's $500 billion doled out to all 327 million Americans
would mean they get just $1.53 each. That didn't stop MSNBC's Brian Williams and New York Times editorial board member
Mara Gay repeating the claim as if it was accurate.
The
'Million Dollars Per Person' Affair Is Telling. Obviously, the math here is spectacularly off. If
Michael Bloomberg had divided the money he spent on his presidential run evenly among Americans, we would each have got
$1.53, not $1 million. [...] This, right here, is why so many left-leaning Americans think that "the billionaires" can pay
for everything. It's why Elizabeth Warren was enthusiastically boosted by the media despite her ridiculous pretense
that she could pay for a series of gargantuan initiatives without raising taxes on anyone but the extremely rich. It's
why Democrat after Democrat promises not to raise "middle class taxes" while promising programs that require the raising of
middle class taxes. How did this bad tweet make it onto TV to be endorsed? Why did Mara Gay agree with it?
Why didn't Brian Williams notice? Because the people involved in this clip thought it was true. This is how
they see the world.
NYT Editor and Brian Williams:
Bloomberg Could Have Given Every American $1 Million With the Money He Spent on Ads. I've started this sentence
three times already. I hardly even know how to describe what I saw on social media tonight. In the most
bad-at-math tweet I've ever seen in my entire twitter life, Mekita Rivas — a writer with bylines in Glamour
Magazine and the Washington Post — lamented that Bloomberg's half a billion in ad money could have provided one
million dollars for every American and still have money to spare. Not a typo. [Tweet] This seems bad.
It is bad. But it gets worse. Mara Gay — New York Times editorial board member — was on MSNBC
with Brian Williams — Yes, THAT Brian Williams — when he brought up this tweet that put it
"all in perspective" for the longtime new analyst and noted lover of fish tales. You may imagine that at some point in
this video one of them thinks about the math. They did not.
MSNBC's
Brian Williams, NY Times editor marvel at tweet that got Bloomberg math really wrong. If someone had simply
stopped and double-checked some math, they might have saved MSNBC's Brian Williams and New York Times editorial board member
Mara Gay some embarrassment Thursday night. Instead, both Williams and Gay marveled on air in reaction to a Twitter
user's post about Mike Bloomberg's campaign spending. Trouble is, the post had gotten the math all wrong —
yet neither Williams nor Gay seemed to notice.
You
Are Not Going to Believe This Was Broadcast on MSNBC — But it Was. If you've ever wondered why it is
impossible to have a conversation with modern liberals about politics, this video snippet is a case study in the
answer. MSNBC host Brian Williams and New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay are having a serious discussion
about money, politics and Michael Bloomberg's spending in the primary election. You have to watch it to believe
it. Think about how many people were involved in creating, preparing and producing what you are about to witness.
[Video clip]
Whoopi
Goldberg falls victim to Jill Biden. A woman by the name of Caryn Jackson has become a major force in shaping
the political opinions of many American women. You probably know her as Whoopi Goldberg, a stage name she culturally
appropriated, presumably for its shock value as a distinctively Jewish moniker attached to an African American woman.
Thanks to ABC featuring her on its daytime talk show aimed at women, The View, Whoopi Goldberg's opinions reach and
influence many female voters. Yesterday [3/4/2020], she revealed herself to be an ignorant phony, claiming that the wife
of Democrat frontrunner Joe Biden is a "[very good] doctor... an amazing doctor" and ought to be considered for Surgeon General
in the future Biden administration that she hopes for. [Video clip]
How
News Coverage Changed For The Worse. The trouble with the Internet age is its insistent, nonstop demand for
news faster than news happens. To satisfy this perceived need for new news products, writers are forced to
improvise. The result is consumers are too often offered instead questions: Will Obama finally take sides?
Can Bernie be beaten? Or, What's at stake on Super Tuesday? Worse, 5 takeaways from South Carolina. None of
them have real answers, just conjecture. Which isn't news. Anything to attract eyes and clicks when, to be honest,
nothing new has actually happened. Most of such pieces are empty of much new except opinion, which is called analysis,
and reworked information from previous things you've read.
Media
ignore Adam Schiff's record of lying, fawn over him as hero of impeachment proceedings. Democratic Congressman
Adam Schiff of California showed himself to be a liar during the special counsel's investigation of Russian interference in
the 2016 election, repeatedly claiming to have knowledge of "direct" and "ample" evidence proving President Trump's campaign
colluded with the Kremlin. Yet despite outing himself as an untrustworthy partisan operative, many of the same members
of the press who uncritically parroted Schiff and members the intelligence community during the collusion and FBI spying
episodes are promoting the congressman now as a heroic and awe-inspiring manager of the impeachment proceedings; because we
have learned nothing from the last three years.
CNN
reporter gets ruthlessly mocked after flipping out over Babylon Bee satire. The least trusted name in news just
proved its title again. A CNN reporter whose job is "covering disinformation, politics and technology" has kicked off a
social media ruckus by showing just how bad much of the mainstream media is at covering any of those topics with a "public
meltdown" over the conservative satirical website The Babylon Bee.
Attacks
on the Babylon Bee Are Attacks on Free Expression. Did you know that CNN has a reporter on the "disinformation"
beat? I'll skip the cheap joke about his never having to leave the office, and note that the network is now grousing
about the Christian conservative satire site the Babylon Bee, which has earned the ire of a number of liberals for
making jokes at their expense.
'CBS
Evening News' Airs Picture Of Elijah Cummings During Segment About Rep. John Lewis's Battle With Cancer.
"CBS Evening News" accidentally aired a picture of former Democratic Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings during a segment on
Democratic Georgia Rep. John Lewis' cancer diagnosis Monday. CBS chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett was
filling in for anchor Norah O'Donnell Monday evening and began to talk about Lewis' recent health announcement.
Richard
Jewell and Donald Trump: Both Victims of a Corrupt Media, Academia, and FBI. [Scroll down] In
concert with the FBI's malicious bungling of Jewell's investigation, a media firestorm ensued. The firestorm was
ignited by the efforts of Georgia's largest newspaper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), which, according to
American Nightmare, since the resignation of "distinguished editor" Bill Kovach in 1988, had suffered "a severe loss
of reputation." While covering the Olympic Park bombing, perhaps in their zeal to prove they were the "definitive paper
of the New South," the AJC operated with a "frenzy to be first." As Vanity Fair reported in 1997, "The
American Journalism Review sharply criticized The A.J.C. for the scanty confirmation and lack of skepticism in its
coverage of Jewell."
12
Stories The Media Got Horribly Wrong In 2019. March: The Mueller Report. In perhaps
one of the media's most magnificent mistakes this year, special counsel Robert Mueller unveiled his findings from a two-year
unlimited resource investigation completely exonerating President Donald Trump of being a Russian agent after years of the
media's peddling of the Russia hoax. Mueller found not one person from the Trump campaign, let alone Trump himself,
colluded with the Russian government in 2016 to defeat Hillary Clinton. Mueller's report also acquitted Trump of any
obstruction of justice charges for firing one of the most corrupt directors of the FBI, James Comey. "He has no idea
that he's going down," MSNBC host Joe Scarborough declared on Morning Joe as a result of the report.
The
Media's Worst Moments of 2019. Our friends at Grabien prepared this montage of some of the media's worst moments
of 2019. Given the media malpractice of the last year, the video could be the length of Ben-Hur, but they've whittled
it down to a mere eight minutes. And it is a fun walk down memory lane, as pretty much all of the media's worst moments
have, by now, blown up in their faces. [Video clip]
The
Media Has Some Apologizing to Do After the IG Report. Thanks to the Department of Justice Inspector General's
report, we now know for certain what has been, for those paying attention, fairly obvious. The Steele dossier played a
central role in the genesis of the Russia hoax and was used to justify extensive spying on former naval officer and Annapolis
graduate Carter Page. The top two leaders of the FBI were closely involved in this fiasco. Other powerful people
knew what was happening and lied to cover it up. That all was confirmed by the IG report. The report was a
disaster for the credibility of top leaders in Barack Obama's FBI, and it's also a big problem for the American news media.
OANN
Goes to Ukraine to Investigate Yovanovitch, Biden — and Graham. [Scroll down] Has it struck
any of you that not one network, not one paper has sent a reporter to Ukraine to ferret this story out? The media seems
to be reporting verbatim what government officials are telling them, like Lieutenant Colonel Vindman — O say can
you see — and Yovanovitch and Fiona Hill and Bill Taylor and George Kent and whoever the hell else. Whatever
they say is what gets printed. Whatever Clapper says gets printed. Whatever Brennan says gets printed.
There hasn't been one investigative story about this. Everything that's been reported has been what deep state,
administrative state officials are saying about Donald Trump. That's it. So in this instance, it is the deep
state running the media. You know, my theory is that the media has been running the Democrat Party, and I still think
that's the case. But we don't have even the slightest bit of curiosity. The Drive-By Media has no desire to
ferret out the real truth of this story.
Newsweek
fires reporter who wrote inaccurate story on Trump's Thanksgiving Day plans. The Newsweek reporter who
wrote an inaccurate story about President Trump's Thanksgiving Day plans has been fired. The outlet's original story
claimed the president only planned on tweeting and golfing during his holiday break, neglecting to mention his trip to
Afghanistan. Newsweek's Jessica Kwong, whose Twitter handle identifies her as a political reporter "covering Trump
administration and family," initially published the article Thursday morning [11/28/2019], before the president's trip to
Afghanistan was announced publicly. The story's initial headline was, "How is Trump spending Thanksgiving?
Tweeting, golfing and more."
Afghanistan
Thanksgiving: Trump makes the press look like boobs. For the U.S. troops abroad, President Trump made a
major personal sacrifice by skipping his own Thanksgiving in order to surprise them by helping to serve them theirs.
Under cover of secrecy, he flew nearly 7,000 miles, met with them, praised and cheered them, took selfies with them, served
them in the chow line, and generally gave the brave fighting men and women in the world's most forlorn hellhole something to
smile about. It was a lovely presidential gesture, well in keeping with past presidents George W. Bush and Barack
Obama, who also made holiday trips to cheer the troops. But unlike them, he also had a goodie for us back home: he
managed to expose the press as presumptuous boobs. [...] Newsweek meant to criticize Trump for golfing on Thanksgiving, which
actually would have been an acceptable thing for him to do, given that it was a holiday and every chief executive needs what
project managers call "maintenance time."
Newsweek
Fires Anti-Trump Reporter Behind False Thanksgiving Story. Until today [11/30/2019], Jessica Kwong was a
political reporter for Newsweek. More specifically, it was her job to keep an eye on the Trump administration,
the Trump family, and the 2020 race for president. This week, however, she was fired. The reason? On
Thanksgiving Day, she published an article in which she claimed that the president and first lady planned to spend the
holiday golfing, tweeting, "and more" some such. Sadly for her, President Trump secretly flew to Afghanistan, where he
met the troops (and served them turkey). After President Trump had landed, pro-Trump Twitter users rightfully went after
her. One of her fiercest critics was First Son Donald Trump Jr. "The President spends his Thanksgiving with
American troops deployed in Afghanistan, including serving them lunch," he wrote on Twitter.
Newsweek
Fires Journalist Responsible for False Story About President Trump's Thanksgiving. Newsweek has fired
the journalist who was responsible for the false story that President Donald Trump spent Thanksgiving "tweeting" and
"golfing," when in fact the president was secretly traveling to Afghanistan to surprise U.S. troops for the holiday.
Newsweek told Breitbart News in a statement that the magazine has moved away from "knee-jerk political snarkiness"
to focus on real reporting.
Trump
blasts Newsweek over story on his Thanksgiving plans. President Trump slammed Newsweek over its story on his
Thanksgiving plans, which the mag said would include "tweeting, golfing and more" — before he ended up making a
surprise visit to US troops in Afghanistan. "I thought Newsweek was out of business?" the president wrote,
quote-tweeting his son Donald Trump Jr.'s photo of the commander in chief serving Thanksgiving dinner to the service members
at Bagram Airfield, north of Kabul. Attached to the image was a screenshot of Newsweek's Thursday morning story, with
the headline: "How is Trump spending Thanksgiving? Tweeting, golfing and more."
The
Media Neither Read the Transcripts Nor Watched the Hearings. The media seem not to have watched the impeachment
hearings: they stopped paying attention the moment the witnesses' prepared statements were leaked and the Democrats' talking
points were posted. Nor did many journalists bother to read the transcripts of the witnesses' depositions in the earlier,
closed-door hearings.
Reuters
Deletes Story Meant to Make Trump Look Bad After Realizing it Made Obama Look Bad. Reuters completely deleted a
wire story concerning the number of children in migrant detention centers after discovering that the author's figures were
from 2015 and do not reflect the current number of children in such centers. Adding an editor's note or something of
the like was tossed for a complete revocation, which is always last and worst case scenario in the news world.
Today's
Liberal Media Fail. A left-wing doofus at the United Nations did an analysis of how many children are "in
detention" in countries around the world, and concluded that the U.S. has more than anyone else — presumably as a
result of the flood of illegal immigrants at our Southern border. Pretty much every news organization in the world
jumped on the story: the Associated Press, Reuters, NBC News, NPR, the Huffington Post, all the usual suspects.
But then a funny thing happened. The U.N. guy explained that his number for children detained in the U.S. was not
current, but dated from 2015. That is, during the Obama administration. So news organizations were faced with a
dilemma. What to do? As Ed Driscoll notes, some, like AFP and Reuters, simply deleted their articles.
When
the villain is Obama, not Trump, news suddenly becomes not worth reporting. So the United States has "the
world's highest rate of children in detention." Is this worth reporting? Maybe, maybe not. Nevertheless, Agence
France-Presse, or AFP, and Reuters did report it, attributing the information to a "United Nations study" on migrant children
detained at the US-Mexico border. Then the two agencies retracted the story. Deleted, withdrew, demolished.
If they could have used one of those Men in Black memory-zappers on us, they would have. Sheepishly, the two news
organizations explained that, you see, the UN data was from 2015 — part of a border crackdown that had begun years
earlier. We all know who the president was in 2015. It wasn't evil, child-caging monster President Trump. It
was that nice, compassionate, child-caging monster President Barack Obama. Zap. The story made Obama look bad.
Hence the story was removed. Not updated or corrected, removed.
Mark
Levin blasts 'absurd' media analysis of impeachment hearings. Mark Levin took aim at House Democrats and the
media Friday [11/15/2019] in response to the televised impeachment inquiry testimony by former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie
Yovanavich. "I hope the American people know what you're witnessing is tyranny," Levin said on "Hannity." You can
have tyranny of the legislature. You can have tyranny of the executive branch. You can have tyranny of the
judiciary. You're witnessing tyranny in the House of Representatives, in the Intelligence Committee, that doesn't do
intelligence work anymore." Levin compared the American media to Russian media and accused them of being unfair to
President Trump. "I mean ... to listen to the media analysis of what's taking place in these hearings is absurd.
It's disgraceful," Levin said. "They talk about Russia. They sound like the Russian media."
'Climate
emergency' declaration takes heat for fictional 'world scientists'. There was something goofy about the
petition signed by 11,258 "world scientists" from 153 countries declaring a "climate emergency." One "scientist" was
named "Mouse, Micky" from the "Micky Mouse Institute for the Blind, Nambia." Another was Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of
Hogwarts. And then there was "Araminta Aardvark" from the fictional University of Neasden. Among the "Alliance of
World Scientists" members who were apparently real people, many identified themselves as teachers, students, administrators,
statisticians, economists, technicians, therapists, doctors, psychologists — not climate scientists. [...] "More
than 11,000 scientists from around the world declare a 'climate emergency,'" said the headline in the Washington Post.
Said the CNN article: "11,000 scientists warn of 'untold suffering' caused by climate change." "Climate crisis:
11,000 scientists warn of 'untold suffering,'" said the [U.K.] Guardian, while ABC News reported, "11,000 scientists sign
declaration of global climate emergency."
Everything
You Hear About Billion-Dollar Disasters Is Wrong. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) counts the number of disasters in the United States that result in losses of greater than $1 billion, starting in
1980. Over the past three decades that count has shown a sharp increase, from five or less such disasters each year in the
decade of the 1980s to ten or more in each of the past 4 years. That increase must be due to climate change, right?
Actually, no. The billion-dollar disaster tally is easy to understand, simple to communicate, but —
regrettably — incredibly misleading and just plain bad economics.
ABC
News, CBS News face growing backlash over handling of Epstein leaker: They 'colluded' and fired the 'wrong person'. Earlier
this week, reports circulated that ABC had identified the employee suspected of leaking the Robach video to controversial watchdog group Project
Veritas. According to the reports, ABC executives informed their counterparts at CBS, where the staffer had recently been hired, of their
suspicions and the employee soon lost her job. However, on Friday [11/8/2019], ousted CBS staffer Ashley Bianco publicly denied that she was
the leaker. At almost the exact same moment, Project Veritas published a note from the alleged "ABC insider" it claimed was behind the leak.
11,000
Scientists? Just Kidding. Earlier this week, the world's news media reported breathlessly that 11,000
scientists had issued a report contending that the Earth faces a "climate emergency." NBC News, to cite just one
example, described a "study" produced by an "international consortium of more than 11,000 scientists." [...] Actually, there
was no study, there was just a press release. And it wasn't 11,000 scientists, it was 11,000 random people who put
their names on a web page. But today's reporters are so biased and so incompetent that when it comes to "climate
change," they will swallow anything.
Trump
Derangement Is Destroying Political Analysis. The last four years of political punditry and analysis have been
objectively wretched. Regardless of your feelings about the present political moment, precisely no one can defend the
quality of the analysis that dominates the airwaves and pages of our corporate media. They told us throughout the 2016
campaign that the notion of Donald Trump winning the presidency was a joke. The mockery increased as election day drew
near. From the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's chances of winning are approaching zero." At 10:20 P.M.
on election night, The New York Times assured us that "Hillary Clinton has an 85% chance of winning." [...] Their numerical
confidence colored their reporting throughout the campaign in ways that materially supported their political cohorts, chiefly
Hillary Clinton.
'Do
your job!': Rand Paul demands media reveal whistleblower and Congress defend Trump. Sen. Rand Paul claimed
the name of the Ukraine whisteblower is known but said the media is refusing to publish it. "President Trump has great
courage," the Kentucky Republican said at a Monday [11/4/2019] campaign rally for the president. "He faces down the fake
media every day. But Congress needs to step up and have equal courage to defend the president." "We also now know the
name of the whistleblower," Paul continued. "The whistleblower needs to come before Congress as a material witness because
he worked with Joe Biden at the same time Hunter Biden was getting money from corrupt oligarchs. I say tonight to the
media, 'Do your job and print his name!' And I say this to my fellow colleagues in Congress, to every Republican in
Washington, 'Step up and subpoena Hunter Biden and subpoena the whistleblower!'"
Bonfire
of the Democratic Party's Once-Rising Stars. [Scroll down] In a way, getting good press is just not that
difficult for a young-ish Democratic lawmaker with decent public speaking skills. Just invite a big newspaper or
magazine reporter to hang around for a few days, let them marvel as you charm little old ladies and speak some eighth-grade
Spanish to a local Latino organization, offer some trite observations that "technology changes everything" and "government
can do so much more if we only have the will," and then roll up your sleeves and pose for your looking-off-in-the-distance
photo shoot. Presto! Instant presidential "buzz."
Most of broadcast
TV's Trump impeachment coverage relies on anonymous sources, study. A new study has found that the majority of
coverage dedicated to the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Trump is based on reports from anonymous sources.
The Media Research Center revealed on Tuesday that in the month after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., formally announced
the launch of the impeachment inquiry, 322 minutes of air-time was tallied between ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News with 140
individual news segments. Among those segments, roughly 57 percent "relied at least in part on information from anonymous
sources." Comparing the evening news programs, both "CBS Nightly News" and "NBC Nightly News" tied with approximately
60 percent of their coverage relying on anonymous sources while "ABC's World News Tonight" came in at 54 percent.
Fox
News Chump Howard Kurtz Buys Adam Schiff's Selective Leaks. Fox News' Howard Kurtz not only advertises himself
as a newsman, he advertises himself as a newsman's newsman — as a gatekeeper and watcher of newsmen, as an
imperious referee whose oh-so-vital job it is to guide the news and its newsmen to a more enlightened place. But he's
really just another hack. [...] Good grief, this is not supposed to be hard. Schiff is a proven liar and partisan,
William Taylor is a proven Never Trumper, there are three [...] years of the Russia Collusion Hoax as precedent, and you have
only heard one side of the story — and even that side has come via a selective leak! On top of that, you
have three Republican congressmen claiming Taylor's (third-hand hearsay) testimony completely collapsed when challenged, and
Kurtz is falling for it, in public, AGAIN!
Norah
O'Donnell Is Killing What's Left of the CBS Evening News. The Brits call them "newsreaders." Their job is to sit
behind a desk on a TV set and read the news — ostensibly written by actual journalists, but also by the propagandists at
the BBC — off the teleprompter in a professional-sounding manner while looking reassuringly into the camera. In
America we call them "anchors." Their job is to be the star of the show, to determine what goes on the air, to provide the
desired slant to the news, and then at some point during the evening, to read the news off the teleprompter in a professional-sounding
manner while looking reassuringly into the camera. In Britain, being a newsreader is a nice job. In America, being an
anchor is to sit atop the pinnacle of the fabulously wealthy and self-important infotainment industry.
Media
faked out by 84-year-old phony Vietnam veteran army nurse. If journalism isn't dead, it must certainly be on
life support when it can be [so easily fooled] by an 84-year-old Stolen Valor fraud, who flimflammed even Fox News with her
tales of wartime heroics, faux medals, and a handful of push-ups. Margaret DeSanti, a self-proclaimed retired
lieutenant colonel (sometimes captain) Army nurse, is a known phony Vietnam vet who was first exposed as such five years ago
by TAH (This Ain't Hell), one of the military blogs that long ago took on the mission of guarding the veterans' community
from those who falsely claim honorable service. Maggie, as she calls herself, isn't some harmless little old grannie
regaling gullible reporters with impossible tales of derring-do. She is now, thanks to her latest exploits, a potential felon.
Margaret
"Maggie" DeSanti. Margaret C. DeSanti comes to us from Mesa, Arizona. DeSanti is 84 years old as of
October 2019. This is an old story, really, since Ms. DeSanti was published by This Ain't Hell in 2014. They could
find no Army records on her to support her claims.
Whatever
You Do, Don't Send Your Kids To J-School. Jay Rosen has had it up to here with CNN moderators asking
front-running Democratic Party primary candidates to explain their signature policy positions. "The 'make Elizabeth
Warren say she would raise taxes on the middle class' question should be a credibility killer. For the journalists who
keep asking it," Rosen tweeted. Not long ago, any person arguing that reporters should shun politically inconvenient
questions of their favored candidates would be struggling to maintain credibility. Rosen, though, is a professor of
journalism — it says "I teach journalism" right there on his Twitter bio. [...] If Warren's answer to a
straightforward question regarding her signature policy initiative happens to make "a nice GOP campaign ad" it's only because
some aspect of the policy is unpopular. If journalists concerned themselves with how partisans repurpose legitimate
queries, they'd never be able to ask a difficult question. Maybe that's the point.
Journalists
Have Become Hoaxers. I had the recent opportunity to watch filmmaker Joel Gilbert's latest film, The Trayvon
Hoax. Joel demonstrated a long-lost art, investigative journalism, and he did it in a fun and entertaining
manner. Unlike cable news gabbers who get their talking points from echo chamber left-wing distributions networks like
the former JournoList, Joel examined phone records, photos, and yearbooks. He knocked on doors and actually talked to
people. Once upon a time this would be called gumshoe journalism, walking around, investigating, putting in actual
effort. Modern journalists only use their thumbs, checking Twitter and reporting tweets as verified news.
Gilbert's film, aside from debunking the Trayvon Martin hoax, demonstrated how journalism should be done, in contrast to the
shoddy reporting that now passes for journalism.
The
New York Times, NBC, and Other Outlets Don't Trust You To Handle the Truth. According to polling done for the
Columbia Journalism Review, fewer than 20 percent of us have a "great deal of confidence" in the press. The only
institution held in lower esteem is Congress. Yet the media seem happy to keep digging their own grave.
Watch
Chuck Todd Admit He's Suppressing News. The public unraveling of Chuck "the presidential race is over" Todd
continued last week when the Meet the Press moderator bragged about suppressing news. This was actually the
second time last week that proved President Trump has thoroughly broken Chuck Todd, has undone the poor guy to a point where
he keeps publicly humiliating himself with bizarre behavior.
Rand
Paul Schools Chuck Todd on Pragmatic Foreign Policy. In this interview Senator Rand Paul explains the pragmatic
policy of withdrawing 50 U.S. troops from Northern Syria to avoid them becoming victims to a cross-border incursion by a NATO
ally, Turkey, while the ridiculously pontificating European collective does nothing except criticize the U.S. for not
defending their interests. Chuck Todd is flummoxed. Additionally, Senator Paul creates a 'splodey head when the
conversation turns to the Ukraine and Rand Paul points out the hypocrisy of Democrats trying to impeach President Trump for
political foreign policy the Democrats initiated.
The
Toxic Scourge of Twitter. [Scroll down] The reporting might look objective, fact-checked and sourced
appropriately, with even-keeled forbearance, but it is undeniably the product of so many thumbing journalists staring with
pallid eyes into the glaucous glow of their handheld devices. All the "news" we are now serviced with is crowdsourced
and designed, not to inform, but appease the liberal crawthumpers on Twitter. This is why CNN sics reporters on Reddit
users who post pro-Trump memes. [...] f you want to see how the news really works in this country, read Twitter. It is
the waterhead for all of journalism's broken practices. If you'd rather be informed, stay off social media. Look
up primary sources. Don't rely on twentysomething mediators.
Anger
Over Impeachment is Best Directed at the Fake News Media. The newsfakers at the Associated Press have a report
out this morning pushing the claim that Attorney General William Barr was "surprised and angry" when he found out that
President Trump had mentioned him on his July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinsky. The source for the AP's
fake report? A "person familiar with Barr's thinking," who "was not authorized to speak about the matter publicly and
spoke on condition of anonymity." In other words, there are two possibilities here: [#1] an Obama loyalist
still embeded in the DOJ who just made it all up, or [#2] the AP reporter just made it all up out of whole cloth
in order to create a juicy "news" story. This reliance on a single anonymous "source" is the worst kind of
journalistic hackery, and it is what has enabled the Democrats and their deep state army to keep the nation in a state
of perpetual uproar for three solid years now.
The
Des Moines Register did everything wrong this week. It all stinks — from how the paper's hit piece
targeting a local hero was prepared, to what was allowed to go to print, to its initial response to the furor over the
article, all the way to its decision this week to pin all of the blame on and fire the report's author. It is rare to
get this much wrong with a single story, but the Register seems to be a special publication.
Reporter
Who Got Carson King Canceled over Old Tweets Is Fired for Old Tweets. [Scroll down] Instead of leading,
instead of lamenting the state of the cancel culture, instead of learning a lesson from all this [nonsense], the
Register is justifying what it did. Not only that, but we also learned that it spends more time digging into the
past of a guy who raised over a million dollars for charity than it does its own reporters. How difficult would it have
been for the Register to show a little moral leadership here and call for an end to this madness?
ABC
News Forced to Correct 'Bombshell' About Trump's Ukraine Call. ABC News was forced Thursday morning to correct
and walk back the latest Trump-Ukraine bombshell that wasn't. In a world where America enjoyed the services of
legitimate news organizations, the far-left ABC News would have already retracted this story, would have removed it
completely, because, as you will see below, the story is now a non-story. The central premise of the story has been
wiped out by the facts.
Trump-Ukraine
story is what you get when the media imagines the facts. The now-released transcript of President Trump's July
phone call with Ukraine's prez, Volodymyr Zelensky, shows just why Americans have so little faith in the news media.
Turns out, the document shows none of the Trump abuses suggested in press accounts over the past few days —
distortions that have already triggered Speaker Nancy Pelosi's "official impeachment inquiry."
NY
Times Completes Its Long Journey Down the Toilet With 'Women Poop' Article. After spending four days mired in
controversy over some of the sloppiest journalism in an era of sloppy journalism, The New York Times decided to
jettison its last vestiges of being a serious news source with a long article on the bowel movements of women.
Brett
Kavanaugh Breaks the Democrats. Rarely does a story implode as spectacularly as the New York Times'
latest effort to resurrect the claim that Justice Brett Kavanaugh was a teenage sexual predator. By now, you know the
facts: The Times published an excerpt from a forthcoming book alleging that another woman suffered the same form
of abuse and objectification from Kavanaugh that was alleged by another accuser, Deborah Ramirez. No sooner had the
universe of liberal political observers and politicians worked themselves up into a frenzy than the story fell apart.
The woman whose uncorroborated experience supposedly substantiated Ramirez's uncorroborated assertions wasn't even the one
making these accusations. Rather, they came from a Washington D.C. attorney with conflicts of interest who did not
contact the Senate Judiciary Committee during Kavanaugh's confirmation proceedings. What's more, she doesn't even
remember the experience that was supposedly so traumatizing — a revelation that was inexplicably omitted from the
Times' original draft.
Media
Fails to Report Update on Debunked Study on Links between Trump Rallies and Hate Crimes. Earlier this year, the
mainstream media ran a story that 2016 Trump rallies led to a spike in hate crimes in the areas in which they were
held. Specifically, a study claimed that there was a 226 percent increase in counties which hosted rallies for
then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016. The study, entitled, "The Trump Effect: How 2016 Campaign Rallies Explain
Spikes in Hate," was submitted by Ayal Feinberg, assistant professor at Texas A&M University ya Commerce, and professors
Regina Branton and Valerie Martinez-Ebers at the University of North Texas. The study tracked hate crime reports from
the Anti-Defamation League in counties that hosted 300 Trump rallies from 2015-2016. But, before the study went through the
academic peer-review process, the mainstream media picked the story and ran with it. CNN, the Washington Post and Vox
published stories on the study at the time, claiming that Trump's words led to a wave of hate crimes. However, two
graduate students debunked the study by replicating the methodology.
An even mixture of sensationalism, dishonesty, and incompetence: CNN's
big 'mistakes' all run in one direction: anti-Trump. CNN blared an "exclusive" headline Monday [9/9/2019] with
a story purporting that US intelligence made the decision to "extract" a spy that it had working within the Russian
government because officials believed his cover may have been compromised by President Trump having "repeatedly mishandled
classified intelligence." That dispatch from Jim Sciutto, CNN's "chief national security correspondent," would have
certainly been a smash if it weren't for vehement denials by the administration and subsequent reporting that contradicted
the crux of the story — that it had been Trump who screwed up the intelligence operation. During a White
House press briefing on Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called CNN's reporting "materially inaccurate."
Newsrooms
all ran with junk study purportedly showing Trump rallies cause hate crimes. Several major newsrooms owe their
readers a retraction. Media outlets fell over each other this year to promote a study purportedly showing that counties
that hosted Trump 2016 campaign rallies later experienced a 226% increase in hate crimes. The study has been thoroughly
debunked this week, leaving several news organizations with egg on their face. As it turns out, uncritically parroting
the findings of an unpublished study that conforms perfectly to specific political biases is apparently a dangerous gamble
for ostensibly serious news organizations.
CBS
Flatters Itself for '60 Minutes'. Think of the media's daily disgust at President Trump's patting himself on
the back. Then watch something like "60 Minutes" and find CBS aerobically praising its own genius and celebrating the
career of its retiring correspondent Steve Kroft in an hourlong episode on Sept. 8. [...] Nobody spent a second on how this
show housed accused serial sexual harassers Charlie Rose and executive producer Jeff Fager. Only the legend is
allowed. When you retire from the coal mine or the meatpacking plant, you might get a cake, or a round of beers.
At television networks, they air a pile of your video clips for the entire country to watch and suggest the world would be a
dismal place without your amazing talents. Steve Kroft is best known for his scads of interviews with candidate and
President Barack Obama. Even CBS acknowledged this. But it did not admit that Kroft's questions were typically
soft-foam word pillows, starting with "Do you think the country's ready for a black president?" and "Did you play basketball
on Super Tuesday?"
Bloomberg
News Yet Again Screws Up Major Story and Doubles Down on Stupid. President Trump often characterizes the media
as the enemy of the people. It is really hard to say he is wrong in the case of Bloomberg. It has gotten multiple
major stories demonstrably, harmed the reputations of American companies, cost a man his job, and stands by its demonstrably
wrong reporting. Bloomberg is harming other news outlets with its behavior.
Chris
Hayes On The Electoral College: 'If It Wasn't Specifically In The Constitution... It Would Be Unconstitutional'. MSNBC
host Chris Hayes attempted to again sow distrust in the Electoral College during his show Friday night [8/30/2019], but his comments
have earned mockery on social media. While speaking to an "All In With Chris Hayes" audience, the host suggested that the
Electoral College — America's system for selecting its president since the Constitution was written — is
unconstitutional. "The weirdest thing about the electoral college is the fact that if it wasn't specifically in the Constitution
for the presidency, it would be unconstitutional," Hayes said. The host briefly paused and looked to the audience, as if
this was supposed to be an applause line.
Drudge
tries to spook Trump voters again. Another Friday and another hamfisted attempt by the Drudge Report to
undermine support for President Donald John Trump. A week ago, Matt Drudge was sure that the trade war with Red China
was going to do The Donald in because the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down. A week before that Drudge had us in a
recession not caused by Red China. Drudge has linked and bannered stories about wars with Iran, North Korea and Syria,
which never materialized.
24
Hours of Media Malpractice. [Scroll down] Exactly two minutes before Lawrence O'Donnell's admission of
error, a reporter at the military news website Task and Purpose tweeted out a story headlined "Children of US troops born
overseas will no longer get automatic American citizenship, Trump administration says." The story merited obvious
skepticism from the get-go and was soon revealed to be premised on a misreading of a minor policy change. The U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Service quickly clarified: The new policy would not affect all kids of service
members. It would affect only a tiny minority of service members in rare circumstances. Nonetheless, the story
was dutifully regurgitated by many other media outlets — many of which appear to have done no reporting of their
own — and spread far and wide by journalists on social media. On Wednesday night [8/28/2019], Twitter was
still full of misinformation and anti-Trump invective generated by an inaccurate story.
A
Dead Cat, A Lawyer's Call and a 5-Figure Donation: How Media Fell Short on Epstein. Before his death
earlier this month, [Jeffrey] Epstein owned the largest townhouse in Manhattan, little more than a mile from many of the
nation's leading news organizations. He counted a former and a future president among his friends. He partied
with royalty and supermodels. He was said to advise billionaires. Epstein killed himself, authorities say, in
federal prison as he faced criminal charges alleging sex trafficking of underage girls, some as young as 14, in his mansions
in New York and Florida. And yet with a few notable exceptions, the national media infrequently covered Epstein's
behavior and rarely looked at the associates who helped him evade accountability for his actions — at least, not
until the Miami Herald's Julie K. Brown's investigative series late last year.
If
What's Going On At CNN Was Occurring At Any Other News Outlet With Their Employees, They Wouldn't Have A Station. It has
been a problematic week for CNN. Perhaps the stress of working for a #fakenews peddler has some of CNN's employees on the edge.
In a rather bizarre culmination, this past week saw one reporter (I can't call these people journalists with a straight face) lose his
ever-loving mind because someone said a word to him. Another reporter sicced her henchmen on a news editor. [...] For whatever
reason, CNN's reporters are wound up pretty tightly. They probably are concerned that ever since the Russian collusion hoax fell
apart, and they cannot spend 24/7 repeating the same talking points repeatedly, to the sheep that hang on every word that this #fakenews
organization peddles, that they might actually need to work and report on real news now.
History
Ignoramus Geraldo Rivera Claims Israel Is Occupying Palestine. Reps. Tlaib's and Omar's constant lying
about Palestine, which they do in hopes of destroying Israel, is having an effect. Fox News' commentator Geraldo Rivera
now thinks Israel is occupying Palestine, a land, not a nation, where many Jews lived before it became Israel. Jews
living in 'Palestine' were called Palestinians.
CNN
discovers that combining Trump Derangement Syndrome with ignorant reporters leads to embarrassing corrections.
CNN's Chris Cillizza tried valiantly to hew to the Party Line when writing about the story that President Trump is exploring
the concept of acquiring Greenland from Denmark. We know that everything the 45th President does is bad, so the only
question for CNN people is how to pick and present the data that tries to prove the point. [...] Who could possibly write
such drivel? And what kind of editor would let the contention that we'd be better off with Russia owning Alaska (and
its vast natural resources including oil and many minerals) strategically placed at the top of the Western Hemisphere?
And what about the nearly three quarters of a million Alaskans? I know that CNN wishes Sarah Palin had never been
governor of a state, but really do we want to tell all those other Alaskans that they and their home state are a mistake?
Blaming
Every Bad Economic Indicator On The Trade War Just Proves You Don't Know What You're Talking About. [Scroll
down] Generally, these pundits have no idea what they are talking about. Another measure of the yield curve, the
three month-10 year Treasury spread — which is more predictive than the two year-10 year Treasury
spread — has been negative for months. You didn't see a bunch of punditry about that when it first went
negative in March. That's because everyone is being political. The left wants a recession because they hate
President Trump, and they are economically illiterate to boot. Hillary Clinton once said the Bush tax cuts caused the
2008 financial crisis, which is ridiculous. And today's Democrat policies would make any recession we did have far
worse, via the government increasing taxes and further cannibalizing the private sector. Yet there are elements of the
establishment GOP, including Never-Trumpers, who hate Trump almost as much as the left does.
Waterloo
of Boomer Catholics. A couple of Portland readers have sent me this story about what happened when the Catholic
archbishop of Portland sent a priest in to reform a wackadoodle progressive parish that had gone native. The Oregonian's
report on it is hysterically biased, making the priest look like a monster; the reporter never once appears to have considered
that Catholicism is a religion that has clear norms, and this parish's previous leadership had seriously violated them, for a
long time.
One giant flub for
the [New York] Daily News. Describing the moon shot that started 50 years ago, the Daily Snooze Tuesday
[8/6/2019] tweeted: "Four Days later, John Glenn would step onto the only other planet we've ever walked on uttering
the famous, 'one small step for a man, one giant step for mankind.'"
Keywords: speculation, baseless conjecture. CNN
speculates injured El Paso victims afraid to go to hospitals because of immigration status. In what appears to
be an attempt to link President Donald Trump to the El Paso shooting, CNN claimed on Saturday that some victims of the mass
shooting "likely" avoided seeking medical treatment because of their "immigration status." The implication was that the
Trump administration's tough but widely supported policies against illegal immigration — a CBS poll from
two months ago found that three-fourths of Americans believe illegal aliens should indeed be detained and deported —
were responsible for this alleged fear.
What ails
the US Press? [Scroll down] The subhead to the column puts it this way: "The media's lack of
interest in the Steele dossier amounts to collusion in a coverup." The lack of journalistic interest calls for an
explanation. Laziness, stupidity, herd mentality, and partisanship all seem to have something to do with the utter lack
of interest in what it's all about, although any one of these factors all by itself may be enough to explain it.
Newspaper
goes out of its way to alienate readers. The Billings Gazette is the largest newspaper in Montana. It
also puts out a Wyoming edition. President Donald John Trump carried Montana by 20 points, and Wyoming by 45.
Montana also elected Republican Steve Daines to the Senate by 17 points in 2014. The editorial board of the Gazette is
so out of step with its readers that it attacked Senator Daines for being too supportive of President Donald John Trump.
In school, I learned an editorial does one of three things: inform, entertain or persuade. In writing editorials for
26 years, I learned you cannot easily persuade people that their last vote was a mistake. I do not think the editorial
board of the Gazette realizes that yet.
The
American Left Is Racist, Not President Trump. As Hong Kong teeters on the brink of mass insurgency against the
fascist mainland government, and Iran's brutal theocracy accelerates their nuclear weapons program, the top story this week
is "Trump is a racist." How do the news anchors and commentators who spew this Trump-bashing pabulum, day after day,
year after year, do so with a straight face?
Media
coverage of Hurricane Barry was the real disaster. There will be no media awards for Al Roker or the Washington
Post in recognition of their coverage of Hurricane Barry. At least if the people living in New Orleans have a say in
the matter. The weekend weather event, fortunately, was nowhere nearly as bad as was predicted in some media
accounts. That's a good thing. The bad thing, though, is the over-hyped media coverage of Tropical Storm Barry
that briefly became Hurricane Barry (a Category 1 storm) before it returned to being a tropical storm. Barry made
landfall Saturday at Intracoastal City, about 160 miles west of New Orleans. Unfortunately, to read or listen to media
coverage, you would have heard calls for mass evacuation in New Orleans, well outside of where the storm hit. The word
"evacuation" has its own connotations for residents on the Gulf Coast and it is not a word to be used lightly. For a
television weather forecaster to suggest such an action when the local authorities are not calling for it, the situation can
turn unnecessarily dangerous.
Media
got Mexican deal wrong. When President Donald John Trump told Mexico to help us defend our border or pay
tariffs, the media went into hysteria. They forecast an Avocadolypse. CNN reported, "Chipotle could raise burrito
prices by 5¢ if Mexico tariffs become permanent." When President Trump won that Mexican war, the media cast shade
on his victory. The New York Times scoffed, "The deal to avert tariffs that President Trump announced with great
fanfare on Friday night consists largely of actions that Mexico had already promised to take in prior discussions with the
United States over the past several months, according to officials from both countries who are familiar with the
negotiations." Mexico had been promising such help for years. That's what politicians do. They
promise. President Trump got them to keep their word. That's what a real leader does.
Media
Predictions of "Tiny Crowd" For Trump July 4 Speech Proven Spectacularly Wrong. The media ran headlines right
up to the day of President Trump's July 4 speech predicting only a "tiny crowd" would show up. How spectacularly
wrong they were. [...] In reality, photos from the event show crowds stretching the full length of the national mall.
An
embarrassment to village idiots. At a time when the American political press could not possibly do any more to
embarrass itself, CNN's Jim Acosta strikes again. This time overseas after President Trump spent the weekend meeting
with the world's most powerful leaders.
Coffee
will Kill You, Until it Won't, and Other Fake Health News. Every week there is another health pronouncement
saying what is now good for you and what is going to kill you. Unfortunately, the "what" is often interchangeable —
what was supposed to kill you last week is now suddenly good for you or vice versa. Foods, supplements, and activities, all
studied extensively and determined to be either good or bad, then subject to a new study, with the opposite conclusion.
How can this be?
Journalists
[are] Surprised D-Day Veterans Support President Donald Trump. Journalists were surprised to learn Thursday
[6/6/2019], on the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, that many of the American veterans of that historic
battle support President Donald Trump. The common theme in the media was that Trump is challenging the transatlantic
alliances that were forged during the march to victory in the Second World War.
The
hoax and due diligence. Nothing illustrates the decline of serious journalism more than the fact that many of
the major media, particularly CNN and MSNBC, have participated (and to some extent continue to participate) in massive hoaxes
which would have been easily disproved with basic due diligence. The first and least important hoax was that of Michael
Avenatti. He appeared on CNN and MSNBC more than 100 times where he was touted as an expert on many things,
particularly the alleged misdeeds of President Trump. Fawning hosts on these networks even referred to him as
presidential material — yet he was nothing more than a conman. He now faces about 400 years in prison
if he is convicted on the many charges in several different courts.
The
Democrat Puff Piece Challenge. [Scroll down] When it comes to newcomer Pete Buttigieg, the trivia is
already encyclopedic. Favorite food/book/music is way too shallow — how about his favorite socks, whisky,
wristwatch, multi-tool, and beef jerky? New York Magazine went all out for their guy with a The Things They
Carried-style vanity piece. The picture his possessions paint is a man who is practical (learned it in the
military), tasteful (somehow relates to his military service), and wise. Oh, and he served his country. We know
he speaks eight languages, loves his husband, and will never contend without the black vote. Hmm... Mayor Pete's
Hot Sauce, anyone? How is it that we come to learn so much about Democrat candidates running for president, and so
little about Republicans?
Our
Collective Dive off the Cliff. The burning of the Cathedral of Notre Dame — in the heart of Paris,
in the heart of France, in the heart of Europe, in the heart of Christendom and Western civilization — was an
absolute cultural catastrophe. [...] Over at CNN, Frida Ghitis penned a heartwarming, sincere panegyric, but one in which she
cannot help but refer to Notre Dame as "a building, technically a religious structure." Technically a religious
structure? I wonder what tipped Ghitis off. The giant crucifix bestriding the altar? The religious imagery
that adorns literally every surface of the place? The masses of people who gather there daily to pray? What facet
of the building does Ghitis consider technically a non-religious structure?
UN
hysteria linking climate change and species extinction mindlessly parroted by media. Why [...] would anyone
with a brain take U.N. reports as factual when so many have been spectacularly wrong by direction and amount? Why would
politicians base any policies on these crackpot reports, especially since we know that scientists have manipulated the
numbers when their previous predictions have been wrong? Should the public just be willing to hand over trillions to
government bureaucrats to control our lives? Does anyone believe that politicians and bureaucrats can control
temperatures, sea levels, and storm activity if we hand over trillions to them? If they do, they are a few bricks short
of a load. The big question is, why would journalists, who are supposed to fact-check and investigate what they publish
or report, just repeat all these things as if they are factual?
If
Donald Trump Is A Con Man, The Media Are The Biggest Marks In History. The New York Times is running a story
that shows President Donald Trump lost nearly a billion dollars in failed businesses over the course of a decade. As
expected, many in the media are out in force, noting that it is more proof that Trump is a con man and a liar. The
stories of Trump's failed businesses are stories that were run at many right-leaning outlets back in 2016 —
including here at RedState — and would not be new to the media if they had covered Trump honestly back then.
It is funny, truly funny, to see many of the same people who gave Trump enormous coverage in the primaries and paved the way
for his nomination call him a con man acting like a wealthy mogul in order to increase his own popularity and social
value. Essentially, they are outing themselves as the people who fell for his con in the primaries.
The Increasingly
Narrow, Parochial Prism of Journalism. Last month, immediately after fire had almost destroyed the cathedral of
Notre Dame in Paris, the Washington Post ran a piece with the headline, "The Notre Dame fire ignites the West's
far-right." The author, Ishaan Tharoor, used his piece to expand on that untimely and inaccurate claim. [...] What is
strangest — and most defamatory — is to call people "far-right", or insinuate that they are linked to
the far-right because they are saddened by the fire at Notre Dame. It might be possible to think this article was just
the dishonest and dishonourable smear-job attempted by one jobbing hack. Yet a week later, and the Washington
Post was back at a similar trick. In the aftermath of the appalling Easter Sunday attacks on Christians and
tourists in Sri Lanka, the Washington Post ran a story, "Christianity under attack? Sri Lanka church bombings
stoke far-right anger in the West."
Thirdhand
Hearsay Story Says Mueller Prosecutors Had the Goods on Trump to Charge Obstruction. [Scroll down] This
violates almost every rule set out by Perry Bacon of FiveThirtyEight in "When To Trust A Story That Uses Unnamed Sources."
It is attributed to only two people, and even then, it is a third-party recollection of a conversation in which the reporter
did not participate. Given the sourcing, the quotes are virtually impossible to verify — another tipoff
that a story probably is not true. The third-hand sources are identified only as "former Mueller prosecutors," which
means the story runs up against Bacon's recommendation that "specifics matter" when identifying anonymous sources. Waas
claims the Mueller team prosecutors "would have advocated" that Trump face federal criminal charges for obstruction.
Greta:
'Overuse of Anonymous Sources' One of the 'Biggest Crimes' in Journalism Today. Greta Van Susteren, a former
Fox News and MSNBC host, said one of the "biggest crimes" in journalism today is the "overuse of anonymous sources,"
specifically in press coverage of President Trump and the White House. Van Susteren was asked about former
Nightline anchor Ted Koppel, who recently criticized some newspapers for putting commentary about Trump on the front
page, adding that Trump is "not mistaken" in his perception that the press is "out to get him." Van Susteren, who now
works for Gray TV, told PJM she agrees with Koppel.
"Reporting"
on the Sri Lanka Jihadist Massacres. If you think the mainstream media in America are shameless in their devotion
to leftist orthodoxy — well, of course you're right. But there are exceptions: at least some major
outlets in the U.S. don't march in ideological lockstep. Even the New York Times has a good, honest reporter or
two. In any event, you don't have to pay to read these people's claptrap if you don't want to. Imagine, by
contrast, living in Norway, where the political left has a total lock on the mainstream news media, and the country's five
million people are forced to pay big time for their non-stop propaganda. [...] Aside from its lockstep ideology, Norwegian
journalism is notorious for its laziness, irresponsibility, and all-around mediocrity. Much of it reads like stuff out
of a sub-par American high-school paper. Simple grammatical errors abound.
Astonishing ignorance: Actual
AP Headline: "Tourist Mecca Notre Dame Also Revered As Place Of Worship". The AP's story about this is
much better than the unfortunate headline appended to it. It doesn't typify the secular perspective of the title as
much as it responds to it, informing readers who might regard Notre Dame as chiefly a cultural landmark that the cathedral
remains important to Catholic spiritual life.
Top
10 things the media got wrong about 'collusion' and 'obstruction'. The prestige press has some explaining to
do — for subjecting the nation to a long, cruel ordeal named "collusion" and "obstruction." Almost two years
and millions of column inches later, special counsel Robert Mueller has revealed the theory that President Trump and his
campaign conspired with Russia has been just that. All that remains of collusion and obstruction is the media's
shattered credibility.
AOC Isn't Even a Good Environmentalist.
Every Dem presidential candidate has endorsed the Green New Deal. The media has covered what should be laughable notions like no
automobiles, regulating diet and eliminating cows, with all the gravitas of innovations in heart surgery. They cover it like
it's a real thing and more, they paint anyone critical of the ideas as bigoted, closed minded, old-fashioned climate deniers and
anti-science crazies. Yes, that's an inversion of the truth, but that's how it's covered.
Why
Last Year's Trump-Russia Pulitzer Was No Prize. With the announcement of the 2019 Pulitzer Prizes set for next
Monday, last year's award to the New York Times and Washington Post for Trump-Russia coverage is already looking like a
crumpled first draft of history lofting in a high arc to the dustbin. It's eclipsed by the double-whammy of the Special
Counsel's finding of no collusion with the Kremlin and Attorney General William Barr's disclosure this week that he'll
investigate spying by federal authorities on the Trump campaign. Eclipsed and how. But the deep flaws in this
honored coverage, instrumental in pushing the collusion narrative, shouldn't be overlooked just because it's been overtaken
by events, or many journalists would prefer to move on, or because President Trump calls it "fake news." The flaws reveal
broader problems in reporting this continuing story and journalism in general.
CNN
Host Asks If FBI Should Have 'Shut Down' Trump Supporters Chanting 'Lock Her Up'. CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour called
"lock her up" chants by Donald Trump supporters "hate speech" in a new interview and asked James Comey if he wished he had
"shut down that language" in his capacity as FBI Director at the time. Amanpour recounted the frequent chants at Trump 2016
campaign rallies about imprisoning Hillary Clinton for her perceived crimes and wondered if they should have been legal, but Comey
responded it was not the role of government officials to censor that speech.
Why
do the least-bright people rise to the top? For over two years, we have been tormented or delighted, depending
on one's political preference, by the opinions and or declarations avowing President Trump's guilt with regard to collusion
with Russia. It was all a made-up scam from the beginning, but the media and the leftist loons have beaten this dead
horse relentlessly in the fervid hope it would see Trump forced from the office he legitimately won. Our horrific media
who has long worked hand in glove with the Democrats, has spent hundreds of hours, over 500,000 columns, articles and op-eds
asserting Trump's guilt. It was all a hoax from the outset, fabricated within a few days of Hillary 's loss to
Trump. Most of those who got on board the Russia collusion hoax knew it was a lie from day one. But they embraced
the lie wholeheartedly.
AP
offers correction after reporting Beto O'Rourke spoke 'in his native Spanish'. The Associated Press faced
backlash on social media Monday [4/1/2019] after writing that Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke spoke "in his
native Spanish" at a rally in El Paso, Texas. Although O'Rourke speaks Spanish, he a fourth-generation Irish-American
whose full name is Robert Francis O'Rouke. The AP report originally wrote: "O'Rourke also spoke at length in his
native Spanish, eliciting loud and sustained cheers."
From
Trayvon to RussiaGate: No Media Reckoning, Only Denial and Tragedy. CNN's Brian Stelter opened his Sunday
[3/24/2019] show arguing the media did nothing wrong in its coverage of the Russia Collusion Hoax. So now we know how
the media will react to this latest disgrace — with denial, total and complete denial.
The
Mueller-Industrial Complex Collapses. So much media is premediated now, it's almost impossible to find
something whose payload isn't partly composed of practice for future events. Most of the time, nobody even notices this
phenomenon. Premediation works because it homes in on natural anxieties or desires amplified by the hyper-mediated
ecosystem in which television, smartphones, social media, and all the rest rot and reanimate. Whom should I consider
voting for in the next election? Am I going to die if I board a plane? Those are questions whose future answers
seem to demand consideration today.
Mediacide over Trump.
Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone, hardly a fan of President Donald John Trump, had good news: Russiagate is the death of
American media. He compared the press carrying of Democrat water in this case to the media's unquestioning belief in
government that Saddam Hussein had enough weapons of mass destruction to warrant an invasion in 2003. That seems an apt
comparison. We in the media wanted to believe a war was justified, and so we never questioned what we were told.
Worthless is the man or organization that does not learn from the past.
Bonfire of the
Media Vanities. Every major news outfit from CNN to the New York Times loves to use the phrase
"conspiracy theory" to label some notion crazy, regardless of whether it is actually a conspiracy theory. These and
most other news outlets just spent two years peddling a cockamamie conspiracy theory that the blunderers inside the Donald
Trump presidential campaign somehow pulled off an illegal collusion scheme with the Russians to sway the outcome of the 2016
election. This theory was never anything but far-fetched, given what we know. It was mainly driven by disbelief
that Trump could have been elected without cheating.
Mueller
Madness: The media pundits who got it most wrong. Special counsel Robert Mueller has definitively put to
rest the collusion theory of President Trump's election. That's not a little embarrassing for the many journalists,
talking heads, celebrities and instant experts who spent more than two years furiously speculating about Moscow "pee-pee"
tapes, treasonous rendezvous and the president's imminent arrest. The president's haters no doubt wish to memory-hole
collusion and move on to the next anti-Trump theory. But not so fast: We want to laurel the punditry
"champion" — the one who peddled the most nonsensical nonsense, the wildest inanities, the weirdest theories and
unsubstantiated stories.
A
bad couple of years for anonymous sources. [I]t was a really bad couple of years for those reporters, and their
editors, who decided to break stories based on all those "sources familiar with the investigation." I wonder if any will
have the character to step up and say "we messed up badly."
The
American Media Destroyed Themselves over the Mueller Investigation. With only a few exceptions — Fox
News, the editorial pages (not the front pages) of the Wall Street Journal, and a handful of websites — the
better part of the American media has spent the last two years fulminating about Trump-Russia collusion we now know never
existed. Actually, we always knew that, but finally, it's official. It was always a bunch of — excuse
the expression — trumped up baloney that made no sense except to those who wished so deeply to believe it was
true. Which makes the people who were doing that fulminating — media, politicians and (usually retired)
intelligence figures, who were, as is becoming increasingly clear, betraying the American Constitutional system with
impunity — sick and evil.
Five
things that didn't happen in the Mueller investigation. [#1] Mueller did not indict Donald
Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, or other people whose purported legal jeopardy was the subject of intense media speculation in the
last year. [#2] Mueller did not charge anyone in the Trump campaign or circle with conspiring with Russia
to fix the 2016 election, as was the subject of intense media speculation in the last year. [#3] Mueller
did not subpoena the president, as was the subject of intense media speculation in the last year. [#4] The
president did not fire Mueller, as was the subject of intense media speculation in the last year. [#5] The
president did not interfere with the Mueller investigation, as was the subject of intense media speculation in the last year.
Blankenship
Is Right: Sue the Mainstream Media Out of Existence. [Scroll down] [S]wamp-bought media hitjobs
such as the one perpetrated against [Don] Blankenship prevent anti-establishment candidates from taking office and discourage
them from running. Can we say with certainty that now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh would have dared accept his
nomination by President Trump had he known in advance the flurry of irresponsible reporting on unsubstantiated sexual
misconduct allegations to come? And our concern shouldn't be limited just to these cases: consider the reckless
endangerment of the very lives and careers of the Covington Catholic children by the mainstream media.
CNN
Wins Cronkite Award For That Garbage Gun-Control Town Hall It Held After Parkland. Literally one of the most
demagogic stunts CNN has ever aired, but it had the right politics so naturally it just won a Cronkite Award for "journalism"
from USC's Norman Lear Center. The full title of the award, by the way, is "The Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in
Television Political Journalism." The official title of the CNN town hall was "Stand Up: The Students of Stoneman Douglas
Demand Action." It wasn't journalism and wasn't even presented as such. It was gun-control advocacy by its own terms.
CNN
mistakenly uses photo of dead judge in report on Paul Manafort case. CNN was caught accidentally using a photo
of a judge who's been dead for more than a decade to illustrate a Thursday afternoon [3/7/32019] report about the sentencing of Paul
Manafort. The cable network displayed a picture of the late Chief Judge Edward Becker of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in
Philadelphia over the name of federal Judge T.S. Ellis III, according to the Law and Crime website. Ellis presided
over Manafort's trial and was preparing to hand down his punishment for bank and tax fraud. Becker died of prostate cancer in
2006 at age 73.
Oops Journalism. The coverage
of the Covington HS incident during this year's March for Life may have shown journalism at its worse. Depending on
your personal bias, you could find a version of the event to confirm it. In this age of 24/7 news and instantaneous
coverage of events, journalists and the media that employs them have incentives to be first with a piece of news. If
they get it wrong, many don't engage in introspection; they simply move on.
Democrats
Con Their Base with Green New Deal. [Scroll down] If you believe for one second that any material provision of the
Green New Deal will become policy, you're being conned. A competent media could and should prove as much in mere moments.
A competent media could and should ask Kamala Harris at every campaign stop for her precise plan to "guarantee a job with a family-sustaining
wage" to every person in the U.S. A competent media could and should rush to press Elizabeth Warren about her precise plan to
completely overhaul American power generation in a mere ten-year span without crushing the economy. After all, if a series of
Republican presidential candidates pledged together to, say, abolish Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid yet still also guarantee
health care and retirement security for all Americans, wouldn't the media be extremely curious as to how they could pull off
such an astounding achievement?
Democratic
and Republican Résumé-Enhancers. After serving as a Chicago community organizer and Illinois
state senator, Barack Obama rose from a pedestrian three years as a U.S. senator to become the 44th president of the United
States. Coming out of a corrupt city and a corrupt state with corrupt politicians (four of the last seven Illinois
governors have been jailed), Obama had a few election irregularities of his own that were basically unreported by the
media. Also largely ignored by the media was Obama's choice of mentor-pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who would regularly
condemn America and white people from the pulpit on Sunday mornings, using coarse and inflammatory language. Obama gave
great speeches about bringing Hope and Change, which were short on specifics but emotionally appealing to many voters.
The lack of any specific plans to make America better was an appalling shortcoming of Obama's campaign, but the media ignored
it. Instead, the media fell in love with the idea that America had a chance to elect its first black president, so
Obama's actual accomplishments, character, and intended policies were given short shrift. Tom Brokaw and Charlie Rose,
two of America's most recognized journalists, admitted in an interview a few days before the 2008 election that they didn't
know what books might be important to Obama and didn't know anything about his foreign policy views. The fact that
these highly influential media figures purposely chose to remain clueless about Obama's beliefs and the policies he would
promote as leader of the free world is a stunning admission of incompetency and journalistic malpractice. Instead of
being journalists presenting facts, the media hid important facts about Obama from the voters in an obvious attempt to
influence the election.
Smollett
case proves that journalism in this country is dead and buried. In case after case after case, the mainstream
media, they devour any story that just fits their radical, extreme extension of the Democratic socialist party agenda.
If it advances the narrative that Donald Trump is evil and his supporters are bad and America is scary and racist and sexist,
homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, the media mob will shift into full gear without performing any due diligence —
without even picking up the telephone, without any kind of investigation, not even five minutes worth. Look at what they
did to the 16-year-old Covington high school student, Nick Sandmann. Off a 15-second blurb, they accused him of being a
racist, harassed him, accused him of assaulting a 65-year-old activist and getting in his face. They tried to ruin this
kid's life with slander, smearing, besmirching, character assassination. They accused Justice Brett Kavanaugh of gang
rape, saying that every other weekend, he and his friends were drugging teenage girls and literally, you know, lining up
in the hall for gang rapes that nobody ever reported. They tried to ruin his life, tried to call him an alcoholic.
We know how that ended. He is now a Supreme Court justice.
Did
the Media Jump the Gun on the Jussie Smollett Story? In light of new details in the investigation of the
alleged assault on actor Jussie Smollett, fingers have been pointed at "the media" for jumping the gun on the story. In
pushing back against that, there is an emerging effort to draw distinction between rapid fire activists and celebrities on
social media, and members of the press.
Fact
Check: Barack Obama Installed Golf Simulator in White House. Barack Obama was the first U.S. president
to install a golf simulator in the White House, according to a bombshell report in the far-left Washington Post. [...]
[W]hat we have here is yet another example of just how determined the Washington Post and the rest of the media are to
live in their own heads; because they don't even realize what a dazzling self-own this report is. Seriously, think
about it: the Washington Post "bombshell" on President Trump updating Obama's golf simulator, and doing
so with his own money, just proves once again how useless and corrupt the establishment media are. But with its
stupid bombshell about Trump's golf simulator, all the far-left Post is doing is admitting it did not report on
Obama's golf simulator, is admitting that were it not for the Post's obsessive hatred of Trump, the public never would
have learned about Obama's golf simulator.
The
Tail Of Twitter Is Wagging The Dog Of Media. Mark Cuban got fact-checked in 2017 for approximating that Twitter
only reaches about 15 percent of the population. In all likelihood, he wasn't very far off. It's almost
impossible to estimate how many of us Twitter actually "reaches," but mapping out the limits of its scope is now an important
project. Twitter makes and breaks careers. It makes and breaks lives. Perhaps most saliently, the platform
shapes news cycles, which, in turn, shape how people see the world. Because journalists spend disproportionate time on
the website relative to most of their audience, outlets increasingly amplify Twitter's viral stories, and seemingly without
questioning their broader relevance.
Yet
Another Reason Why CNN Isn't A Real News Organization. Nowadays, it's typical for reporters to berate President
Trump. Gone are the days when decorum and simple manners reigned in the White House briefing room. The situation
has grown even worse in recent days.
The
Progressive Race to the Bottom. The media are not just becoming left-wing; they're no longer even a
news-gathering operation. Reporting is synonymous with editorializing. Fake news — whether the latest
BuzzFeed myth or the Covington charade — is simply a word for thirtysomethings who believe that they have a duty
to promote race, class, and gender agendas that they were spoon-fed in college. They too often define accuracy as the
higher Truth that transcends the fossilized idea of truth predicated on obsolete ideas such as evidence, facts, and empiricism.
The
Media Still Don't Get It. Journalists and pundits ran with an incomplete story about an out-of-context video,
showing a student at the March For Life wearing a red MAGA hat smiling in front of a Native American man beating a
drum. They said the boy, Nick Sandmann, and the surrounding students were mocking and harassing the man, Nathan
Phillips. [...] The media ran with this. They had to — the story checked all of the boxes they are ever-so-eager to
check: white, Christian, pro-life Trump supporter is a racist. They couldn't have concocted a more delicious recipe
if they tried. [...] Then the truth came out. Nearly two hours of footage was published, and the context it provided
exonerated the Sandmann and the other Covington students. As it turns out, members of the cult, Black Hebrew
Israelites, were the real perpetrators of hate on the scene, hurling homophobic and racist insults at the teens (haven't
heard a peep from leftists about them, though — fascinating).
Media's anti-Trump addiction
amps up the outrage and fuels the public's suspicion. Alas, much of today's political journalism has fallen
into advocacy, intentionally inflammatory, using or omitting selective details, quotes and background to make a case against
President Donald Trump. The criticism generally centers on something he did or said he would do — or
something someone, usually unidentified, said he might do or is considering possibly doing. And then in a kind of
staged Kabuki dance, journalists run to gather reaction from waiting opponents who provide a predictably outraged quote
calling for counteraction. Yes, this president's name boosts ratings and clicks from both sides. But the media's
addiction to anything Trump lets this president manipulate them, which he does skillfully. It squeezes out other
important news. And it denies Americans a set of generally-accepted facts to debate, merely providing fodder for an
anti-Trump agenda and more argumentative ammo for both sides.
Kyrsten
Sinema's dress draws attention at Senate swearing-in. Kyrsten Sinema and Martha McSally made history Thursday [1/3/2019],
becoming the first two women from Arizona sworn into the U.S. Senate. Sinema made even more history than that, becoming the first
openly bisexual person in the Senate. So, naturally, everyone talked about her dress.
Basic
Premises. If you rely on the mass media to inform you about your community, state and nation, you will, with
rare exceptions, be woefully ignorant of what is really going on. [...] [S]ince most media companies are now controlled by a
handful of corporations whose sole interest is in maintaining a high profit margin, you are getting mostly fluff instead of
hard news. Hard news is labor-intensive. It is cheaper to go with the fluff.
Ripping
Trump on Shutdown, MSNBC 'Republican' Elise Jordan Unaware Trump Donates Prez Pay. Subbing for [Nicolle] Wallace on her
MSNBC show this afternoon [12/28/2018], Elise Jordan, a former aide to Pres. George W. Bush, provided another example of the
genre. Ripping President Trump over the shutdown, an overwrought Jordan declared that Trump "won't skip paychecks" as a result of the
shutdown. Technically that's true, since by law the President is deemed an essential employee. But Jordan is apparently unaware
that Trump has never cashed a presidential paycheck, donating each one instead to different government departments to fund good works.
McClatchy
News Beclowns Themselves With Michael Cohen Sourcing. After claiming to have proprietary information that Michael Cohen
visited Prague, McClatchy News reporter Greg Gordon appeared on MSNBC to share the origin of the story. Not only did the reporters
who wrote the article not see the evidence, the sources they used for the claim that Cohen visited Prague also did not see the
evidence. Apparently, a person told another person, who then told Greg Gordon and Peter Stone what the 3rd hand person
told them. That's the sourcing for the claim that Michael Cohen's cell phone was in Prague.
Michael Cohen Report
Is Based On Third-Hand Information, Reporter Reveals. The reporters who broke a potentially bombshell story
claiming evidence that Michael Cohen visited Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign did not see for themselves some of
the underlying intelligence cited in their report, one of the journalists who wrote the story revealed Thursday [12/27/2018].
In an interview on MSNBC, Greg Gordon said that he and his McClatchy colleague, Peter Stone, did not physically see cell tower
records and intelligence intercepts that they claim placed Cohen in Prague in summer 2016. Gordon also suggested that the
four anonymous sources he and Stone cite in their article also did not see the intelligence for themselves, meaning that the
report is based on third-hand information.
Military
writer does not understand chain of command. Tara Copp is the Pentagon Bureau Chief for Military Times, which
is owned by Gannett. She wrote a column over the weekend, "What checks are left on the president's military power now
that Mattis is gone?" She has a master's degree from Georgetown, was an embedded reporter in the Iraq War, and has
15 years experience covering the Pentagon. Despite all this, she never learned what the chain of command is.
The
Biggest Junk Science of 2018. [#11] Doctor Oz Endorses Astrology. Celebrity physician Dr. Mehmet Oz
is a quack doctor, plain and simple. Once a respected surgeon, he left behind his legitimacy long ago by touting questionable
health advice, bogus cures, and weight loss "miracles" on his popular daytime television show. This summer, he fell even
further down the rabbit hole by tweeting an endorsement of astrology. Astrology, not to be confused with astronomy, suggests
that the positions of celestial objects affect the fortunes of people and outcome of events here on Earth. Though patently
ridiculous, the pseudoscience has still been tested and — unsurprisingly — been found to be completely
bogus. But bogus is good enough for Doctor Oz, it seems.
The
real tragedy of human-caused climate change theories is not environmental. MSNBC anchor Katy Tur read an
article in the New Yorker about the devastating effect California's wildfires have had due to climate change and proclaimed,
["]I read that New Yorker article today, and I thought, 'Gosh, how pointless is my life and how pointless are the
decisions that I'm making on a day-to-day basis, when we are not focused on climate change every day, when it's not leading
every one of our newscasts?'["] That's not funny and not to be ridiculed. It's sad. It's sad because
it appears she has been trained to say that ridiculous thing through deceit and pressure.
This Is CNN: Stupid-Stupid-Stupid. A
classic look back at when longtime CNN anti-Trumper Wolf Blitzer was smoked and quickly discarded like a cheap Honduran cigar (by comedian Andy
Richter no less) after finishing -$4600 on Celebrity Jeopardy. As you watch this you would do well to remember that Mr. Blitzer is
among the brightest of the dim-bulbed Establishment Media. [Video clip]
Fake News along the
border. On Sunday [11/25/2018], the Associated Press reported, "Migrants approaching the U.S. border from
Mexico were enveloped with tear gas Sunday after a few tried to breach the fence separating the two countries. U.S.
agents shot the gas, according to an Associated Press reporter on the scene. Children were screaming and coughing in
the mayhem." The wire service quoted the invaders and Mexican officials, but not one U.S. official in its 582-word
report. That is not journalism because journalism requires telling both sides of the story.
Andrea
Mitchell of MSNBC wins the prize for the stupidest comment on the border assault. There is a lot of competition,
but one Trump-hater stands out for utter, implausible, easily-refuted inanity in attempting to demonize opposition to the
organized attempt to force our southern border open to anyone who wants to come here and sign up for the rich subsidies
and benefits offered to poor people. Congratulations to Andrea Mitchell: you have now earned your place in
broadcast history with the claim that calling the mob intent on violating our border a "caravan" demonizes them.
Newsweek
Reporter: Almost Everyone I've Ever Heard Of Who Owns An AR-15 Is A Mass Murderer. What she said is a
smear (a highly paranoid one too, ironically) but in her case it's probably the truth. She's a professional journalist
who lives in New York City. She writes on feminism, Washington politics, and the Middle East. How many people
could she possibly know who own an AR-15? The only time she's apt to run across one is on the printed newspaper page, in
stories about lunatics living out their revenge fantasies by reaching for something powerful that resembles an M-16.
CNN's
Acosta vs Trump White House Lawsuit Reads Like It Was Written In Crayon. CNN, apparently not satisfied with
merely having nearly cornered the market on fake news, is going for the most incompetent news network as well. Most
have likely heard about its attempt to sue the Trump White House (and a Secret Service agent — stay classy, CNN)
for having revoked bratty correspondent Jim Acosta's press pass. Funny thing is, that lawsuit is now exposing CNN for
how little it actually knows about anything — including the U.S. Constitution, the truth, and basic good manners.
The
View's Joy Behar Blames Gerrymandering for Democratic Senate Losses. Joy Behar of The View displayed her lack
of knowledge on Wednesday [11/7/2018] when she blamed the Democratic Senate losses in the midterm elections on
gerrymandering — despite that U.S. Senators represent the whole state rather than individual districts.
Behar made her comment during a discussion with ABC political analyst Matthew Dowd about how Democrats lost seats in the
Senate on Tuesday despite having more overall votes than Republicans.
Shameful Election
Coverage by Fox News. "Why can we call the Democrats taking the House this early?" Fox News anchor Bret Baier
asked analyst Chris Stirewalt. "Because we're just that good," Stirewalt replied with a proud smirk. That just
about sums up Fox's election coverage of the 2018 midterms. It was a self-indulgent display of self-promotion,
bickering, and irresponsibility as the entire House was called before polls in the western part of the country had even
closed. One has to wonder how many people were deterred from voting when they heard Republicans had already lost the
House. There was a time when news media covered elections without needing to be the first horse out of the gate with
results.
Huh?
Reuters Reporter Urges US Government to Give Each Caravan Member $1 Million — And Save the US $175 Million!
Third caravan of illegal aliens marched through the hills of and rivers of Central America on its way to the US southern border. [...]
Of course, the liberal media is in overdrive defending these illegal invaders. Reuters reporter Patricia Zengerie posted
this suggestion on Monday [11/5/2018] — Give them all a million dollars! That ought to cut down on the illegal
invaders, huh?
MSNBC's
test 'misfire' airs results in Florida race for governor a day early. MSNBC called the race early —
by a day. The cable news channel got ahead of itself Monday evening [11/5/2018] when it put a graphic onscreen showing
the results of the Florida governor's race — roughly 24 hours before polls in the Sunshine State even closed.
MSNBC
beclowned themselves handling Gillum's loss in Florida. The most hilarious coverage of the midterms was MSNBC's
handling of Andrew Gillum's losing campaign for Florida's governorship. The 90% of the media that hates Trump and his
supporters really, really wanted Andrew Gillum to win: he's a radical leftist who is charismatic, articulate, and very
left wing. Oh, and he is black, which means he has the potential to drive black turnout to Obama-like levels. MSNBC
reported a Gillum victory before voting even started.
Disabled
Vet Can't Vote After NBC Sets Up Camera In Handicapped Parking Space, Refuses To Move. A disabled Air Force
veteran says an MSNBC news crew blocked his way into a polling site in Houston when it parked in a handicapped parking
spot. "Went to vote, and found this waiting for us," James Berrie, who has multiple sclerosis, wrote on Facebook.
"The only van accessible spot and they're filming in it. We asked them to move, pointed out how it was wrong, then went
to vote, because it takes time to load up. But came out and still there. Not even packing up, still getting
ready for their shot."
Should
News Anchors Wear Ties? One Station No Longer Thinks So. Pretty much since the first television newscast,
one wardrobe rule has been fairly consistent: anchors wear ties. One Boston station is trying to rewrite that
rule. Most of the time, news anchors wear ties and jackets when they deliver the news. There are some individual
newscasts, particularly at less usual news times, such as 4:00 pm or 7:00 pm, where male anchors can get away with
not wearing or tie or wearing a tie with no sports coat. But as a general rule, the biggest newscasts of the day still
follow the old fashion format. In Boston, that just changed for three NBC-owned outlets.
Media
"Hot Takes" About Breaking News Are Dumb, Irresponsible. As a species, we love chaos. Excitement makes us
excited. Real world drama feeds our lives when television dramas cannot. This fascination with death, destruction
and misery is just a part of the human condition and I'm no way condemning or condoning it. It is neither bad nor good,
moral nor immoral. It just is. But our fascination with that which goes wrong is intentionally exploited by a
media vying for our attention. Heck, you may well argue this very column is nothing but an attempt to get your attention
during a period of chaos and drama. I wouldn't even argue with you. In order to get your attention, in order to
win your clicks, media ramps up the chaos. With irresponsible speculation.
Suspicious
packages, not bombs. Always wait 24 hours before reacting politically to crime news because the media generally
does a terrible job in reporting national crime stories. Rumors and hype hound the coverage because the amount of actual
news does not warrant the amount of time devoted to the story on cable television. Commentary from people ignorant of the
facts (and limited in their intellect) dominate the airwaves. [...] Finally, the media's history of falling for hoaxes
complicates the situation. Liberals have succeeded in destroying America's ability to trust its media. Calling
a suspicious package a bomb did little to reassure us that the media is run by competent people.
Media Bias Examples for the
Week of 10/15/2018. [For example,] The Washington Post published an article suggesting Georgetown Prep, the
high school that was relentlessly smeared during the Kavanaugh saga, is now seeking a new Director for Alumni
Relations. The article claimed that the opening was new and related to the bad press the school had received during
from the Kavanaugh stories. Only problem? As the correction on the article now states, the school actually
started looking for someone to fill this position back in July. Something that they should have clearly checked before
publishing this piece.
The
Liberal Mob Must Be Stopped in November. This week saw liberals obsessed with the disappearance, and now we
know murder, of Jamal Khashoggi. The obsession was not over how he was killed, despotic governments kill their citizens
all the time and no one bats an eye, it was a combination of two things — his job and the opportunity to attack
President Trump. Khashoggi was billed as a journalist, but he was more of a columnist. Either way, if he had any
other job you never would have heard his name. But journalists love stories about journalism the way Hollywood loves
movies about the movie business. Add in the ability to blame his murder on the President's criticism and you've got the
perfect media storm. And Democrats were more than happy to jump on board.
Media Mangles Its Duty
to Question Ford. A reasonable, objective, establishment media would have spent far more time than it has in
delving into Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's background and credibility, and her veracity under oath — especially
if they think it relevant to endlessly parse Brett Kavanaugh's high school yearbook, jokey memos about Beach Week, and
collegiate throwing of ice from a barroom glass. Granted, there is an important line, not to be crossed, between
rational examination of relevant information and, on the other hand, blaming or bullying the putative victim. Yet the
examination must be done. The accused cannot be automatically assumed to be guilty. This isn't just a
legal principle, but a moral one. A false allegation, even if it never reached a court of law, can ruin reputations and
even lives. Yet most of the media has acted as if the only one whose veracity and character are legitimate grounds for
investigation is the one accused of heinous acts.
The
Mainstream Media Fraud. In their anger and retaliation, far too many mainstream reporters, editors, anchors,
and columnists exhibit an inability to generate an original thought or comprehend basic concepts, hence fabrications,
innuendo, and "fake news" are the hallmark of the mainstream media today. Further, they are much more impatient than
those who preceded them — thus, the herd mentality in the despicable reporting on Judge Kavanaugh, the distorted
coverage of Donald Trump, and the determination to foment tribalism and resentment. These overt actions are why
Americans, as polling reveals, have become increasingly suspicious of the mainstream media and are searching for alternative
sources of news.
You
Idiot Reporters Are Making It Worse. Democratic senators who announced they would never vote for Kavanaugh under any
circumstance keep getting asked if the FBI investigation they demanded will be "enough for them." Enough for what? To
still vote no? I'm not criticizing the Democrats themselves — though I obviously could — I'm criticizing the people
who interview these senators. Time and again, these journalists interview the Democrats as if they were open-minded about this
investigation when in every breath they insist that the investigation will be illegitimate if it doesn't prove what they want it to prove.
Are We on the Verge
of Civil War? The internet and social media often descend into an electronic lynch mob. In a nanosecond,
an insignificant local news story goes viral. Immediately hundreds of millions of people use it to drum up the
evils or virtues of either progressivism or conservatism. Anonymity is a force multiplier of these tensions.
Fake online identities provide cover for ever greater extremism — on the logic that no one is ever called to account
for his or her words. Speed is also the enemy of common sense and restraint. Millions of bloggers rush to be the
first to post their take on a news event, without much worry about whether it soon becomes a "fake news" moment of
unsubstantiated gossip and fiction.
News the press buried
today. President Trump is a more trustworthy source of news than the media. No wonder they hate him.
Brian Stelter Ignores
CNN's Bungled Trump Tower Story. The host of CNN's media criticism show "Reliable Sources" on Sunday [8/26/2018]
interviewed Carl Bernstein, one of the reporters who wrote a since-debunked story asserting that former Trump lawyer Michael
Cohen claimed President Donald Trump approved the infamous Trump Tower meeting. But Bernstein's faulty reporting was
not one of the topics of discussion on the CNN show, which is hosted by Brian Stelter. Instead, Stelter led a panel
discussion in which Trump was called a "liar" several times.
The
'Echo Chamber' Isn't A Conspiracy Theory, It's A Fact. When I finally got to the end of a supposed blockbuster
piece by the New Yorker's Adam Entous and Ronan Farrow regarding a dark conspiracy theory that had been spreading
within the Trump White House, I was struck by two things: 1) the innocuousness of the memo in question, and 2) how
the basis of the memo was plainly true. The piece, in fact, goes a long way in substantiating the memo's contention about the
media, allowing former Obama administration officials and their allies to offer ludicrous claims without even a scintilla of
journalistic skepticism.
MSNBC
shows incorrect 'How Impeachment Works' graphic for 2 straight days. MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi and his production
team misinformed viewers for two consecutive days this week with faulty graphics for its "How Impeachment Works" coverage.
Political junkies and reporters at The Washington Free Beacon informedMSNBC on Wednesday that its lesson on the impeachment
process got basic facts wrong, but the network still presented incorrect graphics on Thursday [8/23/2018]. Mr. Velshi
lived out his own moment from the movie "Groundhog Day" when he was presented with a slide on "60 votes out of 100"
needed in the Senate for impeachment. A two-thirds majority is the real requirement.
Brian
Williams insults viewers and all of America with Pathetic segment on Trump and dogs. MSNBC host Brian Williams
stretched his journalistic muscles with a ridiculous segment falsely claiming that President Donald Trump has only been
photographed with one dog. Under the guise of investigating Trump's history with canines and his use of the word "dog,"
Williams examined during "The 11th Hour" on Tuesday [8/14/2018] whether the president actually dislikes man's best friend
since an "extensive search" of a "few minutes" turned up only one photo.
The
Omarosa News Cycle is Everything that's Wrong with Media Coverage of Trump. Here's a montage of her whining
about how America is doomed at the hands of Trump mashed up with footage of her gleefully declaring a year earlier that everyone
who criticized Trump was going to have to eat crow. [Video clip] She was all about Trump when he made her
famous. Now that she's on the outs with him, she's adopted a critical tone in order to win favor with the mainstream
media who cannot resist booking people who will say critical things about Trump — especially from a former
surrogate. She's playing members of the media and they are letting her do it to them, because tapes!
CNN
Reporter Shares Peter Strzok Tweet — From A Parody Account. CNN's Chris Cillizza was in such a hurry
to share a tweet from former FBI agent Peter Strzok that he didn't stop to look at it very closely. It was from a
parody account called "NotPeterStrzok."
Watch
Liberal Media Hacks Scream At Top Of Their Lungs at President Trump in Oval Office. The reporters know when
they come into a meeting whether or not the president will take questions. On Monday [7/30/2018] the president was not
planning on taking questions. The liberal media hacks wanted desperately to harass the president about the
Russian-collusion witch hunt while he was sitting with a foreign leader. So they started SCREAMING at President
Trump! It sounded like they were SCREAMING at the top of their lungs! [Video clip]
Anatomy of a Media
Error. Which is worse, academic sloppiness or fake news? Hard to say, for both present a challenge to a
functioning democracy. I've so often documented the outlandish errors that leftist and Islamist academics make about
me, I even have a bibliography on the topic. So, here's one about the press.
Nets
Refuse to Declare Trump Victorious as E.U. Buckles on Trade. At a Wednesday [7/25/2018] press conference in the
White House Rose Garden, President Trump and E.U. Chief Executive Jean-Claude Juncker announced that the two trade partners
were moving forward on a plan to end their trade war. Juncker's presence at the White House illustrated that it was the
E.U. that caved under pressure, but the liberal broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) were having none of it and refused to
give Trump the win. During World News Tonight, ABC was so against declaring Trump the victor that they insisted he was
the one that failed under pressure. "To the President tonight, under pressure after his own tariffs igniting a trade
war," sensationalist anchor David Muir began the segment. "Well tonight, the President with a new promise.
Reaching out to the European Union, he called them a foe just a week ago, but late today, calling a press conference outside
the White House to say they will now work together."
The Editor says...
In the following sentence, see if you can find a verb: "Well tonight, the President with a new promise." That's not
even English. It's Headline-ese. How are the millions of illegal aliens supposed to learn English with incompetent
tripe like that on the air? (Answer: They don't intend to learn English — they're watching Univision and Telemundo.)
How Far Will
the Left Go? All the Way. [Scroll down] Each day brings a new outrage, a development
enthusiastically promulgated by a brain-dead media that thinks a headline must contain the words "sparks outrage" or "comes
under fire," to be newsworthy. The foxes of anger and resentment have been set among the hens of political cohesion,
and every day the squawking grows louder — as it will until that day comes when there are no more hens left to lay
the eggs.
Another
waiter lying about bigotry. The world as we know it collapsed briefly this weekend when waiter Khalil Cavil in
Odessa, Texas, scribbled, "We don't tip terrorist," on a receipt and claimed a couple had left it. Matthew Martinez of
the Fort Worth Star-Telegram ignored earlier waiter hoaxes of a similar nature, and went with the story, [...] They would
have you believe that someone was stupid enough to write that and use a traceable credit card to identify them.
Martinez and his editors ignored the November 26, 2013, report, "Couple Denies Leaving Anti-Gay Note in Lieu of Tip, Says
It's a Scam." That was waitress Dayna Morales. Martinez and his editors ignored the February 27, 2017, report,
"Lawyer: Waitress showered in cash after 'don't tip black people' story a fraud." The was waitress Kelly Carter.
Martinez and his editors ignored the May 24, 2014, report, "Man accused of leaving racist receipt at Red Lobster sues
waitress, restaurant." That was waitress Toni Christina Jenkins.
Please,
Please, Please Stop Reporting on Viral Receipt Stories. Most recently, outlets as varied as the Washington
Post, USA Today, HuffPo, the Dallas Morning News, Associated Press, Fox News, and CBS News, all reported on a Facebook post
from Odessa, Texas, waiter named Khalil Cavill. The 20-year-old posted a picture of a receipt he received while working
at Saltgrass Steak House in which his first name was circled and "We don't tip terrorist" was written next to it.
Cavill is Christian, but wrote that he was "sick to my stomach" and said he was sharing it "because I want people to
understand that this is racism, and this hatred still exists." The restaurant stood up for Cavill and banned the customer,
earning applause from Muslim civil rights organizations like CAIR. But less than a week later, Cavill admitted that he
forged the racist note. Cavill was fired, and Saltgrass Steak House apologized to the customer and invited him back for
a free meal.
The Editor says... One free meal? That's it? After being falsely accused and banned from the restaurant, the least they could do is
let him eat there absolutely free of charge for the rest of his life — assuming that he would ever return to Saltgrass,
which I certainly wouldn't. (I've never been there.)
Mainstream
media are awash in a tsunami of trivia. Newspaper publishers, pressed to do all manner of things that were once
thought disreputable and wrong, just to keep the ship afloat, are always on the scout for corners and budgets to cut, and
sometimes they're tempted to cut the wrong things first. The editor of a major newspaper once told me that his
publisher suggested cutting everyone whose bylines never appear in the paper. These are usually anonymous copy editors
who give a story its last read before going to press. They have saved many a writer — and many an editor and
publisher — from disaster.
Ocasio-Cortez
In Kansas: 'We're Going To Flip This Seat RED In November'. Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appeared in a
video that was posted on Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) Twitter account on Friday where she said that she was working to
flip the seat "red." "Hello everybody," Ocasio-Cortez began. "I'm so excited to be hopping on here, on Senator
Sanders' account, and we're here in Kansas City to rally for Brent Welder." Then Ocasio-Cortez made her gaffe.
"We're going to flip this seat red in November," Ocasio-Cortez said.
The Editor says...
That might not have been a mistake. She might mean RED, as in communist.
Identical
letters appear in 21 newspapers across 12 states slamming Trump's Supreme Court pick — and they're all signed by
different people. Judge Brett Kavanaugh is going into the Supreme Court confirmation process with a hail of
rhetorical arrows zinging by him, including a phony letter-writing campaign aimed at unsuspecting American newspaper editors[.]
At least 21 papers were duped last week, including big-market brands like the Dallas Morning News and The Washington
Times. They ran identical letters over a four-day period, each signed by a different person. The effort is an example
of public-relations 'astroturfing,' a technique meant to simulate genuine grassroots support for an idea or cause.
Trump-Bashing
Rants By Late-Night 'Comics' Now Get Treated As Real News. If you rely on the nation's top news sites to
determine what was really important about the Trump-Putin Helsinki summit, the answer would be: How did Trump-hating
late-night talk-show hosts react? We are not kidding. This is how low the mainstream press has sunk.
How not to negotiate.
Democrats and their lackeys in the Fourth Estate demanded President Trump confront Putin about Crimea, about human rights,
and election meddling. That is how they negotiate? [...] Instead, President Trump complimented Putin's hosting of that
soccer thingy, and worked on areas of agreement. They have many common concerns: Afghanistan, Korea, and Syria,
although they are today on opposite sides of that issue. But the journalists are either too stupid, too dishonest, or
too stupidly dishonest to accept that.
[The] Associated
Press Botched [a recent] Story On [the] GOP Immigration Bill. The Associated Press ran a story about the GOP
immigration bill in June that carelessly handled information from Arizona Rep. Martha McSally. McSally, who is
running for Senate in Arizona, spoke to AP reporter Steve Peoples for a story about the "compromise" immigration bill that
included amnesty for 1.8 million immigrants, ended family separations at the border and secured funding for a border
wall. The bill failed in the House after the AP story was published, but at the time, Peoples painted McSally as
being insensitive to the plight of separated families.
Brian
Ross is leaving ABC after botched Michael Flynn report. ABC News' Brian Ross — who was suspended
last year as chief investigative correspondent for a faulty report on Michael Flynn — is leaving the network, Page
Six has exclusively learned. ABC suspended Ross last December for a month without pay for a botched report on ousted
White House national security adviser Flynn that reported President Trump directed Flynn to make contact with Russian
officials. The mistake even sent stocks tumbling, and ABC issued an apology saying: "We deeply regret and
apologize for the serious error." We hear that Ross on Monday [7/2/2018] announced he's leaving the network.
Opposing viewpoint: Brian
Ross Didn't Resign Over the Fake News Flynn Story, He Resigned Because He Was "Reporter 4" Within James Wolfe
Indictment. By now everyone has reported about ABC journalist Brian Ross and his Producer Rhonda Swartz
resigning from the network. However, almost everyone pointing back to Ross's fake news report on Michael Flynn in
December; and almost no-one is pointing out the more obvious motive for the resignation. Brian Ross was almost
guaranteed to be "Reporter 4" in the federal indictment of Senate former senior senate intelligence committee
staffer James Wolfe. The notorious Senate Intelligence "leaker".
Is the
First Amendment an Excuse for SLOPPY, AWFUL Journalism? As most people know, once speech is "constitutionalized"
by discussing public figures, public officials or matters of public concern, the aggrieved party must prove that the
publication was issued with "actual malice", defined as "knowing falsity or reckless disregard for the truth."
Understanding the "knowing falsity" prong is simple. If a publication invented a defamatory allegation out of thin
air, they're likely to be ruled against. Most media entities in that situation will argue in court that the statement
isn't really defamatory or isn't really about the complainant. More often than not when the press loses attempts to
have a case dismissed on those grounds they write a check to make the problem go away. The "reckless disregard" prong
is much more difficult to navigate.
The Zombie Media.
The playbook of the leftist media isn't a particularly thick volume, but it's all they know. In the absence of any
success, except among the bitter brainwashed progeny of what passes for universities, they have little choice but to carry
out the instruction on their playbook's last page: when all else fails — repeat, repeat, repeat! While it is
true that repetition has a certain power to convince, it does have limits. You can sway a few weak minds by publicizing
and politicizing every single cop-shoots-black-man incident in the country, but the Trump-is-Putin's-puppet narrative gets a
little old when the best you can come up with are campaign people speaking to miscellaneous Russians about nothing
much. Sooner or later, "unnamed sources" need to be named. At this stage, substituting "unnamed government
officials" doesn't really help. They might as well say "unnamed Hillary Clinton supporters." Or, just as likely
"the reporter sitting next to me."
NBC's Pete Williams Struggles
To Describe How Shotguns Work. NBC correspondent Pete Williams employed an interesting analogy on Friday when
trying to describe how shotguns work. According to Williams, describing the gun used by the shooter in the Capital
Gazette newsroom on Thursday, insisted that shotguns operate like a "backwards funnel." "A shotgun, uh, uh, you know,
if you're not familiar with a shotgun, it sets out a spray of pellets and because a bullet simply goes in a straight line and
shotgun is sort of like a backwards funnel, it spreads it out so that you don't have to aim very precisely," Williams claimed
on MSNBC on Friday [6/29/2018].
The Editor says...
It sounds like the only shotgun he's ever seen was in the hands of Elmer Fudd.
Journalists
'Fraudulently' Posed as Translators at Migrant Center, Say Feds. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
officials said "several journalists" claimed to be translators in order to gain access to illegal immigrants being processed
by Border Patrol agents after they illegally crossed the border from Mexico. Two were identified as journalists by officials
and turned away. However, a third successfully gained entry on Tuesday [6/26/2018] and made their way "fraudulently" into
the processing center during a time scheduled for attorney-client privileged meetings, CBP officials stated.
Ex-CNN
producer blasts Jim Acosta for 'self-serving antics'. A former CNN producer took to Twitter on Friday
[6/29/2018] to blast Jim Acosta, the network's White House correspondent, for what he called Acosta's "self-serving antics,"
saying they "give all good journalists a bad name." The posts by Steve Krakauer, a former senior digital producer for
the network who is now is a top executive at Commerce House, a Dallas-based advertising firm, were prompted by a question
that Acosta shouted to President Donald Trump on Friday [6/29/2018] during a White House event on the economy and tax cuts.
New
Yorker staffer resigns after falsely accusing ICE agent of having Nazi tattoo. The fact-checker for the New
Yorker who mistook a Marine veteran's tattoo for a Nazi symbol has resigned, saying the "small mistake" has ruined her
life. Talia Lavin is out of a job following her June 18 tweet that caused mass outrage. "I feel like I made a
small mistake and it's destroyed my life," she told New York Magazine's The Cut. Lavin's since-deleted tweet was about
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Justin Gaertner, whom she falsely accused of having a tattoo of the Nazis' Iron Cross.
Moms to Daughters:
Don't Be Ali Watkins. The case of Ali Watkins offers mothers an opening to have an uncomfortable yet necessary
conversation with their daughters: Don't sleep your way to the top. One would think in this #metoo, female
empowerment, equal pay, don't-even-tell-me-my-dress-is-pretty climate of workplace taboos, that conversation would be
unnecessary. Twenty-something women and their successors have been programmed to be independent of men —
especially white, older men. [...] So, it's surprising to discover that young liberal women are still getting ahead the
old-fashioned way. And not only is this behavior accepted, it is rewarded by the same news media overlords who
have fueled the gender wars; boasted about their fealty to women in the workplace; and ridiculed powerful men preying on
ambitious young women.
Terms of surrender.
President Trump and Kim Jong Un signed a terse agreement after their historic meeting in Singapore. [...] The American press
will get it all wrong. That's what they do.
Jaws
drop when Jim Acosta busts up historic moment for peace with disgraceful inappropriate questions. Will it
finally be the end for Jim Acosta's White House press credentials? Civilized Americans eager to see an end to a
decades-long contentious relationship with North Korea were mortified to hear a "journalist" yell out a combative questions
at a highly inappropriate time... "Did you talk about Otto Warmbier, sir?" Acosta's antics during the moment when President
Trump and Kim Jong Un sat down to sign a joint declaration after discussing peace between nations didn't end there.
At Historic Moment for Peace,
CNN's Jim Acosta Shouts Something Jaw-Dropping. Jim Acosta, CNN's White House correspondent best-known for
being the most vocal provocateur in the press pool, took it to a new level in Singapore yesterday. Watch (below) as
Acosta interrupts the historic summit between President Donald J. Trump and North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-un by shouting
questions at the most inappropriate time imaginable. As President Trump was signing the document, Acosta indignantly
shouted, "Mr. President, did we agree to denuclearize?" As it would have been an inappropriate moment to react,
Trump remains silent. That is when Acosta asked another question: "Did you talk about Otto Warmbier, sir?"
Levin:
The media have no clue on the Constitution or Trump's pardon power. Monday on the radio, LevinTV host Mark
Levin addressed a claim by President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani that the president has the power to pardon
himself. "The media have determined that [Trump] can't," Levin said. "Now, they have no constitutional
background, they can't point to a single thing at the Constitutional Convention or any of the ratification conventions."
He went on to explain what the U.S. Constitution says and why the media are wrong. [Audio clip.]
NYPD
officially phases out revolvers as 25-year vets transition to 9-mm. The last crop of cops transitioning from
the old-school revolver to the modern semi-automatic handguns reported to the NYPD shooting range in the Bronx for training
Wednesday [5/30/2018]. The remaining 150 police officers — who all joined the force before 1993, when the the
.9-mm [sic] semi-automatic became the department's service weapon — had until Aug. 31 to be be trained on new guns.
The Editor says...
I'd like to see that 0.9-millimeter model mentioned by the New York Daily News.
Mainstream
Media's Credibility Problem Is Of Their Own Making. Not only are stories on mainstream news reports biased; they are often
mistake-ridden. In the past few years, there are dozens upon dozens of examples of factual mistakes in the mainstream media.
CNN has had to issue multiple corrections on their ongoing Trump-Russia collusion reporting. ABC's Brian Ross was suspended for
mistakenly reporting that President Trump ordered former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn to make contact with the Russian authorities.
[...] So, not only are the mainstream media biased, they're also incompetent. Headlines and scandalous snippets that the news shows can
flash on chyrons trump facts, and they are what is important to the mainstream media. They eschew fact checking in favor of sensational
headlines. They create salacious news narratives, meant not to inform but to sell advertising.
Mueller
Year One: The Real Heroes in Journalism. CNN won an award for its January 2017 report about President-elect
Trump being briefed on the bogus Steele dossier. While we now know the story was improperly leaked by former Director of
National Intelligence (and virulent Trump foe) James Clapper to shotgun the Trump-Russia collusion plotline days before the
inauguration — and the celebrated CNN reporters did little more than regurgitate talking points spoon-fed to them by
political operatives (one is known to have close ties to Fusion GPS) — the network was applauded for its "depth of reporting."
Daily
Barrage of Anonymous Sources Is Neither News nor Journalism. First, this is barely a story. Volatility in
the Trump administration ceased being front-page stuff a long time ago. Presidents getting mad at those who work for
them isn't new either, it just doesn't get reported when a Democrat occupies the Oval Office. The problem with this
"story" is that it relies on a source or sources who aren't named. Before I proceed it should be pointed out that I am
merely using this story as an example. It may prove to be 100% true — but a good many of these don't.
Media lies are
the real scandal. John C. Harwood at CNBC wrote a piece, "Most voters have become numb to each new Trump
scandal because they don't believe what he says anyway." Wrong. Most voters are numb because we no longer believe
the media.
The
'experts' were wrong in 2016; they could be wrong in 2018 too. As you watch the 2018 campaign being analyzed by
pundits on TV, in newspapers, and in blogs, just remember how wrong they all were in 2016. They were wrong about candidate
Donald J. Trump all through the primaries. They were wrong about the impact of the Republican and Democratic conventions.
They were wrong throughout the fall campaign — and they kept telling us why each new headline signified the end of
Trump's candidacy. Finally, they were wrong on Election Day, up until the actual results gave them no alternative but to
accept the reality that Trump had won as a total outsider and defeated the ultimate insider — a former first lady,
U.S. senator, and secretary of state. Since then, the national media have remained ignorant of political realities.
Our
Deranged White House Press Corps. The White House press corps is utterly deranged by its hatred for President
Trump and its determination to help its party crush his administration. A lot of people, sadly, aren't very good at
their jobs. But I doubt that you could find, anywhere in our vast country, a group of people who are as terrible at
their jobs as the members of the White House press corps.
Drew Cloud Is a
Well-Known Expert on Student Loans. One Problem: He's Not Real. Drew Cloud is everywhere. The
self-described journalist who specializes in student-loan debt has been quoted in major news outlets, including The
Washington Post, The Boston Globe,, and CNBC, and is a fixture in the smaller, specialized blogosphere of
student debt. [...] After The Chronicle spent more than a week trying to verify Cloud's existence, the company
that owns The Student Loan Report confirmed that Cloud was fake. "Drew Cloud is a pseudonym that a diverse group
of authors at Student Loan Report, LLC use to share experiences and information related to the challenges college students
face with funding their education," wrote Nate Matherson, CEO of LendEDU. Before that admission, however, Cloud had
corresponded at length with many journalists, pitching them stories and offering email interviews, many of which were published.
Revealed:
Robert Mueller's FBI Repeatedly Abused Prosecutorial Discretion. Journalist Mike Allen of Axios recently said
that one word described Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and that word was "unafraid." The context for his remarks on Fox
News' "Special Report" was that Mueller had just spun off to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York
a bit of his limitless investigation into President Donald J. Trump. Allen's comment was like so many others from media
and pundit types since the special counsel was launched. If there's one word to describe the media's relationship to
Mueller, it's "unquestioning."
American Journalists Are Hysterical
Knuckleheads. This column has, on occasion, been disparaging toward American journalism, but only because it is now populated by the
biggest bunch of knuckleheads ever to be assembled outside of Knucklehead City on the planet Knucklehead. Remember the sitcom news anchor
Ted Baxter with the big voice and the slick haircut and minuscule IQ? Well, if you added the emotional stability of a three-year-old having
a temper tantrum, you would have your typical American journalist and commentator, not just on cable but at the networks and newspapers too.
I could lasso a gorilla, give him a lobotomy, and teach him to do the job better than these clowns in fifteen minutes.
NBC's
Chuck Todd Doesn't Understand Good Friday. NBC News' Chuck Todd said Friday that he likes to remind people on
Good Friday that "any day can become 'good,'" causing many to question if he understands the religious significance of the holiday.
NBC's
Chuck Todd and his Good Friday tweet showed disrespect for Christians, and for America itself. Last Friday [3/30/2018],
Good Friday in the Western Christian Church, the archetypical broadcast journalist, NBC's "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd, used his
media bullhorn to mock and further divide America over religion. Todd tweeted: "I'm a bit hokey when it comes to 'Good
Friday.' I don't mean disrespect to the religious aspect of the day, but I love the idea of reminding folks that any day can
become 'good,' all it takes is a little selflessness on our own part. Works EVERY time."
Soros's
ProPublica makes a major, embarrassing correction. ProPublica, the high-and-mighty investigative-reporting
foundation financed by George Soros, Herbert and Marion Sandler, the Ford Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation and other
leftwing elitist moneybags, has been forced to issue an embarassing correction to one of its vaunted investigative reports.
ProPublica
Retracts Report that Trump's CIA Pick Oversaw Waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah. The nonprofit journalism site
ProPublica posted a correction Thursday of a 2017 report that Gina Haspel oversaw the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah.
Haspel has been nominated by President Donald Trump to take over the CIA in place of Mike Pompeo, who in turn has been
nominated to be the next Secretary of State to replace Rex Tillerson. ProPublica initially reported on Feb. 22,
2017 — after Haspel was nominated to be CIA Deputy Director — that she oversaw the "black site" base in
Thailand when Zubaydah, a suspected leader of the terror group al Qaeda, was waterboarded, and it also said she mocked his suffering.
ProPublica's
massive screw-up catches many outlets. The February 2017 story was a hit job on CIA Deputy Director Gina
Haspel. It involved the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, who the CIA says was an Al Qaeda leader. The ProPublica
story said Haspel had overseen his waterboarding "and other coercive interrogation methods that are widely seen as torture."
She allegedly "mocked the prisoner's suffering," demonizing her even further. Except it didn't happen. "Neither of
these assertions is correct and we retract them," ProPublica wrote in a correction published Thursday — more
than a year after the original incorrect story was published and, coincidentally, on the Ides of March.
Corn?
Wheat? It's All The Same to the New Yorker. I subscribed to the New Yorker for a number of years, but
finally canceled my subscription when I couldn't take the magazine's left-wing politics any more. Those were the days
when the New Yorker was famous for its scrupulous fact-checking. That time is long gone.[...] The sad decline of the
New Yorker is one of countless examples of how leftism destroys respected institutions from the inside. From famously
dogged fact-checking to an inability to tell corn from wheat: that trajectory traces the New Yorker's descent into
irrelevance, at least when it comes to non-fiction.
President
Trump's Economic Approach Toward National Security Wins — U.S. Media Ignore. The corporate media are
hopelessly deficient in their coverage and explanations of how strategic objectives for national security are being delivered
through a geopolitical Trump Doctrine via economic leverage. The results are stunningly effective, yet few have noticed
and even fewer seem willing to articulate; perhaps their inability is because they simply just don't get it.
16
Stupidest Comments About the Parkland Shooting Massacre (So Far). In the wake of the Parkland school shooting
massacre, and in order to deflect away from the only answer to this contagion of school shootings (which of course is
hardening school security), our media and the left in general have to manufacture one stupid-hour after another in order to
keep the focus on gun-grabbing. The results of this cynical and desperate crusade have not only exposed these
provincial elites as completely opposed to keeping our children safe, but as liars, and morons. Here are the 16 most
dishonest and/or stupidest things we have heard so far...
Snopes
Fact Checks, Facebook Threatens Satire Site for Mocking CNN. The Christian satire site Babylon Bee has been
fact-checked by Snopes and threatened by Facebook after it published an Onion-style article about CNN about purchasing
a washing machine to "spin the news."
Satire
Website Babylon Bee is Being Marked as Fake News on Facebook. I'll be the first to admit I've been snagged by a
few Babylon Bee headlines. Not to the point I needed them fact-checked. More of a double-take. "Wait, did
this really happen... oh, you Babylon Bee guys!" But that's just me. Others have needed the stories fact-checked
for them. To the point where Facebook is threatening to penalize the Bee's Facebook page.
Laughably
Stupid Media Mistakes In Gun Reporting: How Much Do They Matter? As surely as night follows day, a mass shooting
is followed by national grief, cries of "politicization" and various forms of kabuki (blustery speeches, staged "town hall" events
augmented with social media thoughts and prayers, and of course, hashtags). [...] Part of the massacre-grief-anger-blame cycle includes
journalists too-frequently beclowning themselves with stunningly idiotic statement about firearms.
Busybodies battle outbreaks of freedom.
The majority leader of California's state Assembly has introduced legislation that would impose a fine of up to $1,000 on any waiter or
waitress who offers a plastic drinking straw to a customer without being asked. The Washington Post notes that this is part of a
growing anti-straw movement, which is driven by alarm over the 500 million straws that are used every single day — which is
almost certainly a fake number, seeing as how it is based on an unconfirmed phone survey by a 9-year-old boy. (Yes, really.)
Trump
supporter, 76, blames 'fake news' CNN for threats following reporter ambush. Florine Gruen Goldfarb, 76, never
thought her Trump-inspired activism during the 2016 election would earn her infamy and ridicule — but that's what
happened thanks to CNN. CNN correspondent Drew Griffin ambushed the Trump supporter outside her home earlier this week
because she may have unwittingly promoted a Russian-coordinated event during the 2016 election. Now she's receiving
threats on social media, and she lays the blame at the news network's feet.
Media
Falsely Reports Florida Shooter Had Ties to White Nationalists. The mainstream media has falsely reported that
the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz was a member of a white nationalist militia.
Cruz's connections to any white nationalist group have been unverified, but the damage has already been done as rumors of
this alleged affiliation continue to prevail. Republic of Florida leader Jordan Jereb allegeldy told the Anti-Defamation
League that Cruz was a member of his white nationalist militia and participated in paramilitary drills. The AP tweeted
last Thursday: "Leader of white nationalist group has confirmed suspect in Florida school shooting was a member of his
organization." Minutes later, however, the AP sent a second tweet, in which the headline was changed to read, "Leader of
a white nationalist milita says" that Cruz was a member. That tweet was accompanied by a story in which a law-enforcement
official stated he was unaware of any ties between Cruz and the white nationalist group. Unfortunately, the second story
did not have the viewership of the first story.
Analysts
on TV don't understand how our economy works. Since Clinton's presidency, rates have been falling, as have real
wages after health care, college tuitions and other costs are figured in. Under Trump, Americans have quietly begun to
do better today than they had just a year ago — or many years before that. And that prosperity is what is
ultimately driving the bond market into the ground and yields through the roof. But most talking heads can't comprehend
that good growth equals good wages and good stock returns while rates rise.
NBC
still going for the gold in on-air blunders. Most recently, sportscaster Dan Hicks [...] covered an Alpine race
in which little-known Ester Ledecka of the Czech Republic beat Austria's Anna Veith, and won the gold medal. Ledecka,
who ranked No. 43 in the world, was considered to have so little chance to win that Hicks declared Veith the winner and NBC
switched away. [...] But the race wasn't over.
The
snookered press at Pyeongchang. When Kim Jong-un dispatched his crack propaganda team to Pyeongchang (and not
P.F. Chang, the Chinese restaurant chain, as reported by NBC News) to cover the Winter Olympics, he couldn't have imagined
that the American media in town would have been so easy to con. It was so easy, in fact, that a girl could do it, and
she did. "If 'diplomatic dance' were an event at the Winter Olympics," CNN reported with gasps of breathless wonder,
"Kim Jong-un's younger sister would be favored to win the gold." "Without a word, and only flashing smiles," observed
The New York Times, "Kim Jong-un's sister outflanked Vice President Mike Pence in diplomacy."
Earth
to NBC: Russians did not change one vote in 2016. CNN just lost its Fake News crown to NBC. Its effort to
win the gold has been Olympic this month. The network sent its anchor to Pyongyang to show what a paradise North Korea
is. Then it (and the rest of the Fake News media) fawned over Caligula Jong Un's sister. Then it lied and said
Koreans admire the Japanese. No, Koreans hate the Japanese after 35 years of cruelty when Japan colonized Korea.
Now the Trump administration is pushing back twice as hard. The subject is not the Olympics. The subject is Fake
News reporting by NBC on the long discredited Democratic Party's excuse that Russia meddled in the past presidential election.
Triumph of the Shills.
North Korea sent Kim Yo-jong, sister of Kim Jong-un and the nation's director of "Propaganda and Agitation," on a "charm
offensive" to South Korea over the weekend. With cheerleaders and pop-stars in tow, her mission was to help
rehabilitate North Korea's image and shift focus away from the regime's human rights abuses and away from the fact that the
Hermit Kingdom, essentially, is a giant prison. The Western media was all too happy to report on Kim's sense of style,
her shoes, her hair, and lack of makeup — to the exclusion of the moaning, emaciated elephant in the room.
There could be many reasons for this embarrassing spectacle — ranging from outright complicity, to political
malice, to plain old laziness. Most likely it's that pre-existing biases and journalistic laziness are creating a
witch's brew that threatens to glamorize evil. Western journalists are so blinded by disdain for the Trump
Administration that any chance to embarrass the president and hurt his agenda is seen as a welcome opportunity.
CNN's
Bizarre Praise of Kim Jong Un's Sister at the Winter Olympics. CNN ran an absurd story Saturday afternoon,
seemingly praising the sister of one the world's most evil dictators for "stealing the show" at the 2018 Winter Olympics in
PyeongChang, South Korea. The piece starts off, saying, "If 'diplomatic dance' were an event at the Winter Olympics,
Kim Jong Un's younger sister would be favored to win gold."
15
Media Outlets that Colluded with North Korea to Romanticize Their Slave State. Now that normal Americans have
completely written off the disgraced institution of the American media, these amoral news outlets have been forced to pander
to the only audience they have left — the far-left. This is why, over the weekend, we witnessed almost every
major news outlet prostitute itself to offer North Korea's Hitler the kind of positive press coverage President Trump would
never receive, even if he rescued our economy and decimated the Islamic State (oh, wait, he did).
Dear America:
Your News Media Absolutely Hates You. [Scroll down] Having judged the American project kaput after the
election of Donald Trump, they are now stooping to the level of defending the North Koreans — perhaps the most
brutal and heinous regime in the world today — thanks to some side-eye from its minister of propaganda, the sister
of Kim Jong Un. If the headlines are to be believed, "North Korea heading for diplomacy gold medal at Olympics" is the
story American media want to tell about this moment. I wish this was an exaggeration. Witness this story from CNN
today, with its dripping credulousness in attacking Mike Pence with a story sourced entirely to a diplomatic source close to
the North Korean regime. [...] Let's be clear about what this is: this is 15 year veteran reporter at CNN, Will Ripley,
just straight up delivering North Korean propaganda whole cloth to an American audience, simply because it criticizes the
Trump administration.
Journalism
is Dead. This week we saw a perfect example of how corrupt journalism has become. There was an
opportunity to report the news and journalists and their fellow travelers in the pundit class balked. While that wasn't
unusual, what was is how they did it in the lead up to the news, not bothering to wait until they'd seen what they were
attempting to discredit. [...] The lying by Democrats in the lead up to the memo's release wasn't surprising, nor was the
complicity of journalists in spreading that lie. What was is how there was virtually no curiosity or interest in the
memo and its contents in the days leading to its release from the people whose job it is supposed to be to convey information
to the public. All journalists did was attempt to taint it's release so as to foster disinterest in it in their
audience when they could finally see it.
The
true threat to our freedom and democracy is a compliant media. James Comey illegally leaks government documents to a
professor who releases it to the media. Much later, Comey says the professor was his attorney. Dianne Feinstein leaks
testimony about the Russian investigation to the media. She later blames a cold for her malfeasance. Adam Schiff
repeatedly goes to the media and claims there is evidence of a Russian collusion with Trump even though there is no actual
evidence. The media gladly repeats what Schiff says, acting as if it is factual. Anonymous sources have repeatedly
leaked material from private conversations at the White House and the media gladly takes the leaks and treats them as factual.
Information is repeatedly leaked from the "secret" Mueller investigation and it shows up in newspapers and on cable and network
news. But now, we are told that Democrats and the FBI say how dangerous it would be to the FBI and how it would undermine
the justice system if a memo from Republicans were released to the public.
CNN Contributor
Attempted To Slam Trump On National Motto, It Went Horribly Wrong. Brian Karem is the White House correspondent
for Playboy, executive editor for local Maryland newspapers, and a liberal CNN political analyst, is not an expert on
American history. During the State of the Union Address, Karem thought he'd caught President Donald Trump making a
mistake when he said the motto of the United States is "In God we trust." Karem tweeted, "Our motto is 'in God we
trust.'" — WRONG. Our motto has been E Pluribus Unum — out of many One." He
was wrong, and people immediately pounced. "In God we trust" officially became the national motto in 1956. It was
reaffirmed in 2002, 2006, and 2011, with it passing the House of Representatives in 2011 by a vote of 396 to 9.
Reporters Spread Fake News
Claiming Ivanka Kicked a Spanish Chef From a Restaurant. When journalists don't fact-check, fake news spreads
faster than chickenpox in a kindergarten with shared toothbrushes. Spoiler: that happened here. With
immigration issues fresh in the head cavities of leftists, a couple of Hispanic peoples decided to make up a racist
story. Surprise, surprise, reporters bought it.
15 Times
Major Media Outlets Used a Statistic about Plastic Straws Based on Research by a 9-Year-Old. Yesterday
[1/25/2018], I reported that the oft-cited, debate-driving statistic that Americans use 500 million plastic straws a day was
the product of a 9-year-old's guesstimations. Despite those shaky factual foundations, the 500 million figure has
quickly spread, virus-like, across the media landscape and even into our shops and schools. [...] Meanwhile, impressionable
children at the Mount Vernon Community School in nearby Alexandria, Virginia, are coming home with "Straw Wars" handouts
citing the same dubious figure. It's easy to understand how the school could have been led astray, given how ubiquitous
this claim is in the media. Please see below for a list of just a few of the news outlets that have cited this
"fact" — or otherwise quoted people saying it without any critical pushback — in their reporting: [...]
CNN's
Hilary Rosen Shows She Might Just Be A Lot Dumber Than You Ever Imagined. Life can come at you pretty hard when
you are a shameless hypocrite. Yesterday [1/27/2018], "Democrat strategist" and CNN contributor Hilary Rosen was
slagging on President' Donald Trump's twitter account. [...] The fact is that when you have several million followers you
really can't police them unless you hire staff to do it. People follow you for all kinds of reasons. Some are
your fans. Some hate you and are documenting everything you say. You can't keep bots from following you and you
can't keep bots from retweeting you. Not only is it time consuming it doesn't matter. But there is a big
difference between having bots follow you and this: [...]
Embarrassment
for NBC News after Lester Holt apparently falls for North Korean propaganda. NBC News is reeling after "Nightly
News" anchor Lester Holt appears to have been badly fooled by North Korean propagandists — giving a cheery report
from a ski resort in the Hermit Kingdom that looked to be bustling when it was widely known to actually be a ghost town.
Holt — who returned early from North Korea after scathing reviews — reported for "Nightly News" from the
Masikryong ski resort on Monday [1/22/2018], a facility that is the brainchild of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and is typically
empty. The resort, built to create the appearance of a prosperous nation, was largely deserted during peak 2017 ski
season, according to multiple reports.
Nets
Censor Revelation FBI Lost 400 Texts. There were disturbing revelations out of the FBI over the weekend when it
was made public that the Bureau had somehow lost roughly 400 text messages between an anti-Trump investigator and a lawyer he
was romantically involved with. Since then, there have been calls from Republican members of Congress for another
special counsel to investigate the FBI's shady handling of the Clinton e-mail and Russia investigations. But despite
this bombshell news, the three major network news outlets (ABC, CBS, and NBC) have been dead silent. During their
Monday evening [1/22/2018] newscasts, there was not a single second dedicated to bringing up this highly damaging
development. Instead of reporting on the FBI, ABC's World News Tonight gushed about the Super Bowl, CBS
Evening News reported that Minnie Mouse got her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and NBC Nightly News
fawned over yet another royal wedding in the U.K.
CNN
Has Jumped the Shark. Every day it is becoming clearer that CNN, the once proud ratings giant and unquestioned cable
network news leader, has abandoned objective journalism to cultivate obsessive hatred for President Donald Trump. It has
"jumped the shark," meaning that a once distinguished broadcaster has become absurd. [...] CNN is a shadow of its former self and
functions in a manner that is the complete opposite of how a fair and balanced network should operate. In its infancy, the
network cared about reporting the real facts, maintaining objectivity, while being dedicated to true journalism. Today, the
network devotes 24 hours a day to one main goal, attacking a man they despise, Donald Trump.
In
2017, the media flunked the Trump challenge. President Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration was notable for more than
just its small crowd sizes. It was notable because it marked the beginning of the worst year of political journalism in
modern history. On the same day that Trump was sworn into office, a White House reporter claimed incorrectly that the
Trump transition team had removed a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office. Sadly, this erroneous report
and a handful of others on that same day breathlessly and unquestioningly parrotted by reporters across platforms and outlets
proved to be the norm, not the exception, for a year that has seen a dismaying and troubling decline in the quality of
political journalism.
CJR is making
journalism worse. The once prestigious Columbia Journalism Review showed just how awful it has become in its
year-in-review by Pete Vernon. While recognizing good works — and I will have to take Vernon's word on a few
of the stories he praised — Vernon failed to acknowledge that Fake News is real and growing. Vernon did not
say one word about the big investigative report on CNN on June 22 — "Congress investigating Russian investment
fund with ties to Trump officials" — that resulted in three people losing their jobs: the reporter, the editor,
and their boss. Instead of taking a serious look at the Fake News in the business, Vernon took a few potshots and
called it a day.
Dishonest Reporter
of the Year Award 2017. While journalists covering the Mideast can base themselves wherever they and their
editors choose, correspondents still have a responsibility to "make the rounds" and spend time in the countries that are part
of their beat. Seeing the situation first-hand, meeting the people face-to-face, sharing the experiences of individuals
on both sides of the conflict is possible only by physically being there, even if only periodically. That's why stories
have datelines. A dateline is a standard measure of media transparency, letting readers know where the story was
written. Specifically, a dateline can shed light on the circumstances that the reporter works in, and sometimes the
methodology behind the correspondent's work. When several journalists in multiple locations are credited, an editor's
note should disclose who worked where. In short, this often-overlooked disclosure allows readers to better judge the
coverage for themselves. The Independent relies heavily on 'laptop journalists' — reporters covering stories
remotely — for many of its articles about Israel. Some articles are written from London by writers
collecting info online, typically rehashing info originally reported in Israeli and Palestinian media, wire services, social
media and press releases. Laptop journalists can literally write articles from anywhere in the world. With just a
laptop and reasonable internet connection, reporters can write from the home or office, an internet cafe, airport lounge, bus
or even a park bench.
2017 — the
year the media lost America. [Scroll down] That's how we feel about it here in the United States.
That's how we feel about the news media. We don't trust them. We don't believe them. It's been so for
decades. But this year was the worst, and all because, being mostly Liberal and still hankering for Obama and whoring
for Hillary, they are out to Get Trump. They will find any pretext to do him harm. Over at ABC, Brian Ross rushed
to judgment when he reported that Michael Flynn was prepared to testify that Trump "as a candidate" asked him to contact the
Russians. That was a mistake. ABC took it back. Ross was suspended. Other news outlets made the same
mistake on that and upon other Russia-related scandals that never happened. Russia was the big story of 2017, and
always the wrong story. The media tried every which way to get Trump on collusion and they kept coming up empty.
From one false lead to another, they wasted our time. They wasted our trust.
Political Journalists Have Themselves to Blame
for Sinking Credibility. "Our record as journalists in covering this Trump story and the Russian story is
pretty good," legendary reporter Carl Bernstein recently claimed. Pretty good? If there's a major news story over
the past 70 years that the American media has botched more often because of bias and wishful thinking, I'd love to hear about
it. Four big scoops recently run by major news organizations — written by top reporters and, presumably,
churned through layers of scrupulous editing — turned out to be completely wrong. Reuters, Bloomberg, The
Wall Street Journal and others reported that special counsel Robert Mueller's office had subpoenaed President Donald Trump's
records from Deutsche Bank. Trump's attorney says it hadn't. ABC reported that candidate Trump had directed
Michael Flynn to make contact with Russian officials before the election. He didn't (as far as we know). The New York
Times ran a story claiming that K.T. McFarland, a former member of the Trump transition team, had acknowledged
collusion. She hadn't. Then, CNN topped off the week by falsely reporting that the Trump campaign had been
offered access to hacked Democratic National Committee emails before they were published. It wasn't. Forget your
routine bias. These were four bombshells disseminated to millions of Americans by breathless anchors, pundits and
analysts, all of whom are feeding frenzied expectations about Trump-Russia collusion that have now been internalized by many
as indisputable truths. All four pieces, incidentally, are useless without their central faulty claims. Yet there
they sit. And these are only four of dozens of other stories that have fizzled over the year.
Another
CNN Fail? They Finally Admit AG Sessions Wasn't Required To Disclose Foreign Contacts As A Senator. Well,
CNN stepped on a rake again. Last week, they totally botched a story about Donald Trump, his son, and his inner circle
receiving an email from Michael Erickson that contained a decryption key to a trove of Wikileaks emails from John Podesta and
the DNC. The insinuation was that these documents weren't public when in fact, they were. They also got the dates
wrong. Getting dates wrong is what landed ABC News' Brian Ross in hot water when he reported earlier this month that
Trump had directed Michael Flynn to make contact with the Russians during the 2016 campaign. It was actually after
Donald Trump had won the election. Setting up a diplomatic framework is not an unusual move for an incoming
administration. Ross was suspended for a month for this report. It's just sloppiness from the mainstream liberal
news media that seems incapable of reporting on this White House accurately.
Guest
Slams CNN: 'People Don't Trust You Guys' Because You Tell Them They Are Wrong, Stupid, And Racist. Alabama talk
radio host Dale Jackson ripped CNN and the rest of the mainstream media on Sunday [12/10/2017] during an episode of "Reliable Sources"
with host Brian Stelter, as he explained why people do not trust the network. During the segment, Stelter was trying to understand
why people in Alabama were still supporting Roy Moore after explosive allegations published by The Washington Post several weeks
ago. "Why in the world would people believe the things that are said if it's always negative over and over and over
and over again?" Jackson said. "That weaponizes the term fake news."
The End of Media
History and the Last Honest Man. Ever since postwar American journalism sacrificed its soul on the altar of
celebrity sometime in the mid-'80s, a terrible day of reckoning for the craft has been in the works. The "gets" and the
gotchas, the "how do you respond to" questions, the how-do-you-feels; the unseemly scrums, the willingness to endure any
humiliation from their betters in the hopes of basking, however fleetingly, in reflected glory — that day finally
arrived this week with a series of unforced errors that has stripped bare the profession's pretenses to objectivity and
truth-seeking, and exposed them for the tawdry, politicized whores they really are. [...] The most recent spate of
self-inflicted media disasters is not the end but the beginning — of the media's end.
The Mainstream Media Suffered
its Most Humiliating Debacle in Ages Yesterday. Friday [12/8/2017] was one of the most embarrassing days for
the U.S. media in quite a long time. The humiliation orgy was kicked off by CNN, with MSNBC and CBS close behind, with
countless pundits, commentators and operatives joining the party throughout the day. By the end of the day, it was
clear that several of the nation's largest and most influential news outlets had spread an explosive but completely false
news story to millions of people, while refusing to provide any explanation of how it happened.
The
media's Russia probe meltdown: 3 screw-ups in one week. The media is having a rough week when it comes to
reporting on the federal government's multiple ongoing Russia investigations. Three stories in the past seven days have
crumbled under greater scrutiny. Why it matters: In today's hyperpolarized world, "fake news" has become a
refrain to describe stories that observers on both sides of the spectrum decide that they don't like. These reporting
issues by esteemed media organizations give credence to that ignorance, which further damages the value of insightful,
impactful reporting — especially when it comes to one of the biggest, most polarizing stories of our political
age: the Russia probe.
Laura
Ingraham Rips CNN For 'Sloppy Reporting': 'Sometimes It's Not Fake News, It's Just Wrong News'. On Friday night
[12/8/2017], Laura Ingraham slammed CNN for their botched report on Donald Trump Jr. 'Sometime it's not fake news; it's
just wrong news," Ingraham began. Earlier that morning, CNN reported that during the election, WikiLeaks gave Don Jr.
accesses to hacked DNC emails before they were made public. That report turned out to be inaccurate and was corrected
in the afternoon. The Fox News host said that the error left CNN "once again with fried egg on its face." She then
listed some of the media's mistakes, [...]
Another
anti-Trump 'smoking gun' turns out to be nothing. The media went berserk Friday [12/1/2017] on news that former
Trump confidante Mike Flynn had copped a plea deal with special counsel Bob Mueller. All the usual suspects launched an
orgy of speculation on what beans Flynn "must" have spilled. It all went into overdrive when ABC's Brian Ross reported
that Flynn had been instructed to reach out to Moscow during the campaign: This seemed to be the long-awaited proof of
collusion with Vladimir Putin against Hillary Clinton. Except that Ross retracted the claim hours later: The
reach-out was only after Election Day, when any president-elect is expected to start connecting with other world leaders,
US-friendly or not. ABC has now suspended Ross for four weeks without pay — modest punishment for an error
that probably had a lot to do with the stock market's dive early Friday.
The
Mainstream Media Doesn't Deserve Our Respect or Our Trust. The mainstream liberal media is primarily composed
of stumblebum leftist jerks who want all the glory and respect due a caste of objective, moral truth-seekers, yet who don't
want to do the hard work of actually being objective or moral or seeking the truth. [...] Remember, to our intrepid
media, news is only news if it helps the liberal narrative. If it doesn't, it's not news. It's not
anything. It's un-news. Like the stock market boom. Like wiping out the ISIS caliphate. Like
Mueller's manifest conflicts of interest. Un-news. Remember, half the job of the mainstream media is generating
metaphorical tumbleweeds.
Incorrigibly biased, but still on the staff: ABC
News President: Brian Ross Will No Longer Cover Stories Related To Trump. It's one thing to suspend a
reporter for making an incredibly damaging error of basic fact on air. But to remove him from covering a particular
subject altogether? That's the sort of thing you might do if you'd concluded he's incapable of covering that topic
fairly. If it's an innocent mistake borne of carelessness, there's no need to declare certain topics off-limits.
You do that only when you think the reporter's view of that topic will necessarily compromise his judgment.
ABC News suspends Brian Ross
for 4 weeks over erroneous Flynn story. ABC News announced Saturday [12/2/2017] that it has suspended
investigative reporter Brian Ross for four weeks without pay after Ross was forced to correct a bombshell on-air report about
Michael Flynn. "We deeply regret and apologize for the serious error we made yesterday. The reporting conveyed by
Brian Ross during the special report had not been fully vetted through our editorial standards process," ABC said in a statement.
Trump
suggests investors sue ABC reporter whose erroneous report sent stocks down. President Trump suggested
investors who lost money when the stock market fell following ABC's erroneous report alleging Trump told Mike Flynn to make
contact with the Russians as a candidate sue the reporter who made the error. "People who lost money when the Stock
Market went down 350 points based on the False and Dishonest reporting of Brian Ross of @ABC News (he has been suspended),
should consider hiring a lawyer and suing ABC for the damages this bad reporting has caused — many millions of
dollars!" Trump tweeted Sunday [12/3/2017].
ABC
may discover the price of fake news. People lost money thanks to Brian Ross moving the market with his false
reporting. He's been suspended, but will we see lawsuits against him and ABC on behalf of investors who lost money?
Brian Ross Suspended
By ABC. Hack Brian Ross who has a legacy of fake news and embarrassed ABC yesterday with his Flynn-Russia BS
report has been suspended by ABC for a "serious error." Ross' "serious error" caused billions of losses in the stock market
that promptly crashed 350 points after his fake news report. Ross has been suspended for four months. He should
be fired and investigated by the SEC. This is too light of a punishment for that hack and that fake news network.
ABC
News suspends Brian Ross over 'serious error' in Flynn report. ABC News announced Saturday that Chief
Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross had been suspended for four weeks without pay over a botched "exclusive" about former
national security adviser Michael Flynn. Ross' suspension is effective immediately. ABC News spokeswoman Heather
Riley would not comment on whether anyone else had been suspended in connection with the error.
ABC
Suspends "Chief Investigative Correspondent" for Anti-Trump Fake News. After this past week, the good news is
that ABC News is suspending a top journalist for something having nothing to do with sexual harassment. The bad news is
that ABC News screwed this one up so badly that it affected the stock market. [...] But this is still a report that should
never have aired. And we can now seen how such attacks on Trump don't just harm our political system, but cause
financial damage as well. The media's war on Trump is producing all sorts of collateral damage. Furthermore, even
if Ross' original report had been correct, that is in no way impeachable behavior. And the media's repeated
impeachment-baiting is causing serious harm to our country.
The Editor says...
Yes, Brian Ross is going on an unpaid vacation, but he will be back in four weeks to pick up
where he left off.
ABC
News Makes HUGE Mistake In Report On Flynn Plea Deal. ABC News reported on Friday that former national security
advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to FBI investigators in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into possible
collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. ABC News also claimed that Flynn promised "full cooperation
to the Mueller team" and that he is prepared to testify that then-candidate Donald Trump "directed him to make contact with
the Russians." There is just one significant problem with ABC News' report: CNN reported late on Friday that an "ABC
News spokesperson" said that "'World News' will clarify that this should be president-elect Trump, not candidate Trump."
How
did unsubstantiated rumors make it to the front pages of newspapers? I get more disgusted every day with what I
see on the front page of my morning paper. Today I get the rumor story that Trump is considering replacing Rex
Tillerson as secretary of state. This is essentially a rumor based on unnamed sources, yet the AP and others report it
as if it were factual news. [...] The more these rumors are reported, the more people in the administration get mad at each
other. No matter where the rumors come from, they start to be believed, and some may come true. I might as well
read the National Enquirer or Star in the supermarket line if I want to read rumors on the front page. The National
Enquirer gets some things right also.
ABC News corrects bombshell
Flynn report. ABC News on Friday evening [12/1/2017] corrected an explosive special report that aired in the
morning saying that Donald Trump, as a candidate for president, had asked Michael Flynn to make contact with Russians.
During "World News Tonight," ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross said the source who had provided the initial
information for his story later told him that it was as president-elect, not as a candidate, that Trump asked Flynn to
contact the Russians.
ABC's
Brian Ross again under fire for explosive error on Trump, Flynn. ABC's famously error-prone chief investigative
correspondent, Brian Ross was at it again on Friday when the network was forced to issue an embarrassing correction when Ross
botched a bombshell "exclusive" about retired general Michael Flynn. An ABC spokesperson declined to comment on whether
Ross will be disciplined. He has not been sanctioned for past errors. Ross's report, delivered live to ABC
stations during a "special report" on Friday, said that Flynn would testify that Donald Trump had ordered him to make contact
with Russians about foreign policy while he was still a candidate — which raised the specter of impeachment and
sent the Dow careening down.
Not
All Stings Work. [Scroll down] In 2009, for instance, [James] O'Keefe and a young friend ran integrity tests on ACORN offices in six separate
cities. ACORN execs celebrated upon realizing that their Philadelphia office saw through the sting. This was before they realized
that their officials in Washington, Baltimore, Brooklyn, and San Bernardino had no problem advising a pimp on how to find housing for his underage
Central American sex slaves. The major media had turned a blind eye to the flagrant corruption of their ACORN allies for years. As a
direct result of Project Veritas's exposure, this billion-dollar enterprise collapsed within months. When it did, the media turned on O'Keefe.
He had not only brought down a useful leftist institution, but also embarrassed the reporters who should have done that job themselves. [...]
The media have welcomed this integrity test about as much as a corrupt cop does a visit from Internal Affairs. At every level of these news
organizations, employees recognize they are making a mockery of their mission.
Fire Leandra English.
Has no one in the press read the Constitution? "Article II, Section 1, 1: The executive Power shall be vested in a
President of the United States of America." That means President Trump could fire James Comey as FBI director without any
explanation. It also means Leandra English was never acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and
her attempted coup de bureaucracy should result in the end of her employment. There is no such thing as an "independent
agency" in the federal government.
Pippa
Biddle, America's Whitest Reporter, Takes Up the Black Cause. If white people had their own publication, it
would be Wired magazine. From top to bottom, this is a uniquely Caucasian experience: from the white readers,
to the white advertisers, to the white employees, to the white town where it is headquartered, to the white subject matter of
high tech, to the white owners at Conde Nast, which also owns just about every other magazine on the planet not named Jet
or Ebony or Black anything. Of the 80 people pictured on the masthead of Wired, only two are black.
That is why I was a bit surprised to see Wired magazine recently appoint itself as the arbiter of all things black.
The
'good guy with a gun' had an AR-15. When a mass murder takes place, the media always focuses on the weapon and
downplays focus on the person wielding it, whether it is a vehicle, as in New York City, or a gun, as in Las Vegas and
Texas. Moreover, the media likes to trumpet the term "assault weapon" when talking about an AR-15. Except when the
"good guy with a gun" used an AR-15. Then it was just a rifle. Here are some cases in point: CNN, the
NY Post, and NPR.
Four
Viral Claims Spread by Journalists on Twitter in the Last Week Alone That are False. There is ample talk,
particularly of late, about the threats posed by social media to democracy and political discourse. Yet one of the
primary ways that democracy is degraded by platforms such as Facebook and Twitter is, for obvious reasons, typically ignored
in such discussions: the way they are used by American journalists to endorse factually false claims that quickly spread
and become viral, entrenched into narratives, and thus, can never be adequately corrected. The design of Twitter, where
many political journalists spend their time, is in large part responsible for this damage. Its space constraints mean
that tweeted headlines or tiny summaries of reporting are often assumed to be true with no critical analysis of their
accuracy and are easily spread. Claims from journalists that people want to believe are shared like wildfire, while
less popular subsequent corrections or nuanced debunking are easily ignored.
Two
popular conservative Twitter personalities were just outed as Russian trolls. Jenna Abrams was a popular figure
in right-wing social media circles. Boasting nearly 70,000 followers, Abrams was featured in numerous news articles
during the 2016 election, spotlighted by outlets as varied as USA Today, the Washington Post, the BBC, and Yahoo!
Sports. [...] But Abrams never existed. According to information released by House Democrats earlier this week, Abrams
was one of more than 2,750 fake Twitter accounts created by employees at the Internet Research Agency, a "troll farm" funded
by the Russian government based in St. Petersburg.
Story
Laundering: Fusion GPS, Fake News, Russians And Reporters. "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years
old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns," Ben Rhodes gloated. "That's a
sea change. They literally know nothing." Rhodes, the White House's "Obama whisperer", was explaining how he had
pulled the wool over the media's eyes on the Iran Deal to a journalist. The media responded to the story by attacking
the journalist who reported it, not Rhodes for viewing them as easily manipulated useful idiots. The media knew that it
knew nothing. And it didn't care. It just didn't want outsiders to know it. What ties together the debate
about Russian collusion, fake news and Fusion GPS is the implosion of the media. What were the professional reporters
doing while Rhodes was manipulating the 27-year-olds? They were working at places like Fusion GPS and 'story laundering'
narratives to the kiddies.
Chris
Matthews is baffled why an Uzbeki would want to attack us. Chris Matthews has put in a strong entry for the title of
stupidest reaction to the Halloween jihad massacre in Lower Manhattan. Was there a memo at NBC News that forbade any mention
of Islam or Jihad in discussing Sayfullo Saipov? Or is Matthews really that stupid? Was this madness passed down from
the suits at 30 Rock? Or does Chris Matthews wear such huge blinders that he can't connect the dots and see that this
attack is like Barcelona, Nice, and several other examples of jihadis renting trucks and mowing down infidels?
Time
to Admit It: CNN's Jake Tapper Is Failing. While those of us who once admired CNN's Jake Tapper as a
rarity in the mainstream media — an honest and objective journalist, have been shocked by his transformation into
a dishonest, sanctimonious, left-wing virtue-signaler, we assumed his lying and peacocking was in pursuit of the applause and
fame he so transparently craves. His laughably bad ratings, though, appear to show that like most people who sell their
soul, Tapper was tricked by the Devil. To be fair to Tapper, CNN's transition into a hard-left social justice network,
something Breitbart News was the first to document and warn about nearly five years ago, has dragged the entire network down,
from second place behind Fox News, into last place behind MSNBC.
Another
Week, Another Pathetic Low for Opposition Party Media. What does it say about the State of Journalism in
America today that when some kook wants to smuggle a bunch of Russian flags into the highly secured U.S. Capitol to throw at
the president, he dresses up like a reporter? And it works!
The
liberal media's meltdown. Reaching deep in their drawer of smug, CNN unleashed a "Facts First" initiative, starting with
an ad featuring an apple, with a voice-over warning viewers that some awful, yet unnamed, person or network is trying to convince you
the apple is a banana. While a juvenile attempt to discredit President Trump's complaints about the network's shoddy news
coverage, they manage only to remind us of why they're in this fix in the first place. What CNN reveals with this abject
sanctimony is their contempt for the viewers themselves.
WaPo
Reports Clinton Campaign and DNC Paid For Trump Dossier. First, do not think the Washington Post is ever going
to frame a damaging article against the Clinton's or DNC; it is beyond their inherent ideology to do so. Therefore the
motive of any media expose' must be kept in mind. Second, while the article itself states the Clinton Campaign and the
DNC paid Fusion GPS to contract Christopher Steele, the researcher and dossier author, the article also tries to lend some
credibility toward the content therein. This is another possible angle. [...] Fifth, the sourcing within the Washington
Post article is weak, vague and disingenuous with verbiage such as: "people familiar with the matter",
"according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity", "people involved in the matter",
etc. Notice how the term "matter" repeats. That familiar term is frequent throughout the article.
10 Times
CNN Told Us An Apple Was A Banana. Considering the numerous mistakes and misleading stories CNN has produced
over the past several years, you'd think that they'd be a tad less sanctimonious. [...] We're talking about CNN contributors
who are tagged as experts but don't understand even the rudimentary working of the topic they're tasked with explaining.
Secrets
and Lies: Three Russian Stories. The major developing stories this week have been so scantily and poorly
covered in the mainstream press that you may want an easy primer. To fully understand it you have to look at
alternative media, because just as Harvey Weinstein counted on complicit enablers — his colleagues, victims and
the press — Hillary Clinton, Robert Mueller and a cast of characters, including a press determined to cover for
them have hidden what occurred.
The
general schools doltish press corps. Gen. John Kelly stepped to the podium in the White House briefing
room and delivered a bare-bottom, wire-brush, red-rash public spanking of the political press Thursday [10/12/2017] —
the likes of which we have never seen in the age of modern media. [...] Ordinarily, military generals are not called on to give
journalism lectures. But you don't have to be an expert in journalism to know how utterly ridiculous these people have
gotten, "reporting" about made-up squabbles between people inside the administration.
Ann
Coulter: Las Vegas Massacre — The Story Is Coming Apart. The media are either doing PR for the
gambling industry or they don't want anyone considering the possibility that Paddock was using gambling to launder money. [...]
The media think about money the way Democrats do. They have absolutely no conception of where it originates. Those
casino owners sure are generous! reporters think to themselves. Economist Thomas Sowell is always ridiculing journalists
for not understanding basic economics. It turns out, they don't understand the spreadsheet of a lemonade stand. The
New York Times explained that the "top" video poker machines pay out 99.17 percent. That's great that Paddock
was only losing cents on the dollar (if true), but it's still losing. The Times quickly explained that he could have more
than made up his losses with all the "comps" — the free rooms, meals and "50-year-old port that costs $500 a
glass," as his brother Eric said. Gamblers who are beating the house are not given $500 glasses of port. Refer to
the profit/loss spreadsheet. And yet, according to his brother, Paddock was treated like royalty by the casinos.
Which means he was losing.
Someone
tell CNN's Chris Cillizza that words actually matter in the gun control debate. The debate over gun control
rages after mass shootings, and it is almost painful to watch how poorly reporters try and stumble around an issue they're
apparently not familiar with reporting. When reporters use terms such as "automatic rounds" and "semi-automatic machine
guns," the public is less informed on public policy. There is no such thing as an "automatic round" or "semi-automatic
machine guns," but the terms sound intimidating and mislead the public into thinking they exist. Chris Cillizza wrote
an article at CNN that is loaded with errors and shouldn't have made it past an editor with any knowledge of firearms and
firearm laws.
Trump
EPA to propose repealing Obama's climate regulation: document. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will propose repealing the
Clean Power Plan — the Obama administration's centerpiece regulation to fight climate change — and plans to solicit input
on a rule to replace it, according to an EPA document seen by Reuters.
The Editor says...
This article is accompanied by a photograph (left) which appears to be a photo of an industrial plant of some sort, with the dishonest
caption, "Smoke is released into the sky at a refinery in Wilmington, California March 24, 2012." The "smoke" being released is
obviously water vapor, since it appears to be absorbed into the surrounding atmosphere within a few seconds of its release. The
contrast on the photo appears to have been enhanced to make the emission appear to be black as it leaves the vent, but smoke doesn't
turn white and then disappear within a few seconds. This appears to me to be a shamelessly dishonest attempt to make harmless
vapor look like smoke.
Was
Las Vegas Shooter "Radicalized"? The deadliest mass shooting in modern American history has been cravenly transformed into
anti-American propaganda by the Left, as Democrat commentators race to ghoulishly disparage white men, gun rights and the NRA, Republicans,
and President Trump, blaming them for what otherwise looks like a Muslim terrorist atrocity. Islamic State continues to claim
responsibility for the massacre. The terrorist group also claims Paddock converted to Islam six months ago and refers to him
by a nom de guerre, Abu Abdul Barr al-Amriki. In Las Vegas Wednesday [10/4/2017] FBI Special Agent in Charge Aaron
Rouse said, "We have found no evidence to this point to indicate terrorism, but this is an ongoing investigation. We're going
to look at all avenues, not close any." Paddock may have been "radicalized unbeknownst to us," Clark County, Nevada, Sheriff Joe
Lombardo said at a presser without elaborating. The reporters present for the statement did not bother to follow up.
For much of the mainstream media, the fact that Paddock was a white male explained his violent rampage.
The
media doesn't understand guns — and doesn't want to. The American political left and mainstream
media pundits at large do not understand guns. They are not educated about them and they refuse to learn about
them. They could not tell you the difference between an automatic or semi-automatic firearm. They don't
understand what a suppressor does or does not do.
Three Big Stories
Imploded This Week. The Department of Homeland Security stated last Friday [9/22/2017] that Russian hackers
tried to hack into the voting systems of 21 states including Wisconsin and California. But DHS backtracked this
week, stating that hackers targeted the California Department of Technology and the Wisconsin Department of Workforce
Development but not voting systems in those states. "Either they were right on Friday and this is a cover up, or they
were wrong on Friday and we deserve an apology," Mark Thomsen, chairman of Wisconsin's Elections Commission, said Tuesday.
Democrats
will use any excuse not to give power back to the states or the people. A major culprit in the ACA, health care mess we have today are
the significant majority reporters that just go out and repeat Democrat talking points. They never cared and still don't that Obama continually
lied to get the ACA passed and that the disastrous premium and cost increases are because of Democrats. The story will be written that Republicans
and Trump caused the collapse even though that is demonstrably not true.
Chuck
Todd is a constitutional illiterate. Roy Moore's primary victory in Alabama is terrifying progressives, and so
the all-out assault on Moore and the Republican party has begun. Tripping over themselves to paint Moore as an
extremist theocrat, some liberal anchors like MSNBC's Chuck Todd are stepping in it. On Wednesday evening's [9/27/2017]
episode of "Meet the Press," Todd alleged that Moore "doesn't appear to believe in the Constitution as it's written."
"Roy Moore, where the phrase 'Christian conservative' doesn't even begin to describe him," Todd said, "could very well be
your next U.S. senator."
CNN
Howler: Abraham Lincoln Was Pro-Science Back in... 1963? Celebrity scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson appeared
on CNN, Sunday [9/17/2017], to lecture those he deemed too stupid to accept the linkage of climate change to Hurricanes
Harvey and Irma. Proving he should stick to science on TV, deGrasse pompously botched history: "Abraham Lincoln,
the first Republican president, signed into law in 1963 — a year when he had important things to be thinking
about — the National Academy of Sciences." Of course, Lincoln had been dead for 98 years in 1963.
Apology,
apology, who's got an apology? ESPN, the sports network, is part of Disney entertainment enterprises, and last
week one of its "anchors," a $1.98 cent [sic] word for "announcer," or "reader," had to be disciplined by the network for telling
her semi-vast following that "Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/other white supremacists."
She said it in a tweet, naturally, the preferred communication of those unable to speak words of more than one syllable. She
offended a lot of people, or at least some people. How could she not? Taking offense is the great American pastime.
Ms. Hill is, of course, entitled to her opinion, however ill-informed by liberal group-think, but she should have known that
even as a commentator, entitled to pop off about whatever pops into her mind, she should beware of making a fool of herself.
Wile
E. Coyote press says Trump betrayed you. Each month, the press magically has a bunch of stories that center on
the same theme. Last month, it was President Trump as inciting violence. This month, it is President Trump is
stabbing his supporters in the back. [...] However, real journalism requires that you get the White House to comment before
you publish as a "fact" that President Trump reversed himself. An attribution to a third party does not cut it.
Trump
Killed the New York Daily News. The sale of the New York Daily News for a dollar isn't the death of the sleazy
leftist tabloid. It died a while back. Today, the Daily News is best known for its trolling front pages.
That and bizarre trolling hate pieces from a staff of repurposed and unqualified trash like Linda Stasi, a former Post movie
critic turned hate spewing bigot, and sportswriter Mike Lupica, trying to churn out political commentary. Stasi
summoned a boycott of the already failing paper when she blamed one of the victims of the Muslim terror attack in San
Bernardino because he was a Republican. Lupica has no idea when the Constitution was written. The Daily News
had once been a powerhouse. But as the end approached, it lacked any actual talent.
NBC News Incorrectly
Labels Menendez a Republican Before Correcting Article Hours Later. NBC News published an article Wednesday
incorrectly labeling Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), currently in federal court on bribery charges, a Republican.
NBC styled Menendez as a Republican in the lede of the article, then confusingly labeled him a Democrat at the end of the
introductory paragraph, the Daily Caller reported. The article appears to be a wire from the Associated Press,
but the original piece on the AP's website does not feature the mistake, suggesting it was added in by NBC.
Scientific American
Sokalized. A few years ago, I learned of an article by Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi in the November
2009 issue of Scientific American called "A Path to Sustainable Energy." My first impression was, "These guys must be
joking." My second impression was, "Yes, they are joking, and the joke is on Scientific American."
Soros-Funded
Groups Fueled Joel Osteen Church Story. Megachurch pastor Joel Osteen was taking considerable heat Monday evening
[7/28/2017] for allegedly not opening his 16,000-capacity Houston church to flooding victims in that city. But the story
appears to have been concocted by members of a George Soros-backed group keen on simply smearing Osteen and Lakewood Church.
Once it became viral on social media, the liberal mainstream media picked up on it — seemingly without ever asking
if it was true.
Media
Stunned — President Trump Support Stronger Than Ever, and Growing. President Trump has been in office for 30 weeks,
and 20 of those weeks have been called "the worst" by media. However, if you actually engage with people living their lives and not focused
on who the media blame for the latest round of horrid offenses; well, then you might recognize the scope of how over-emphasized and out-of-touch
the media perspective really is. CBS and The Associated Press each found themselves picking their corporate media jaws off the floor when
they actually did ask people. You know, ordinary people. Folks like you and me. The media didn't anticipate the power of common
sense to see through their [duplicity].
Let's
Treat College Admissions like Immigration. Last week, President Donald Trump endorsed an immigration bill put forth by Senators
David Perdue and Tom Cotton. The reaction was swift yet predictable. [...] CNN's Jim Acosta, auditioning for Wolf Blitzer's or Don Lemon's
gig on CNN, beclowned himself during a White House press conference by equating a contest-winning poem with the US Constitution.
Big deal. CNN doesn't recognize the US Constitution as a founding document, instead relying on the front page of the New York Times
or the Washington Post as the law of the land.
Does
The New York Times Even Have Editors? On September 30, the New York Times published a long article about Donald
Trump's wife Melania in its Fashion and Style section. The article said little of substance — Mrs. Trump is
a nice lady, apparently — but it resulted in an epic sequence of five corrections: [...]
All
the Speculation That's Fit to Print. Over the weekend, the New York Times published a story on Republicans who
supposedly are angling for their party's 2020 presidential nomination: "Republican Shadow Campaign for 2020 Takes Shape
as Trump Doubts Grow." The story was, of course, part of the paper's daily war on President Trump. Its purpose was to
cause "doubts" about President Trump's being the GOP nominee in 2020 to "grow." The Times article contains no actual news.
CNN
Anchor Doesn't Recognize US National Anthem. CNN anchor Poppy Harlow apparently didn't recognize the Star
Spangled Banner on Thursday, mistaking it for the French national anthem. Harlow was covering President Trump's arrival
in Paris, France to meet with French president Emmanuel Macron. After the two world leaders shook hands, they stood
together as a band played the United States national anthem. However, Harlow cut to the scene by saying, "Let's just
listen in to the French national anthem for just a moment." It took at least ten seconds before whispering could be heard
in the background — presumably a producer who caught Harlow's error — and Harlow had to correct herself.
Stupid
Hostile Media. President Donald Trump drives people crazy. Especially those in the media. They hate
him so much, they leap on every anti-Trump rumor. The Federalist's Jordyn Pair points out that the press repeatedly
told us that a dozen Trump administration members were about to be fired, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Press
Secretary Sean Spicer and strategists Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner. Months later, all still work for or with the
administration.
Rubio
pushes back on media for calling Bible verses 'Republican'. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Sunday pushed
back at a news article that claimed the conservative lawmaker was tweeting "the most Republican part of the Bible."
"Proverbs is the Republican part of the bible? I don't think Solomon had yet joined the GOP when he wrote the first
29 chapters of Proverbs," Rubio said tongue-in-check, while retweeting Politico Magazine's story on the matter.
The Editor says...
I have worked with a number of people who call themselves "journalists," and 90 percent of them appear to
know next to nothing about the Bible. I'm not a Bible scholar, either, but if you're going to write about
Biblical issues and make accusations in the media, perhaps you should have the facts on your side.
Democracy
Dies Due To Journalists' Lies. One of CNN's reporters complained that the president had the audacity to take
questions in Poland from a reporter who had applied for a job with the Trump Administration. Please pay no attention to
the actual number of reporters who went to work for Barack Obama and those who did not but chose to carry his water for
him. After the election, the media pushed out the story that Russia had stolen the election for President Trump.
One newspaper claimed Russia had hacked the American power grid. That story had to be retracted. [...] In February, the
Associated Press ran a story that President Trump intended to mobilize the National Guard to round up illegal aliens.
The story was not true, but just about every major media outlet ran with it. In May, the media claimed the GOP had
trucked in beer to congress to celebrate repealing Obamacare. That was not true either.
CNN
Just Published A Fake Quote From Abraham Lincoln. The quote, which is also displayed at the Newseum, was interpreted
as yet another attack from the media giant against the president. [...] Insofar as a hearsay quote should ever be tweeted out or
inscribed in walls, at least it should be accurate. Particularly when it's about "truth" and "facts."
Trump's
visit to Poland and the incoherent media. CNN is already against the wall after recently retracting a report on a Trump associate's
supposed ties to Russian money. But in a rush to find something wrong with Trump on his trip, White House correspondent Jim Acosta bruised
his network again. Before his speech in Poland, Trump said in a press conference that he had found that only "three or four" out 17 U.S.
intelligence agencies made formal conclusions about Russia's election interference. Acosta called Trump's comments "fake news" and
wondered, "Where does that number come from? Where does this 'three or four' number come from? My suspicion ... is that if we
go to the administration and ask them for this question, I'm not so sure we're going to get an answer." Except everyone else by that
point, including the New York Times, had known that Trump was correct. Just four agencies have formally and independently made their
conclusions about the election interference.
Reminder:
Many reporters are basically clueless about Christianity. No topics confound media with greater regularity than
firearms and Christianity. To put it plainly, many commentators and reporters have no idea what they're talking about
when it comes to either of these subjects.
Sketchy
Media Now Retreating From Sketchy Russian Conspiracy Reports. Hillary Clinton and aligned political operatives
manufactured the illusion of a connection between Russian entities and the Trump campaign/organization. Those
manufactured points of evidence, including a sketchy Russian Dossier, were used by the political intelligence community
(Clapper, Brennan Comey) to open an investigation of nothingness — to nowhere. The mere existence of the
investigation was then used as the originating point for a series of media intel leaks (the narrative) intended to cloud and
damage the Trump campaign/organization.
Three
CNN Employees Resign Over Retracted Story on Russia Ties. Three CNN employees have handed in their resignations
over a retracted story linking President Trump to Russia, the network announced Monday [6/26/2017]. Thomas Frank, who
wrote the story in question; Eric Lichtblau, an editor in the unit; and Lex Haris, who oversaw the unit, have all left CNN.
"In the aftermath of the retraction of a story published on CNN.com, CNN has accepted the resignation of the employees involved
in the story's publication," a network spokesperson said in a statement Monday [6/26/2017].
Three
Employees Resign from CNN Amid Very Fake News Scandal. Three CNN employees have resigned amid the network's very fake news scandal in which
it was forced to retract a hit piece on President Donald Trump and his associates. "CNN said Monday [6/26/2017] that three journalists, including the
executive editor in charge of a new investigative unit, have resigned after the publication of a Russia-related article that was retracted," CNN's Brian
Stelter reported late Monday. "Thomas Frank, who wrote the story in question; Eric Lichtblau, an editor in the unit; and Lex Haris, who oversaw the
unit, have all left CNN."
Report:
CNN Imposing New Rules On Russia Coverage After Another Botched Story. Higher-ups at CNN are cracking down
after another botched story regarding President Trump and Russia. The network retracted and deleted a story late last
week that claimed Anthony Scaramucci, who served on Trump's transition team, was under FBI investigation for a meeting he had
with a Russian executive. That story, which was based on one unnamed congressional source, was false.
Why CNN
can't have nice things. In an extraordinary move, CNN's staff, from social media, to video, to editorial, to
MoneyStream, has been told "No Russia reporting for you!" without adult supervision. [...] It's probably a reasonable
response, given that the network's claim about Trump transition team member, Anthony Scaramucci, claiming he was under
investigation for Russia ties, turned out to be pure garbage and the network had to apologize to him, probably to stay out of
libel court. But oh, what an embarrassing thing to get out in the journalism world! Not just the order to clear
it with the adults, the leaked memo, too.
CNN
Has to Completely Retract a Major Anti-Trump Story. CNN, you will recall, ran a major story about James Comey
claiming that Comey would contradict the President on whether the President is being investigated. They went wall to
wall with the coverage of that story. Then James Comey did not contradict the President. CNN had to walk it all
back. Now they have done it again. On June 22, CNN ran a story claiming that Anthony Scaramucci had dealings
with a Russian investment group.
Making
It Up As You Go Along. Two articles that could have come from different universes were actually written in the
same week. The first is a Washington Post article describing how president Obama, aware of Russian plans to influence
the 2016 election "choked" by not responding forcefully, lulled by "the assumption that Clinton would win" anyway. The
second article by Emile Simpson at Foreign Policy warns that Trump may be stumbling into a war involving the very same
Russia. They are representative of stories that depict the administration either at Putin's throat or at his feet, in
collusion or conflict with the Kremlin. Although this is contradictory nobody seems to notice. In fact both can
simultaneously be true if you assume the political system is inconsistent, as if driven by a random number generator. That
may in fact be the case. The entire political system, not just Trump administration, is zig-zagging through public policy.
They're Wrong About Everything.
What I have heard from the media and political class over the last several years has been so spectacularly proven wrong by
events, again and again, that I sometimes wonder why I continue to read two newspapers a day before spending time following
journalists on Twitter. [...] The fact is that almost the entirety of what one reads in the paper or on the web is
speculation. The writer isn't telling you what happened, he is offering an interpretation of what happened, or offering
a projection of the future. The best scenario is that these theories are novel, compelling, informed, and based on
reporting and research. But that is rarely the case. More often the interpretations of current events, and
prophesies of future ones, are merely the products of groupthink or dogma or emotions or wish-casting, memos to friends
written by 27-year-olds who, in the words of Ben Rhodes, "literally know nothing."
Infuriating:
Gun 'Expert' on NBC Doesn't Know How Guns Work. Evy Poumpouras, a correspondent and security analyst for NBC,
MSNBC, CNN, and HLN, was invited on NBC to give expert opinion on the assassination attempt of congressional Republicans on
Wednesday [6/14/2017]. This former Secret Service agent under President Obama and current cast member on the CBS show
Hunted inaccurately described how semiautomatic rifles and pistols function. Her remarks are what continue
pushing the narrative that assault rifles are somehow more deadly than other firearms.
Journalism
is dead; whatever these guys are doing isn't journalism. What do all of these stories have in common?
They're completely unsourced. No names. No real people. Just claims that come from, in order, "two
administration officials and three outside advisers familiar with the matter," an anonymous tweeter who set up a dummy
Twitter account, and "a Downing Street adviser." None of the latest stories have anyone on the record making the
accusations. Instead, the "news" sites that posted the stories — Politico, the Daily Mail and the
Guardian — simply make the surprising claims and cite anonymous sources. The subjects of the anonymous slurs
have no recourse whatsoever, no right to face their accusers, no way to fight back. The accusation streams out onto the
internet, where it lives forever — whether it's true or not.
What
it takes to be fired by CNN. But even at CNN, there are limits. First the network fired "comedian" Kathy
Griffin from what was apparently her only CNN gig, co-hosting the network's New Year's Eve show. Griffin's offense, as
we all know, was displaying a model of the president's severed, bloody head. Given the magnitude of the offense,
finding a new New Year's Eve co-host didn't seem like much of a price to pay. Now CNN has brought down the hammer
again. It has fired Reza Aslan, who hosted a CNN series. Aslan has a degree, among others, from Harvard Divinity
School. Divinity isn't what it once was; his offense was this tweet about President Trump: [...]
Fired
Philadelphia Journalist, Colleen Campbell, Upset After Video Goes Viral. Play stupid games, ya win stupid
prizes. Journalist Colleen Campbell called work at PHL 17 to tell her boss why she was unable to come to work. [It is
unknown whether she told her boss she was in jail.] Ms. Campbell was surprised to discover she was fired. There
was video. "Video, what video"? She protested.
Police:
Colleen Campbell Later Assaulted the World's Most Patient Cop. By now, you're probably familiar with the viral
video of since-fired PHL 17 reporter Colleen Campbell ranting and raving and getting arrested outside of Helium Comedy Club
on Sunday night. Earlier, we told you that the 28-year-old South Philadelphia woman had been charged with resisting
arrest, criminal mischief, and disorderly conduct, but now the Philadelphia Police Department is saying that it's worse than
we originally thought. According to a police statement about the incident, shortly after the calm, cool, and collected
cop who responded to the scene led her away in cuffs and the video stopped, Campbell, a recent Temple University graduate, allegedly
assaulted him. Police say that she kicked him repeatedly and also kicked the doors and windows of a police car.
Media
Bias In Action: NY Times Makes Obama The Victim Of His Incompetence. The concern here is we are a culture
that demands a ton of information, and we want it fast. Twitter, Facebook, Apple News, news alerts and email alerts
keep us up to date on every bit of news we want from sports to politics. Unfortunately, an environment also exists
wherein people are happy to read a headline and not read an article.
Leakers
and Journalists Are Destroying Our Republic. Leakers and journalists are tied together like drug dealers and
junkies. Unfair analogy? Maybe a bit, but people who live "respectable middle-class lives" can be just as dangerous,
more dangerous, ultimately, than the murderous El Chapos of the world and that's pretty bad. Only the other day some
U.S. intel people or person leaked to the New York Times about the Manchester terrorist, causing news to be reported that could
have instigated more Islamist child murders. We have an epidemic of leaking in our society unlike anything I have seen in
my lifetime.
Journalists'
brains below average due to alcohol and caffeine: Study. [Dr. Tara Swart's] research titled "Study
Into The Mental Resilience of Journalists," blames journalists' cognitive shortcomings on dehydration caused by excessive
alcohol consumption along with poor diet, including higher levels of sugar and caffeine. Less than 5% of journalists
drink enough — or any — water while 41% drank more than 18 alcoholic drinks per week. The study
measured "executive functioning" which, as Swart writes in her report, is "the ability of the brain to regulate emotions,
suppress bias, switch between tasks, solve complex problems and think flexibly and creatively." She notes that some
of the deficiencies may be a result of a high-pressure work environment that doesn't allow time for mindfulness.
Study
Into the Mental Resilience of Journalists. Results indicated that, on average, the journalists who participated
were no more physically stressed than the average person. Blood test data, which would have shown high levels of
cortisol to indicate stress, was mostly normal — save for two anomalies, one showing high cortisol and the other
high testosterone levels. Anecdotally, a high proportion of the group reported experiencing some stress, but often
cited factors other than their job, including family and finances, as being the cause of this. This was supported by
heart rate variability data in several instances indicating a higher degree of stress during hours spent at home. The
demands of digital were often cited as contributing to feelings of stress at work. The headline conclusion reached is
that journalists are undoubtedly subject to a range of pressures at work and home, but the meaning and purpose they attribute
to their work contributes to helping them remain mentally resilient despite this.
The
Mass Media Cult Goes Pathological. If these people weren't so malignant, I'd feel sorry for them. This is
a kind of death anxiety for the American ruling class, which is also why they constantly fantasize about killing Donald
Trump. For psychiatrists, it's an interesting mental disorder, and it's too bad that millions of Americans still depend
on Mass Cult for their daily news. This is not a college textbook; it's America today. [...] Most people don't realize
that "media concentration" — a functional news monopoly, day after day — has the same effect as cult
indoctrination. It doesn't matter if Disney Corp. has a different name from the New York Times. It matters only
that they tell the same "news" story every day. For a mental mass monopoly, you don't need to violate anti-trust
law. All you need is mass media that make up the "news" by consensus, not by empirical reality.
CNN's
Cutting-Edge Reporting Brings You ... Ice Cream? CNN seems to have taken Trump's 'You Are Fake News' statement
as a challenge to lower their bar. The seem to be SEEKING out stories to prove JUST how fake their reporting can
be. They breathlessly report on ANYTHING that could possibly put President Trump in a bad light. Even secondhand
whispers about rumors are presented as though they were established fact.
NBC's
Lester Holt Interrupts Trump 9 Times in Less than 3 Minutes. NBCNews.com on Thursday posted a two minute and 34
second preview clip of anchor Lester Holt's exclusive sit-down with President Donald Trump. The clip features Holt
conducting an interrogation-like interview in which the NBC personality interrupted Trump nine times and spoke over the
president on many of those occasions. The short clip is part of a 31-minute White House interview set to air Thursday
night [5/11/2017] on NBC Nightly News. [Video clip]
What
Caused Venezuela's Collapse Is No Mystery — Except To Economically Illiterate Journalists. When the
New York Times wrote about Venezuela's ongoing collapse a year ago, it described how the country was suffering "painful
shortages ... even of basic foods," and how "electricity and water are being rationed, and huge areas of the country have
spent months with little of either." Here is how the Times explained the reason for Venezuela's dire situation:
"The growing economic crisis (was) fueled by low prices for oil, the country's main export; a drought that has crippled
Venezuela's ability to generate hydroelectric power; and a long decline in manufacturing and agricultural production."
There's no mention — not one — of the fact that Hugo Chávez tried to turn Venezuela into a socialist
paradise, policies that his successor Nicolás Maduro has continued. The Times' coverage is par for the course.
The
Left's Culture Of Contempt. The left is devoutly convinced that this snickering can save America. That
it's better than the news. The Peabody awards celebrated the Daily Show as "a trusted source of news for citizens
united in their disappointment and disgust with politics and cable news". But the media was the first in line to anoint
the politics of contempt, ridicule and disgust as the future of journalism. Now the future is here. The
Washington Post, once a paper of record, swarms with snarky Stewartesque headlines like, "Jeff Sessions doesn't think a judge
in Hawaii — a.k.a. 'an island in the Pacific' — should overrule Trump". Journalism is dead.
And replacing it with snarky lefty spin hasn't saved the Republic. Or anything else.
When
Will The Media Realize That Anonymous Sources Undermine Their Credibility? [Scroll down] Why does all this matter?
Because precision matters. Accountability matters. When they support their arguments with the lazy and hazy "some" and "many,"
the fabled New Yorker is no better than the "anonymous" message boards and blogs the mainstream media routinely ridicules. And
because while this might go unnoticed by many, some are still paying attention.
How
many buzzwords can the liberal media write in one sentence? I was reading a very poorly written Los Angeles Times article about North
Carolina legislators introducing a bill to define marriage as between a man and a woman, and I was surprised to read the following sentence:
["]Opponents of the legislation castigated it as an unnecessary step that will stoke division in a state still reeling from
the fallout of a controversial bill regulating which bathrooms transgender people can use.["] I have rarely seen a sentence
so sensationalistically, so chock-full of so many liberal buzzwords. The over-dramatization of facts makes this news article read
like an action thriller.
When reporters
slip on ICE. Hmm. What a coincidence. Two illegal alien moms from Mexico, each with four kids,
living in Lorain, Ohio, worry about deportation after a traffic stop in the same month in Sheffield Village.
Sheffield's population is 3,982. It is 6% Hispanic in a county that is 8% Hispanic in a state that is 3% Hispanic. The
truth is, they are the same person. Anabel Barron Sanchez works as a caseworker at El Centro DE Servicios Sociales INC
in Lorain, Ohio. Until she was 16, she migrated back and forth between San Antonio and Mexico. Then she moved to
Ohio. She knows the system. She knows the media. That is how she got a national magazine to cover her
story — as Anabel Barron.
Is
the Media Too Comfortable with Its Own Mistakes? In November, New York magazine excitedly reported on
the claims of computer scientists that "results in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania may have been manipulated or
hacked." No credible evidence of hacking was ever presented. In December, Politico reported that the bank of
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had "foreclosed on a 90-year-old woman after a 27-cent payment error," a claim widely
repeated in publications such as Vanity Fair. As the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Ted Frank pointed out, the
"widow was never foreclosed on and never lost her home, and it wasn't Mnuchin's bank that brought the suit." Seven hate
crimes widely reported after the 2016 election turned out to be hoaxes. Do members of the media feel bad when they get
facts wrong or gullibly repeat implausible claims? Guilty? Angry at themselves? Do they resolve to do
better next time?
ABC,
CNN, Washington Post can't find evidence of vote fraud that a 9-year old could using Google. The problem for
these big brains is that a 9-year old using Google could raise enough questions about systematic, rampant vote fraud to
completely legitimize Miller. Here's a starter kit for the idiots reporters on the
Left: • On hidden camera, an authority on the subject — Democrat election commissioner
Alan Schulkin from New York City — admitted that "there's a lot of voter fraud... they bus people around to
vote" • In the 2014 publication of Election Studies Journal, the authors estimate that 2.8 million
illegal aliens voted in both the 2008 and 2010 elections • In just three Virginia counties, more than
1,000 illegal voters are eligible to cast a ballot • California's Los Angeles county reported the
most provisional ballots — the easiest to game — in the country, representing a stunning 40 percent
of all votes cast.
Trump's
Got a Big Job Reining In Voter Fraud. It is hard to fathom how anyone, especially those inquiring minds of the Washington press
corps, legitimately would be so uninterested in finding the truth. Despite insisting that the President provide evidence of voter fraud,
he is being assailed even more vehemently by the Democrat pols, late-night talk show hosts and reporters when he offers to do just that. [...]
Fraud long has been an ugly element of American politics, and it has been almost exclusively the dominion of Democrats.
Errors
From The Press Are Piling Up In The Opening Weeks Of The Trump Administration. Journalists can't seem to get
their stories straight in the opening weeks of the Trump administration, whether in tweets or in articles where falsehoods
have been spread almost daily. The mistakes have not just been from newer liberal news outlets such The Huffington Post
or BuzzFeed, but from legacy media like Reuters, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. What follows are several
botched stories or conflicting reports since President Trump took office.
Here's
A List Of Stories The Media Got Wrong This Week. It was an embarrassing week for the mainstream media. In
case after case, stories pushed by news outlets turned out to be either unsubstantiated or fell apart upon closer scrutiny.
Yet
Another Media Meltdown Turns Out To Be Totally Wrong. News that President Donald Trump was easing sanctions
against Russia was refuted almost immediately, like so many other stories. The Department of the Treasury said Thursday
that it would allow U.S. companies to make limited transactions with the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia's
intelligence agency. Possibly eager to establish a connection between the new U.S. president and Russia, numerous media
outlets and journalists were quick to claim that Trump was easing, and even lifting, sanctions against Russia. "I
haven't eased anything," Trump told reporters at the White House Thursday [2/2/2017].
'Tell
Me What Your Real Name Is': Tucker Carlson Confronts Guest Over Hoax in Bonkers Interview. The video above
contains quite possibly one of the most bizarre interviews you will ever watch. Here's how Tucker Carlson began the
interview: "This is a sham, your company isn't real, your website is fake, the claims you have made are lies, this is a
hoax. Let me start at the beginning, however, with your name, Dom Tullipso, which is not your real name. It's a
fake name, we ran you through law enforcement-level background checks and that name does not exist. So let's start out
with the truth. Tell me what your real name is." [Video clip]
The Editor says...
This fellow apparently was invited on to Fox News Channel only after they discovered he had been fooling other news organizations
into publicizing his fictitious claims.
Hoax
ads in two dozen cities offered protesters up to $2,500 to agitate at Trump inaugural. The polished Demand
Protest website, the Backpage.com ads recruiting paid protesters for the Trump inauguration: Apparently it was all a
hoax. A man using the alias "Dominic Tullipso" said Tuesday [1/17/2017] on Fox News Channel — well, it was
hard to figure out what he was trying to say, but it was also clear that he wasn't running a business that involved spending
thousands on hiring activists.
Unserious
anchor wastes Pence's time. Governor Mike Pence, who will become vice president on Friday, gave John Dickerson
an interview on Sunday [1/15/2017] on CBS's "Face the Nation." Waste the Nation was more like it as Dickerson asked no
substantive questions. Not one. Instead Dickerson pestered Pence about John Lewis pouting over President
Trump's election, and about the totally discredited Russian dossier.
Fake News, Or:
'The Art of the Fail'. Actually, I am starting to think that maybe the mainstream media is not dishonest at
all, just incapable of serious analysis or examination of ideas.
Politico
discovers "new" network that's been around 74 years. Today in Fake News, Politico reported:
"President-elect Donald Trump is about to inherit a newly empowered Voice of America that some officials fear could serve as
an unfettered propaganda arm for the former reality TV star who has flirted for years with launching his own network."
The network began in World War II, on February 17, 1942 to be exact.
Prominent
Journos Uncritically Retweet Fake Rex Tillerson Twitter Account. New York Times energy reporter Clifford Krauss
thought he had President-elect Donald Trump's secretary of sate pick on the ropes when he retweeted what he thought was
ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson's Twitter account. It wasn't. Krauss went after a fake Tillerson Twitter account
that was apparently created Saturday — the day before he retweeted it. Krauss went after Tillerson for
tweeting "he is a patriot," but other journalists on Twitter quickly questioned the legitimacy of the fake Tillerson account.
Newsweek
editor: We didn't read 'Madam President' issue before publishing. A Newsweek editor admitted Wednesday [11/30/2016] that
he and other staffers didn't actually read their recalled commemorative "Madam President" election issue before it was published.
Newsweek political editor Matthew Cooper said Wednesday on Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight" that the magazine's issue, which incorrectly
anticipated a Hillary Clinton win, was not produced by Newsweek but by a third party. "Well, no one on our staff wrote that,"
Cooper said. "Again, we subcontract out to a company."
Newsweek
Didn't Even Read Its Own Recalled President Hillary Commemorative Issue. An editor at Newsweek magazine
admitted on Tucker Carlson Tonight that the magazine hadn't even proofread a commemorative issue honoring Hillary Clinton
before having it distributed in anticipation of her winning the 2016 presidential election. Like many others, Newsweek
believed Clinton was a strong favorite to defeat Donald Trump in November's election. Seeking to take advantage of her
win, the company printed out 125,000 copies of a commemorative issue honoring the triumph of "Madam President," and even had
Clinton sign some of them.
Nigel
Farage Spoke at a Media Conference and Journalists Lost Their Minds. Nigel Farage has sent the international
establishment media into a tailspin by telling them that they are wrong on climate change, wrong on immigraion, wrong on
radical Islam — and that they need to change. Appearing in Copenhagen at the News Xchange annual conference
for the international broadcast news industry Farage addressed the audience of around 630 journalists from around the world
and promptly sent them into a Twitter frenzy by informing them they were out of touch.
Reuters
Explains How It "Fudged" Its Polls. Over the past couple of weeks, we have constantly pointed out that polling
data was seemingly being manipulated to "manufacture" artificial leads for the mainstream media's chosen candidate, Hillary
Clinton. By "oversampling" democrats and/or various minority groups, pollster after pollster kept rolling out
predictions that seemed utterly ridiculous to us but were gobbled up by complicit media outlets.
Media
Reaction: We And Our Self-Obsessed Liberal Friends Were All Wrong. Journalists flatly admitted they
completely failed to understand the 2016 presidential election following Republican nominee Donald Trump's win Tuesday
[11/8/2016]. "To put it bluntly, the media missed the story," Margaret Sullivan wrote in The Washington Post. "We
were all wrong," Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman wrote in Politico's Playbook newsletter. "That seems obvious, right?
But we were more than wrong. We were laughably oblivious. The entire Washington political-media complex completely
missed the mark. Not by inches or feet, but by miles."
Celebrities,
Have the Grace to Fulfill Your Promises. The Left was quite positive that the first woman to be president would
triumph, and obviously the whole thing was quite a shock. Celebrities, always eager to get their faces or persons
before any available camera, did so. But just what is a celebrity? They are people who are famous because you
might recognize their face or their name. They prefer to think that because they may or may not have some name
recognition, that the world is interested in their political opinions — it isn't. Unfortunately
there are always some star-struck reporters around who are.
News Media
Yet Again Misreads America's Complex Pulse. The misfire on Tuesday night [11/8/2016] was about a lot more than
a failure in polling. It was a failure to capture the boiling anger of a large portion of the American electorate that
feels left behind by a selective recovery, betrayed by trade deals that they see as threats to their jobs and disrespected by
establishment Washington, Wall Street and the mainstream media. Journalists didn't question the polling data when it
confirmed their gut feeling that Mr. Trump could never in a million years pull it off. They portrayed Trump supporters
who still believed he had a shot as being out of touch with reality. In the end, it was the other way around.
Hacking
concern on Election Day: The companies that bring you the news. Experts have been warning for months that
hackers could try to disrupt Tuesday's election by penetrating local voting systems. But another target could prove
easier to hack: U.S. media outlets offering election night results. Upguard, a Mountain View, California, company
that assesses how well companies are protecting themselves from hackers, has found that three major news organizations —
The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal and CBS News — tallied "pretty abysmal" scores on key criteria to thwart
breaches. All three are key sources of election night results, with the AP perhaps the largest provider of election
tabulations in the country.
CNN's
Carol Costello to Millennial Republican: I'm Not Sure What You Mean by 'Traditional Values'. In a CNN
panel for first-time voters, a young conservative explained that Millennial voters could learn a lot from the "older
generations" and their "traditional values". CNN's Carol Costello admitted that she wasn't sure what that meant.
Robert Wines, who is casting his first vote for independent conservative candidate Evan McMullin, said, "Millennials have to
be more accepting of traditional values ... that are greatly found in the older generations." "Hm," Costello said, "I'm
trying to figure out what you mean by that."
Too Stupid To Rule. [Scroll down] Once e-mail was sent from the domain to outsiders,
it was only a matter of time before the secret was out. They were lucky that most media people are remarkably stupid so they lack the
wherewithal to wonder why Hillary Clinton did not have a State Department e-mail account. Watch the cable channels and you come away
thinking that the people on TV just learned about e-mail last week. Eventually the Romanian cab driver unearthed the whole thing and
the enterprise came crashing down. [...] There are a lot of angles to these Clinton scandals, but the thing that transcends all of it is the
rank stupidity of the people involved.
Clueless
CBS Anchors on Obamacare Premium Hikes: "What Happened?". How did this happen? Well, Charlie, Norah
and Gayle: You carried the water for your 'messiah,' Barack Hussein Obama, for eight years, you all hailed Obamacare as
an amazing success, and you ignored the suffering of real Americans as Obamacare began to implode.
Liberal
CBS Morning News Anchors Act Shocked at Totally Predictable, Huge ObamaCare Rates Increases. Watch the liberal
CBS Morning News Anchor crew act totally shocked at the totally predictable huge premium rate increases announced for
ObamaCare. Premiums are going up 25% on average, and many providers are dropping out of the system. CBS' Norah
O'Donnell acts like it is a total mystery. Yet, conservatives said years ago this is what would happen with
ObamaCare. It is a total disaster. [Video clip]
CBS
Anchors Bamboozled by Obamacare Rate Hikes. Have a look at the CBS This Morning anchors, totally mystified
about why Obamacare premiums are rising. I mean, do they administer IQ tests to these people before they put them on
TV? Listen to Norah O'Donnell — "The premiums are skyrocketing!" She sounds like she just
found out Martians had landed and opened up a chain of delicatessens. [Video clip]
CNN Host
Tries to Burn Trump, Thinks Members of Congress Already Have Term Limits. CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin criticized
Donald Trump's call for term limits on members of Congress on Tuesday [10/18/2016] by incorrectly saying that such limits
already existed. As part of a new policy to "drain the swamp" in Washington, D.C., Trump announced Tuesday he would
push for a constitutional amendment as president to impose term limits on all members of Congress. "Correct me, there
already are term limits, so what does he mean?" Baldwin skeptically asked reporter Dana Bash. Indeed, Baldwin had to be
corrected. Bash did so politely.
Smug
CNN Moonbat Claims "There are already term limits in congress". In what can only be described as the current
intelligence customarily found amid the Clinton News Network, host and pundit Brooke Baldwin looks at her panel, smugly and
condescendingly replying: ... "there are already term limits, so what does he mean"? [Video clip]
CNN
Anchor Brooke Baldwin Doesn't Know There Are No Term Limits for Members of Congress. The liberal media that is
pushing Hillary Clinton down our throats while trashing Donald Trump every chance they get may not be as informed as they
portray themselves. Take for instance CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin who is under the impression that there are term limits
for members of the US Congress. Even funnier is that she made this mistaken point while trying to stick it to
Trump. Brooke Baldwin is a fairly attractive woman and perhaps she got her job more on her looks than her journalist
chops. On Tuesday she was reporting that Donald Trump has made a pledge that if he were elected president, he would
propose a Constitutional amendment that would place term limits on Congress. Here's what Baldwin had to say about this: [...]
NPR Reporter Has No Idea What
'Come And Take It' Means. Sunday marked the 181st anniversary of the Battle of Gonzales, the first military
engagement of the Texas Revolution, when Texian militiamen, responding to Mexican soldiers demanding the surrender of a small
brass cannon, coined the now-famous battle cry, "Come and Take It!" An NPR reporter decided to mark this anniversary with
a story about how the phrase has been stolen by Second Amendment activists, "with no appreciation of its origins." Some local
residents of modern-day Gonzales, we're told, "think it's been cheapened — and they want it back." But neither
the hapless NPR reporter nor the several anti-gun residents of Gonzales interviewed for the story know the actual origin of
the phrase, or why its application to the ongoing national debate about gun control and the Second Amendment is entirely
appropriate — and historically accurate.
Trump
Tax Return Story Exposes Policy Ignorance Of Political Reporters. Over the weekend, the New York Times reported
that they had obtained a copy of Donald Trump's 1995 New York state tax return (whoever sent it committed a felony). It
showed that he claimed a net operating loss (NOL) of about $900 million that year. What followed was a collective
explosion of talking heads over the weekend, with the theatrics inversely proportional to the pundit's knowledge of tax policy.
To state the obvious, political reporters don't know [any] thing about taxes.
How
the media caused the 2000 Florida recount. On November 7, 2000, during the final hour and a half of voting in
Florida's most conservative region, the Panhandle, 13 national television journalists, representing all six major outlets,
asserted a total of 39 times that the polls in that region closed an hour earlier than they really did. Not once did
anyone on ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News Channel, NBC, or MSNBC inform the audience that Florida has two time zones and two poll
closing times. They hammered away that there was only one poll-closing time throughout the entire state of Florida:
7 p.m. Eastern. The polls in the ten westernmost Panhandle counties — all heavily Republican —
were actually open until 8 p.m. Eastern.
"Election
Fraud Underway" — NBC Affiliate Posts "Election Results" For Florida Race That Hasn't Happened Yet. Republican
candidate for Florida House District 86, Laurel Bennett, was a bit shocked over the weekend when she discovered that a local
West Palm Beach NBC affiliate, WPTV, reported that she had lost a race even though votes hadn't been cast yet. Why do
we need voters when it's far easier to just skip straight to the results?
Relying
too much on polls doesn't serve public. Every major broadcast and cable network, and many major newspapers,
feel compelled to sponsor their own political polls. But the polling conducted today by news outlets and universities
does little to serve the public interest. The polls do, however, serve the branding and marketing interests of the
sponsoring organizations. That financial motivation drives the polling frenzy more than any sense of civic duty.
When CNN, Fox News or NBC releases periodic poll results, the news channels benefit from having those results reported across
the journalistic world, raising the profile of the respective news outlets. Polls provide journalists with something to
report about, fill time and endlessly analyze. That's easier for news organizations than covering issues and providing
election news of substance. Such "horse race" coverage diminishes the process of democracy to the level of a sporting event.
Media
Push Obama's 'Cool Brand,' Present Summer Playlist as 'News'. Who in the world decided that revealing Obama's
summertime playlist actually constituted as newsworthy? Apparently ABC News did, as well as CNN, Politico, The
Washington Post — and even Obama himself when he tweeted: "Been waiting to drop this: summer playlist,
the encore. What's everybody listening to?"
Brexit
fueled by backlash against media bias and deception. On Thursday [6/23/2016], the British voted by a 52% to 48%
margin to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union, an action known as "Brexit." In doing so they ignored virtually
all of the self-styled "experts" cited in British newspapers, who opposed leaving, and the majority (although by no means all) of
Britain's media (including the Guardian, the BBC, the Financial Times, The Times, the Daily Mirror, The Economist, etc.). As
Alexandra Petri writes in the Washington Post, "The people who were in favor of remaining were Basically All Experts ... the
Economist, the Financial Times)... and Every Prime Minister of Britain Who Is Still Alive, but what do these establishment types
know? ... All of this has come about thanks to a world that is increasingly suspicious of experts."
Oops:
Politico mistakes disgraced Democrat for Republican. Politico misidentified disgraced Rep. Chaka Fattah,
D-Pa., this week as a Republican. [...] The article as it appeared on social media carried the headline "Fattah submits
resignation but wants to stay until October," and it included a picture captioned, "Convicted Pennsylvania Republican wants
to remain in House until sentencing."
New
York Times quietly backs away from story on Orlando terrorist's weapon. After widespread complaints on social
media, the New York Times has quietly backed away this afternoon from inaccurate reporting on the weapon used in Saturday's
Orlando terror attack. Second Amendment supporters and others have repeatedly questioned why "AR-15 Rifles Are Beloved,
Reviled and a Common Element in Mass Shootings" was so quick to incorrectly draw a common theme between other domestic
incidents and this one based on the killer's weapon of choice.
Media
fail: Orlando terrorist did not use an AR-15. Since Sunday's terrorist attack on an Orlando gay
nightclub, the Democrat-media complex has gone on a tear demonizing the AR-15. A number of ignorant outlets and biased
operators (as opposed to "reporters" who actually try to get the story right) breathlessly reported that the shooter used an
AR-15. Here's an example of the false reporting. A video at the Washington Post is captioned: "Orlando shooter
Omar Mateen used an AR-15 style rifle to kill at least 49 people, officials say. Here's what you need to know about
the gun some are calling 'the gold standard for mass murder.'" But, Bob Owens wrote at Bearing Arms, they got it wrong.
The
Orlando Killer Didn't Use An AR-15 Rifle. [T]he demonization of the AR-15 rifle has begun in the media.
The usual talking points about its lethality, its rate of fire, and its scariness are coursing through the veins of the
anti-gun Left following the Orlando attack. Omar Mateen committed the worst mass shooting in U.S. history on Sunday
morning, which will likely be reclassified as a terrorist attack, when he murdered 49 people at a gay nightclub (Pulse).
As Bob Owens and Streiff noted at Bearing Arms and RedState respectively, Mateen didn't use an AR-15 rifle, but the media has
a narrative to dole out.
NBC
'Law Enforcement Expert' Blamed Orlando Terror Shooting on Anti-Gay 'White Hate Groups'. Early on Sunday before
the world learned the identity and religion of the man who murdered up to 50 people in an Orlando, Florida, gay bar, a "law
enforcement expert" for NBC went on the air on MSNBC and hinted that the shooter was probably a Christian and a member of a
"white hate group."
NPR
+ NYT: A Recipe for Cluelessness. What happens when a National Public Radio host interviews a New York Times
reporter on the subject of Venezuela's economic collapse? You get a perfect storm of cluelessness. The host is
Terry Gross, the guest is New York Times reporter Nicholas Casey, and the program is Fresh Air. Gross asks Casey about
the utter disaster that Venezuela has become. Casey understands the depth to which Venezuela has fallen — he
lives in Caracas! — but he can't bring himself to offer an honest diagnosis.
John
Dickerson's Face the Nation Interview with Hillary a Disgrace to CBS News;. John Dickerson was one of the
better moderators we saw during the campaign season. He asked solid questions and follow-up questions, didn't
editorialize and kept the trains running on time with multiple candidates to juggle. This space gave him an 'A' for
the way he handled a Democratic presidential debate back in December. But an interview with Hillary Clinton that was
broadcast this morning [5/8/2016] on CBS' Face the Nation was not only profoundly disappointing, but even
disgraceful... particularly for someone as seasoned as the 47-year-old CBS political director and host. Never have
there been so many questions to a presumptive presidential nominee that were so unfocused, so tilted, so teed-up, so
non-probing than whatever that was Dickerson served up during his long sit-down this morning.
Chris
Matthews: 'We Don't Even Know What the Facility's Called' Where the Benghazi Attack Happened. MSNBC host Chris
Matthews said Wednesday [4/27/2016] that "we don't even know what the facility's called" where the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack
occurred that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Discussing Donald Trump's attack on former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for not being awake for the phone call about the attack, Matthews appeared not to remember
it occurred at the diplomatic compound in the Libyan city.
Florida
news group runs picture of a rifle for story about a pistol. A Florida newsweekly on Monday [4/25/2016] used a
picture of religious liberty activist holding a rifle instead of the pistol that was the subject of its story, and justified
it by saying the image of the larger, more powerful firearm was "just too good to pass up."
How
and Why the Conservative Media Sold Its Soul To Facilitate Trump's Nomination. In short, the vast majority of
"conservative" media is simply just a business cynically disguised as a cause. The reason this is the case is actually
quite simple. Because the vast majority of "newsish" media outlets are overtly liberal, the business model and employment
opportunities (or lack thereof) on the right are vastly different from the rest of the media. Liberals have an abundance
of chances to opine on network television, major newspapers and books from mainstream publishers, usually without any serious
worries about having to sell products or get ratings. Meanwhile, radio talk show hosts and Fox News anchors are forced to
fight for every possible ratings point (usually against people allegedly on the same "team") and often sell their souls to
maintain their ability to sell soap. Conservative websites, with the exception of the Drudge Report, are in a constant
battle to stay afloat, often with badly broken business models. This dynamic set up a perfect storm of circumstances
for "Trumpsanity" to overtake the process and ultimately produce a result about as unjust and destructive as the OJ Simpson
verdict. There is even evidence that Trump understood this reality and designed his campaign's launch during the slowest
news period to take advantage of it.
The
Hill Calls Lifelong Democrat Segregationist George Wallace a Republican in Piece About Donald Trump. Mark Hensch, a staff writer for The Hill, wrote an
article tiltled, "Kiefer Sutherland: Trump recalls segregationist George Wallace," in which Hensch wrote, "Actor Kiefer Sutherland sees similarities between GOP presidential
front-runner Donald Trump and former Alabama Gov. George Wallace (R), one of American history's most vocal segregationists." The glaring problem here is George Wallace
was never a Republican.
CBS
Interview Devolves Into Asking Obama What's in His Pockets. After sitting down with the President and the First
Lady on Sunday [2/7/2016] for a friendly chat before the Super Bowl, CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King was not
finished with her sycophantic fawning as she followed Obama into the Oval Office for a one-on-one exchange highlighted by her
asking what "cool things" he was carrying in his pockets that day.
Of Course
Whites Commit Most Of The Crime In Fargo You Idiots. It's time for another fantastically stupid "exclusive"
news story from the folks at Fargo-based television news station Valley News Live. Their big revelation? White
people commit most of the crime in Fargo. A city where, according to the U.S. Census, is 90.2 percent white.
The
seven deadly stupidities of 2015 political coverage. [Scroll down] One particular bit of bah-humbuggery:
three tweets are not a story. Once, reporters had to call people on the telephone or even, heaven forfend, go places in order
to get information. In time, the fax machine started dropping story ideas and statements into our laps. That electronic
dependency deepened a decade ago when cut-and-pasteable emails started populating our inboxes. But now, Twitter feeds provide
ongoing press conferences in Crazytown. It is a ruthlessly efficient outrage generation machine.
'It's
Because I'm Black, Isn't It?' Race makes people crazy, but often not in the way you'd expect. A nation watched
wide-eyed as Melissa Harris-Perry of MSNBC complained that the Star Wars franchise was racist because the major villain is "black."
Darth Vader is black in the sense that Johnny Cash or Ben Roethlisberger or certain figures from Arthurian legend are "black" —
white guys in black outfits — so people kept waiting for Harris-Perry, "America's foremost public intellectual," to crack and
let us know that she was joking. But she wasn't joking.
Journalists
Refuse to Talk About Storming San Bernardino Suspects' Home. Journalists gathered at the home of Syed Farook
and Tashfeen Malik, the terrorists who carried out Wednesday's attack in San Bernardino, will not talk about whether they had
permission to storm inside. Breitbart News' Michelle Moons and Raheem Kassam arrived on the scene shortly after MSNBC,
CNN, and other networks burst through the door, which had been opened with a crowbar after the landlord allegedly gave
permission to journalists to enter.
During
Paris Attacks, MSNBC's Brian Williams Asks About Impact On Climate Conference. A climate conference is underway in Paris, and
Weather Channel Managing Editor Sam Champion is there, along with former Vice President Al Gore, filming the event and doing promotion there
for the cause. Champion was on MSNBC to discuss the terror attacks in Paris as they were occurring. After some back and forth,
tone deaf Williams asked Champion how the conference would be affected. Williams did not merely ask about how the event would proceed,
or whether security would be affected, which might be natural questions even if grossly untimely. But instead he asks specifically,
how this attack would impact the messaging.
Brian
Williams Asks About How Paris Attacks Will Affect Climate Summit Messaging. Right in the middle of the reports
of the Paris attacks yesterday [11/13/2015] comes a really bizarre and tone deaf note of concern from Brian Williams of MSNBC.
Brian was concerned about how the attacks will affect the messaging of the Paris Climate Change Conference which is scheduled to begin
at the end of this month.
Media Bias Goes Extreme. The national
and local media bias against the Second Amendment reached bizarre heights this week when a newspaper headline proclaimed "Shooter
kills 4; 30 injured." The problem? Well, even a casual reader would note that the tragedy described in the article had
nothing to do with a "shooter" but was about a individual who drove her car through a homecoming parade at Oklahoma State University.
While the motives of the driver's actions remain unclear, we find it simply incredible that a headline could be so abundantly off the mark.
MSNBC Admits Anti-Israel Graphics Were
'Wrong'. MSNBC has admitted that highly controversial graphics aired on the network that depicted Israel as stealing land
from the Palestinians were "factually wrong" and that the broadcast would be corrected on Monday [10/19/2015], according to a network
spokesperson. The cable news network has been fighting off criticism after it aired the graphics and analysis, including a map
linked to conspiracy groups branded as anti-Semitic, that portrayed Israel as existing on territory expropriated from Palestine.
The graphics garnered criticism from pro-Israel advocates and has now prompted the network to acknowledge that the graphics were highly
misleading.
He
stopped a jihadist in France. Now he's been stabbed in California. The original story about Skarlatos and
Harper-Mercer evidently has legs. In all there have now been three high-profile, possibly related violent attacks in
France, Oregon, and California that might be connected to the world of Islamofascist (some prefer the descriptor Islamo-Nazi)
terrorism. In this writer's opinion, no reasonable person who follows current affairs can reflexively dismiss the seeming
connection of attackers and victims, given what's going on in the world right now. This is not to say that there
necessarily is (or was) an Islamist plot against the three American men. But the mainstream media, as usual, isn't doing
its job. Journalists are sitting on their hands, regurgitating talking points, and failing to consider the big picture.
CNN's
Chris Cuomo Has Absolutely No Idea Where Babies Come From. Chris Cuomo is a broadcast journalist, currently
anchoring at CNN. [...] He interviewed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) the day after the first GOP presidential primary debate
last week. And Cuomo came out hard in support of abortion. That's not particularly noteworthy in the current media
environment, where journalists openly advocate for abortion. But it is worth noting that he did it in a mind-numbingly
idiotic manner.
Clueless
Reporters Question President Pinocchio: A Pathetic Press Conference. Today [7/15/2015] President Obama met
the White House press corps at length to defend his Iran nuclear deal. One could deconstruct his evasions line by
line, but that would largely duplicate the content of many posts we have done over the past weeks and months.
Instead, I want to focus on a few key issues. But first, this observation: if any of the reporters present
had read the agreement, which is only 159 pages long, it was not apparent. Maybe reporters are not accustomed
to reading legal documents; maybe they are too lazy to try; maybe they have read and understood the agreement and are just
partisan hacks, covering for their president. But I have a full-time job, and nevertheless have read the agreement
several times. Why can't reporters do the same? That would seem to be a prerequisite to participating
intelligently in a press conference on the subject.
Hillary-Slayer
Fiorina: Give Me Shot on Debate Stage to Ask Every Question Press Won't. [Scroll
down] "She was not asked a single question about her track record as secretary of State. She
wasn't asked about why she thought a gimmicky reset button would stop Vladimir Putin. She wasn't
asked about why she called President Bashar al-Assad of Syria a positive reformer. She wasn't asked
why she declared victory in Iraq in 2011. She wasn't asked if she thought she had lied to the
American people about Benghazi and what she thinks now of the fact that Libya is a failed state and
a haven for terrorists," she continued. "In other words, she isn't going to be asked all the
questions she needs to be asked, which is why we must have a nominee who will face her on a general
election debate stage and ask every single one of those questions so that the American people have
the facts they need to make a good judgment."
A shocking breach of professionalism: CNN's
GoPro antics rile Supreme Court. The Supreme Court of the United States briefly
removed media interns from its press room on Monday after a CNN intern was caught recording video
footage with a GoPro camera that he had strapped to his chest, the On Media blog has learned. The
episode led to an impromptu meeting among top CNN executives and editors in Washington, a call to
the company's legal department, and a profuse apology to the Supreme Court's public affairs team.
ABC's
'08 Prediction: NYC Under Water from Climate Change By June 2015. New York City underwater? Gas over $9 a
gallon? A carton of milk costs almost $13? Welcome to June 12, 2015. Or at least that was the wildly-inaccurate
version of 2015 predicted by ABC News exactly seven years ago. Appearing on Good Morning America in 2008, Bob Woodruff
hyped Earth 2100, a special that pushed apocalyptic predictions of the then-futuristic 2015. The segment included
supposedly prophetic videos, such as a teenager declaring, "It's June 8th, 2015. One carton of milk is $12.99." (On
the actual June 8, 2015, a gallon of milk cost, on average, $3.39.) Another clip featured this prediction for the
current year: "Gas reached over $9 a gallon." (In reality, gas costs an average of $2.75.)
Journalists: Do Your Job.
If someone says something, you have an obligation to report it accurately and without bias. Your job
is not to tell people how to think. In a free and open society, your job is to inform readers and
viewers so that they may form their own opinions. You keep your views in check while presenting the
information. Is it near impossible to keep all bias out of a story? Admittedly, yes. But,
if you bring up all points and lets readers and viewers decide for themselves, you have done your job.
Who is a Journalist?
My first job in journalism was as a copyboy at the NBC News Bureau in Washington, D.C. In my early
20s, I asked Bill Corrigan, the newsroom manager, "What must I do to get on the air?" He replied,
"Get a college degree and a minimum of five years writing experience with a newspaper or wire service."
[...] The rules of the road to journalistic success have changed dramatically, as has the definition of
journalist. Today, one can self-identify as a journalist without any background or experience.
Which brings me to George Stephanopoulos, the ABC News anchor and co-host of "Good Morning America."
Members
of the Media Downplaying, Making Excuses for Baltimore Riots. Last week the media
tried to characterize the increasingly violent protests in Baltimore as "peaceful." Now, even after
the demonstrations have turned into outright riots, some members of the media are still trying to excuse
the violence or are otherwise downplaying what has been going on since last Thursday. The rioting
in Baltimore has gotten so bad that now the Maryland National Guard has been called in to try and restore
order, yet some members of the media are spinning the unrest to take blame off the rioters.
News
media's sloppy week. [Scroll down] Last week Bloomberg News ran, and then retracted a
report that Nancy Reagan had endorsed Hillary Clinton. Except that it came from a parody news site
and wasn't even slightly true. Again, this was something that the editors just wanted to believe.
In reportorial parlance, it was a story "too good to check."
The Very
Deep Thoughts of Sally Kohn. Would it be uncivil to suggest that lesbianese CNN pundit
Sally Kohn is the dumber, blonder version of Rachel Maddow? I know I'm not supposed to be uncivil,
but what else can you say about someone who... almost daily... spews idiocy like this: [...]
Reports:
MSM Reporters Give Hillary Clinton Standing Ovation. On Monday evening, mainstream media
reporters reportedly gave Hillary Clinton a standing ovation after she joked about her private email
scandal and took no questions from the press — at an event honoring excellence in journalism.
Ted Cruz
Befuddles MSNBC Hack on Congressional Role in Foreign Policy Using... History, Facts.
For some reason, Ted Cruz decided to appear on MSNBC's The Morning Shmoe (Mark Levin's name for the
lowest-rated news program on the lowest-rated network), where the combined IQ of the hosts —
the science is settled — is roughly the square root of that of a goldfish. Which makes
Ted Cruz schooling Mika Brzezinski akin to teaching calculus to a Maine lobster.
How
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama Became Media Control Freaks. Embattled former
secretary of state Hillary Clinton can console herself with the knowledge that she's not
alone. The presumptive presidential candidate and email deleter — whose apparent
reluctance to release public records and documents prompted the Associated Press to sue the State
Department this week — is by no means unique in her wish to starve the insatiable media,
or at least restrict ravenous reporters to a bland diet of happy news.
MSNBC
solidifies its standing as the clown version of cable news. I suppose you call this
another historic first for Eric Holder: the first attorney general asked by a TV interviewer to
quack like a duck on air. The incident came toward the end of a fawning interview by Melissa
Harris-Perry (no stranger to clownish and embarrassing stunts, some of which caused tearful on air
apologies).
Obama
Depicted as Rape Suspect in Fox 5 News Graphic Error. In a stroke of Friday the 13th
bad luck, Fox 5 San Diego briefly portrayed President Obama as a sex-assault suspect on its 10 o'clock
news. At 10:04 p.m., viewers heard anchor Kathleen Bade say: "The only suspect in a sex assault
at SDSU will not be charged." At the same time, a picture of Obama appeared with the legend "NO CHARGES."
The Obama shot lasted about 5 seconds, but it was noticed immediately in the newsroom, said Mike Wille, an
assignment editor.
The Editor says...
I wasn't there, but I can tell you exactly how that happened: The owners of television stations all over the country, especially
the stations with "local news" programs, enjoy tremendous profits. And yet they are constantly looking for ways to
increase those profits. The actual amount of yearly profit doesn't seem to matter — only the annual increase
in profits over last year. As a result, the station owners cut costs in any possible way, and many of them have decided
that labor costs are the easiest to reduce. (I could write another couple of paragraphs in this space,
but I'll skip ahead.) The television stations used to have graphic artists who would take stock photos and apply a
certain amount of typesetting to make the "over the shoulder" graphics we've seen on TV since the 1960's. Then
an associate producer would check the graphics before the big show to see that they all matched the scripts.
Even then, if one of the graphics had an egregious error, either the director or the technical director or the "still
store" operator would catch the error, a last second change of plans would occur, and the on-air news reader would
appear on camera without the graphic beside him or her. But, as you may have guessed by now, almost all of
those jobs have been eliminated, and one person can now put graphics requests into a template, specifying (in this case
incorrectly) the underlying photo and the text, and a computer system a thousand miles away assembles the graphic and
stacks it in the playlist for the big show. (You'll notice I don't call it the news.) Then
the director, now sitting alone in the automated control room, steps through the playlist and, since he probably
hasn't had a chance to run through the entire show in advance, he sees these graphics for the first time
when you see them at home. This is what would be known as being penny wise and pound foolish, except that
the commercial breaks still air, so the station still gets paid. In fact, in this case about half of the
viewers probably found the error more entertaining than the constant drone of the rip-and-read announcer telling us
about all the great things Big Government has done for us in the last 12 hours. I should write a book.
Army
of 'fact checkers' and 'proof readers' at NY Times fails again. How out of touch with
the rest of the country are employees of the New York Times? An editorial skewering Wisconsin
Governor Scott Walker was a typical Times hit piece on a potentially dangerous opponent in 2016 —
typical except earlier versions of the editorial referred to Mr. Walker as "Mr. Scott." [...] The governor of
Wisconsin is just not imporant enough to register on the Times' radar. Besides, he's a Republican.
Those two factors make errors like "Mr. Scott" possible.
The
New York Times Commits One of Its Funniest Blunders Ever. [Scroll down] The
paper eventually realized its mistake and corrected it, although without acknowledging the
correction. I suppose it was just too embarrassing. You can see how this kind of thing might
happen; people occasionally have such synapse failures. But some people expect more from the Times
editorial board. (I don't, but some others do.) In fact, the Times editorial board is no better
than, or different from, a minor-league left wing blogger. Actually, that's where they get a lot of
their material.
Debunked:
Media Hoax Claims 'American Sniper' Inspired Anti-Muslim Threats. It looks as though
the Left and the mainstream media gathered in their hollowed-out volcano over the weekend to cook up
another anti-science Narrative to destroy Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper." The latest lie is that
the film is inspiring a surge of death threats against Muslims. A thorough search of the countless
stories launched by this well-coordinated Narrative found exactly 3 Twitter examples in a country of
nearly 350 million.
According
to the government, there's no inflation. Government data reports are so funny. The
blaring headlines today tells us that prices dropped in December. We are all saving billions from
the drop in oil and gas. Hallelujah!! The corporate MSM never digs into the numbers to get the
real truth. These reports and their distribution to the sheep are designed to keep you sedated and
calm. Facts are not necessary. How this data pertains to your everyday life is not important
to the .1% who control the flow of information.
Ronan
Farrow's Awkwardly Condescending Exchange with Black Teen. As we've written here many
times before, Ronan Farrow's MSNBC show is something to behold: An awkward mess of obvious
inexperience, nepotism, self-congratulatory sanctimony, and preening condescension. Today's
[1/20/2015] edition of the program showcased the lattermost element.
Notorious Red Exploits
King Legacy. Janel Davis of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that a "noted
scholar, author and veteran civil rights activist" by the name of Angela Davis will deliver the
keynote address January 18 at Kennesaw State University's annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day
observance. This is the same Angela Davis "who supported the imprisonment of Soviet political
dissidents (calling them common criminals), cheered on the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia,
and was awarded the International Lenin Peace Prize (formerly the International Stalin Peace Prize)
by communist East Germany," as noted by another paper, the British Telegraph. The differences
reflect the abysmal state of our media today, as compared to a foreign newspaper that conducted some
basic research.
Three Major December Media
Misfires. [#3] The imaginary Kwanzaa "parade." In recent years, the annual
late-December Kwanzaa parade in South Central Los Angeles has fallen on hard times. In 2011, the
second-last year the Los Angeles Times covered it, the paper claimed that "hundreds" attended, but
could only muster a photo showing a half-dozen participants and about the same number of onlookers.
On December 26, 2014, apathy won. A CBS-Los Angeles reporter tweeted a photo showing an empty
boulevard with no spectators captioned, "People in #SouthLosAngeles disappointed by lack of turn-out
for #Kwanza parade. Parade lasted 10 mins." (What "people"?)
More
than 90 Percent of a Group of Illegal Immigrants Never Showed Up to Their Immigration Hearings.
Once again, local-TV investigative reporters are showing up their national counterparts. Recall that this
summer the administration insisted the thousands of Central American illegal immigrants it was waving across
the border would be put into deportation proceedings and those who did not qualify for asylum would be removed.
You'd think, then, that there'd be bigshot D.C. journalists interested in finding out how many actually bothered
to attend their immigration hearings. You'd be wrong.
The worst
journalism of 2014. As one of the most recognizable anchors on CNN, Don Lemon has
helped lead the cable network's coverage of the biggest stories of the year. Live television is
exceedingly difficult to produce, of course, but Lemon's gaffes this year offer a case study in how
to choose words wisely — or not.
72
Million More Reasons To Doubt The Mainstream Press. In less than two weeks, bombshell
stories of a vicious gang rape and a millionaire teen investor were exposed as frauds that never
would have made it into print but for gross negligence and liberal bias.
Progressive
Media Failed Again in the Brown Case. What we saw in their handling of the Brown case
is a rerun of the Martin case. The facts don't seem to fit with the left's views and even after
substantial evidence comes to light showing what did happen, they refuse to believe it. [...]
Comparisons to the Martin case began with the NAACP which made the connection almost immediately.
That comparison was more apt than the spokesman knew and not in the way he probably intended. In
case the details are no longer in the forefront of your mind, recall that major news outlets
repeatedly bungled the evidence in the Martin story and always in a way that made Zimmerman out to
be something worse that he was.
Scientists
Warn About Bias In The Facebook And Twitter Data Used In Millions Of Studies. Writing
in today's [11/27/2014] issue of Science, Carnxegie Mellon's Juergen Pfeffer and McGill's Derek
Ruths have warned that scientists are treating the wealth of data gathered by social networks as a
goldmine of what people are thinking — but frequently they aren't correcting for inherent
biases in the dataset. If folks didn't already know that scientists were turning to social media
for easy access to the pat statistics on thousands of people, they found out about it when Facebook
allowed researchers to adjust users' news feeds to manipulate their emotions.
Gross exaggeration alert:
How is it possible that "millions of studies" have been conducted since Facebook and Twitter were created?
Facebook started up
in 2004, and Twitter was launched
in 2006.
Man
Who Has Found Damning Gruber Vids Faults Media's Failure to Uncover Them. The
Associated Press deserves a special mention here. AP assigned eleven reporters to review 2008
Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin's book in 2009, but wire service health reporter
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and others involved in covering the Affordable Care Act during the past
several years somehow never found (or if they found it or knew it, never reported it) what Weinstein
was able to find. How can that be? (That said, Obamacare's opponents didn't find it either, which
makes one wonder how they could also be so ineffective.) The press has also been extremely reluctant
to report on another "architect," namely "Zeke the Bleak" Emanuel, who has a history of advocating
the rationing of medical care to patients depending on their age and other "useful lives" factors.
Palin-bashing
CNN anchor claimed Michelle Obama signed bill into law. A sillier moment than earlier
this week for CNN's Carol Costello, but perhaps just as revealing. [...] The state of civics
education in this country may be poor, but it's not that poor. Schoolchildren can make this
distinction, and an average high-school student would know better than to claim that a First Lady
signed a bill into law. Perhaps Costello should have taken a refresher course of Schoolhouse
Rock in J-school.
The
News Is Fit to Print But Are Major News Organizations Fit to Report It? Over the past
several months, a variety of polls and reports have documented the declining trust of the American
people in the news media. A starting point for reversing this trend is for the heads of major
American news organization to look in the mirror and ask whether their organizations or their
journalists are part of the problem.
Reporter
Thought Earplugs Were Rubber Bullets. Does It Matter? The thing about not knowing that
earplugs are not rubber bullets is that it makes it really hard to take any other reporting about
police tactics, much less guns, seriously. It's one of those unfortunately boneheaded errors that
destroys credibility.
Media Clueless About the Inner
City. The media's frenzy that descended upon Ferguson, Mo. once again demonstrates its
complete ignorance of life in the inner city. Anyone who has survived the barrios and the ghettos
would recognize the usual cast of characters that converge on these incidents and would stay far
away from them. But no-these media lapdogs shove mikes in their faces and actually believe their
'eyewitness' versions that nearly always turn out to be bogus and nothing other than a self-serving photo op.
Most
Americans Disapprove of Media's Coverage of Ferguson. Most Americans say that things
would be different in Ferguson, Mo., if the racial roles had been reversed. According to a Rasmussen
Poll released today, many believe the media's coverage of the incident would differ if a black police
officer had shot a white teenager. A majority, 54 percent, agree the media would have
reported the death of Michael Brown differently according to the color of his skin. Regardless
of race — white, black and other minority adults — most believe the shooting
would garner less media attention.
Was a UN
School in Gaza Really Bombed? (Update: No, It Wasn't). The UN is going bonkers because
they say another one of their schools in Gaza was shelled. Ten people were killed and dozens
injured, but read this account carefully from The Guardian: [...] The UN is going bonkers because
they say another one of their schools in Gaza was shelled. Ten people were killed and dozens
injured, but read this account carefully from The Guardian: [...] The attack was not on the school.
The bomb hit the street outside the gates of the school and killed and injured people standing at the
gate — not in the school itself which was being used as a shelter.
Did Ben Nelson Doom
Obamacare? Is this the first time you've read about Nelson's misgivings? Well, it
would appear that you're not alone. Many alleged reporters who claim to have thoroughly covered the
Obamacare debate from the Pleistocene era until the present are also ignorant of the role he played in
determining the destiny of the exchanges. Indeed, some these "journalists" have advised their
readers that there couldn't have been any serious discussion in Congress about differing rules for
state and federal exchanges because no one told them about it.
Five
Things You Need to Know About Chelsea Clinton. [#3] Chelsea began her business career
making MBA degree salary, despite having no experience[.] NBC was criticized for Chelsea's
$600,000 "special correspondent" salary, but that is not the most absurd offer sheet that Chelsea
has agreed to. After deciding that various career paths weren't right for her, Chelsea settled
at the age of 23 for a $120,000 a year salary at premier consulting firm McKinsey & Company.
She was their youngest hire that year and made as much as consultants with MBA degrees, even though
her Stanford degree was in history.
Media Ignorance is
Becoming a Serious Problem. [Scroll down] The real problem is the arrogance that goes with the
ignorance. Take Kate Zernike's 2010 attempt at an expose of the ideas that motivate tea party activists that
ran in the New York Times. She wrote: ["]But when it comes to ideology, it has reached back to
dusty bookshelves for long-dormant ideas. It has resurrected once-obscure texts by dead writers — in
some cases elevating them to best-seller status — to form a kind of Tea Party canon.["] Who are
these obscure authors of long-dormant ideas? She points to Friedrich Hayek, for one. Yes, the same Hayek who
won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1974 and died way, way back in ... 1992. Whose Road To
Serfdom was so obscure that it has never been out of print and was excerpted in Reader's Digest, that
obscure publication with only 17 million readers.
Here's
How Little Chelsea Clinton Cares About Money, In Dollars. [Chelsea] Clinton is
currently pulling down $600,000 per year for the kind of no-show job you probably thought had
disappeared with the demise of the American mafia. She is officially employed as an on-air
correspondent for NBC News even though she hasn't appeared on NBC for the past four months. Clips
of Clinton's work for the Peacock Network are hard to find online, and one of the few accessible
segments — her interview with the GEICO gecko — reveals that NBC's coaching
failed to improve her affectless voice, lazy delivery and absolute lack of charm, charisma or talent.
Chelsea
Clinton hasn't been on NBC News for four months but still earns $50,000 a month.
Chelsea Clinton — under scrutiny for her pricey contract with NBC News —
hasn't been featured since January, but the network says it does expect two completed stories to
air soon, and two others are in the works. Bill and Hillary Clinton's daughter, who was hired in
2011, has done just a smattering of reporting for NBC News. Last week, Politico reported she is
being paid $600,000 a year.
Sources:
NBC not concerned about Chelsea Clinton's alleged 'overpriced' salary. Chelsea Clinton's contract as an NBC "special
correspondent" has come under intense public questioning given that she hasn't been featured on-air since January despite being on
a $600,000 annual salary deal, as reported by Politico. But according to a well-placed media insider, the network higher-ups
are hardly perturbed by the high price tag for little TV time.
A
Basic Primer On The Scott Walker Case For Ignorant Reporters. This is a true story:
in 2012, Democratic district attorneys in Wisconsin launched a secret probe known as a John Doe
investigation with the goal of proving that conservative groups illegally coordinated activities
during Gov. Scott Walker's recall election. They issued more than 100 subpoenas, demanded the
private information of conservatives and conservative groups, and actually conducted secret raids.
And under state law, individuals who were targeted or witness to the investigation were forbidden
from making knowledge of it public. Fortunately, judges saw right through this partisan abuse of
power. Early this year, a state judge, ruling in a secret proceeding, quashed the subpoenas
and all but ended the investigation.
CNN
Anchor Gives Michelle Obama Power to Sign Bills into Law. CNN anchor Carol Costello
ascribed new powers to the ceremonial office of first lady of the United States on Tuesday [5/27/2014] in a
report about Michelle Obama's healthy school lunch initiative and the opposition it is receiving
from Republicans and members of the food industry. Costello declared that Michelle Obama signed a
bill regarding her initiative into law in 2010 after it passed Congress. The Constitution, however,
limits the power to sign legislation into law to Mrs. Obama's husband, the president.
The
downfall of American journalists. It ought to be a matter of deep shame that the most
popular news website in the United States is the U.K. Daily Mail. And the fact that so many top
editors and journalists in the United States happen to be from Britain is something that ought to
disturb all those professors of journalism at elite schools like Columbia. You know, the ones that
hand out big prizes like the Pulitzer, touting how wonderful our journalists are. Strangely
enough, with all the university and foundation resources available for conferences, commissions,
studies, and the like, nobody seems much interested in this embarrassing situation. There's
a good reason for that.
The
White House Impressed Corps. On Friday, the speaker of the House ordered a special
probe into a White House cover-up of terrorism. On Saturday, the White House press corps buried the
news and yukked it up with the president at the black-tie dinner. Once viewed as a serious news
network, CNN blacked out hard news for five full hours to cover the gala, including "live updates of
the red carpet arrivals." Instead of interviewing White House officials about Benghazi emails,
anchors interviewed comedian Joel McHale, who roasted Republicans as racists.
America's
Appalling Ignorance of Christianity. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof [...] admitted
that when he was covering the presidential campaign of George W. Bush, he was surprised at how the candidate
connected with Americans because of his evangelical faith; more surprisingly, Kristof admitted that he had "only
the vaguest idea at the time what an evangelical was."
Reporter
Caught Scribbling 'Blah Blah' While GOP Senate Candidate Speaks; Drama Ensues. Staffers of
the alt-weekly newspaper Willamette Week recently met with Oregon Republican U.S. Senate candidates seeking
an endorsement and things got quite dramatic after one reporter was caught scribbling "blah blah blah" on his
notepad while a candidate spoke.
Boston
Marathon victim storms off 'Meet the Press' set after being 'disrespected'. A survivor of the Boston
Marathon bombing stormed out of a scheduled interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" in tears on Friday. Adrianne
Haslet-Davis, a dancer who lost part of one leg during the attack, said NBC promised not to name alleged bombers
Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev in her presence but did not follow through on the request.
Sebelius:
Health Care Launch 'Terribly Flawed'. Outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says
the administration's own predictions that the new health care law's online sign-up system would be ready by Oct. 1
were "just flat out wrong." Sebelius told NBC's "Meet the Press" in an interview airing Sunday the health care
website's launch was "terribly flawed and terribly difficult."
Oops: ISU losing its nuke
program due to concealed carry law not exactly accurate. When the Idaho State Journal and the Associated Press reported last week
that Idaho State University in Pocatello could lose its nuclear program if legislators pass a bill to allow guns on campus, the news wire and
social media hummed with the revelation. Problem is, the story's not exactly accurate and no one wants to take blame for misleading the
public on the volatile issue.
Haven't
I Seen You Before? Why News Reports Quote The Same People. Al Cross has been all over the news lately.
Just in the past couple of weeks, he's been quoted in Time, The New York Times and The Washington Post on
no fewer than three separate occasions. Who is Al Cross, and what has he done to earn such exposure? Cross is a
longtime political columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal. When national reporters are exploring the Kentucky Senate race,
they often turn to him for perspective on the ground.
You've got to know the
territory. The uproar over "Duck Dynasty" should be studied forever in the business schools as a priceless teaching
exercise in marketing quackery. Television executives are so highly paid because they're supposed to be so smart. Rarely
have so many smart guys been so out to lunch.
When '60 Minutes'
Checks Its Journalistic Skepticism at the Door. [V]iewers expect the show to bring its A game, and deserve it, when it
takes on a huge issue like the N.S.A., to serve as a stand-in for the American people and ask the uncomfortable questions.
CNN's Top-Five Credibility Catastrophes of
2013. This was supposed to be a rebuilding year for the former Most Trusted Name In News. The belief was that CNN's ratings couldn't sink
much lower than its 2012 lows and that newly-installed president Jeff Zucker couldn't possibly make things worse. Wrong. After months of retooling,
CNN is still in last place and its primetime viewership has improbably sunk even further.
In Defense Of Lara Logan. Once it became clear
they had been duped, Logan publicly apologized for the mistake saying on CBS This Morning that "The most important thing to
every person at 60 Minutes is the truth, and today, the truth is that we made a mistake," she said, calling it a very
"disappointing" situation. After all, what makes a show like 60 Minutes different from, say, a cable news show
is that every word in the script is supposed to be heavily vetted by producers and lawyers alike. So on the scale of news
screw-ups, this was pretty egregious. It wasn't just an error — their entire report was based on what seems
to have been a lie.
Trey Gowdy Rips MSM For Media
Malpractice On Benghazi. On October 30, Senator Lindsey Graham reiterated his threat to hold up all future Senate confirmations
unless the Regime is more forthcoming with the information Republicans are seeking. And Trey Gowdy took the opportunity to shame the MSM for
being basically AWOL on the story. He asked if they could answer a series of pertinent questions about the attack — knowing, of
course — that the answer would be no, because the media as a whole allowed the Regime to lie and stonewall on Benghazi so Obama could be
reelected. Some great investigative journalism was called for, and they totally dropped the ball.
Media Malpractice, Chapter 12,894.
A few months back we were treated to MSNBC identifying George Wallace as a Republican. Yesterday [10/27/2013], CBS News proved itself unable
to distinguish J. Edgar Hoover from Herbert Hoover. It's a wonder they can still tell the Kennedys apart.
A Quick Note on Weaponry and Language.
I just watched the press conference from Los Angeles airport and I was irritated as usual by the way in which law enforcement agents and politicians who
should know better throw around incorrect terminology to the press. Over and over, we were told that the shooter at LAX used an "assault rifle."
This is now being repeated widely. There is one key problem with this: It's not true. We can argue all day about the silly "assault
weapon" term, but "assault rifle" actually has a meaning. An "assault rifle" means that the rifle can be switched between safe (off, in
layman's terms), semi-automatic, and automatic fire.
Questions Rarely Asked — and Never Answered.
Is there still a notion of scandal? If EPA director Lisa Jackson's fake email con and the Pigford payouts were small beer, what were the scandals about
Benghazi, the IRS, the AP, and the NSA? Does anyone care that every presidential pronouncement about the Affordable Care Act was false? We
have reached a new point where either the media is an appendage of government, or the public is too weary to care about the conduct of its
government — to the degree that this administration could do pretty much anything. [...] How did Barack Obama become the
most anti-civil liberties president in history — to almost complete silence?
The Press Endures Obama's Unrequited Love.
Journalists pride themselves for being on the cutting edge of events and trends, but they have been slow to realize or to admit that they have been
instrumental in electing a pathological liar to the highest office in the land.
Wussies! Every Last One of You.
The liberal media can't help themselves. They have a huge crush on the President. He can do no wrong. [...] There's something very dangerous about
the liberal love affair with the President. Fear of asking the tough questions crushes accountability. And without accountability, tyranny follows.
J-school failure:
Just 26 percent of new reporters have skills to do the job. A journalism degree can cost nearly $100,000 for graduate students, but for many
it's a waste of money because they are leaving school without the skills needed in the new age of digital reporting and publishing, according to a sweeping
new survey of the industry. The highly-regarded Poynter Institute, an international strategy center and leader in journalism education, found in their
2013 "Future of Journalism" study that only one quarter of journalism school students showed up on the job ready for work.
Media, The Navy and the DC Shooter: A
Retired Navy Security Officer's View. If you are watching the news in the early stages of the Navy Yard shooting, you may not be surprised that you
hear one thing and hours later hear something totally different. [...] That's why we first believed there were 3 shooters, then 2, now 1.
That's why we still don't know how many or which guns were used. Supposedly there is a shotgun, a Glock pistol and an AR-15. It was first reported
that he bought an AR-15 in Virginia but later determined he rented in during a practice session. Now they don't even know if there was an AR-15 on the
scene or if that is just typical hype.
Professional media ID wrong man as
Navy Yard shooter. That would be CBS and NBC, who offered the name Rollie Chance as the dead suspect in the Washington Navy Yard, responsible
for six deaths and a number of wounded. The only problem? Rollie Chance is still alive and had nothing to do with the shooting, apparently.
Less than three weeks after the conclusion of the Fort Hood terrorist shooting trial: CNN Fail: Anchor Can't Remember the
Last Shooting at 'U.S. Military Facility'. During CNN's coverage of the Washington D.C. Navy Yard shooting Monday morning [9/16/2013],
Carol Costello asked when the last time a gunman wrecked "havoc at a U.S. military facility." It would seem that Costello forgot about the
2009 Ft. Hood shooting that claimed the lives of 13 Americans.
Limbaugh Compiles Round-Up of Media
Celebrating Obama's 'Genius' Embrace of Kerry's Gaffe. Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh tore into the media on Tuesday and accused them of malpractice
in their reporting of how the so-called Russian proposal to impose a diplomatic solution on Syria. Limbaugh played a montage of clips of members of the media celebrating
the "genius" of President Barack Obama for embracing a misstatement by Sec. John Kerry and making it the centerpiece of American policy towards that country's civil war.
"Turns out, this was the plan all along — at least what the media wants us to believe," Limbaugh said of the Russian solution. "This is journalistic malpractice."
Miley
Cyrus and the Pornification of America. Consider this: during a week in which news reports on NSA mass surveillance, militarized
police forces, and a war brewing with Syria were vying for attention, CNN's number one news story was Miley Cyrus' VMA performance.
Sounds like the death knell of an empire to me.
America the Trivial. President Obama is making
the argument that the executive branch by presidential fiat can pick and choose which laws should and should not be faithfully executed — whether
Obamacare, immigration amnesties, or No Child Left Behind statutes. The fate of the entire concept of voluntary tax compliance is currently endangered
by the politicization of the Internal Revenue Service. Whether the government can monitor the communications of either reporters or average citizens
depends on getting to the bottom of the National Security Agency and Justice Department/Associated Press scandals. Instead, the media seem more
interested in whether Obama is playing golf on Martha's Vineyard.
Meet the worst Sunday morning show.
[NBC's Meet the Press], you see, is at a 21-year low in ratings. [...] David Gregory is a weak host, the weakest of any Sunday show. I've documented
the lame questions, the absence of follow ups and the blatant bias. That's bad journalism and uninteresting TV.
Millennial Generation Is Abandoning Liberalism.
The media have claimed that conservatives must become more moderate or face permanent irrelevancy after the supposedly solid liberal Millennial generation of 18-29 year
olds overwhelmingly supported reelection of Barack Obama. These dire warnings reminded me of the media geniuses who proclaimed after Jimmy Carter's Presidential
victory in 1976 that the 18-29 year olds of the Baby Boomer generation would always vote as a liberal block. Four years later, Baby Boomers abandoned
liberalism and began reliably voting as Ronald Reagan conservatives for the next three decades.
The Editor says...
The news media peddles predictions favorable to the Left, hoping their predictions will be self-fulfilling.
Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin eyed as 2016 GOP
debate moderators. Miffed that their candidates were singled out for personal questions or CNN John King's "This or That," when he asked
candidates quirky questions like "Elvis or Johnny Cash," GOP insiders tell [The Washington Examiner] that they are considering other choices, even a
heavyweight panel of radio bigs Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin.
Reporters Afraid To Ask Obama White House About
Benghazi. Obama has apparently taken his cue for this from Hollywood. It is a well-known fact that movie stars in Hollywood will
not grant access to those reporters and media outlets that do not write or report favorably about them. [...] The end result of this is that there is no
honest reporting coming out of Hollywood these days. This has likely been obvious to most everyone for quite some time. Now that Obama is
doing the same thing, how long will it be before there is no longer any honest reporting coming out of the White House Press corps? Perhaps we
are at that point already?
Deferential
Press Corps Meets President, Takes Careful Notes. President Barack Obama held a rare press conference on Friday afternoon [8/9/2013]
in the East Room of the White House, and was treated to all-too-common deference by the White House Press Corps. Only Ed Henry of Fox News
asked a question that challenged the president in any way. The rest asked soft questions that often invited him to take shots at the Republican
opposition and revisit talking points he has made repeatedly in recent speeches.
Liberals will believe
anything if you call it a 'study'. [L]iberals in the left wing media, led by the HuffPo, are citing a "study" claiming that
doubling the wages of McDonald's workers would only result in a 17% price rise: "Doubling McDonald's Salaries Would Cause Your Big
Mac To Cost Just 68 ¢ More: Study" headlined the story by Christine Fairchild, citing a study by someone described as a "researcher
at the University of Kansas." Ms. Fairchild later had to acknowledge that author Arnobio Morelix "is registered as a undergraduate
student at the university, according to University of Kansas School of Business Communications Director Austin Falley." A not
particularly bright undergraduate, it turns out. As in laughably ignorant about the nature of the business McDonald's is in.
How did mainstream
media get the NSA PRISM story so hopelessly wrong? If you don't understand the technical workings of these surveillance
programs, you can't understand whether they're working as intended, you can't identify where the government has overstepped its bounds,
and you can't intelligently debate the proper response. The fact that the government has maintained rigid secrecy compounds the
problem. [...] The basic facts in that story aren't news. We've known since at least 2006 that the U.S. security establishment
is collecting details of phone calls and mining that data to identify calling patterns consistent with terrorist activity.
Study: 22% of TV
Journalists Face Job Burnout. You think carrying The State's water is easy work? Think again, my friends.
A study of 900 journalists done by the University of Kansas found that a full 22% of television journalists were facing burnout.
Why, one morning show host complained that she was required to tweet three times every half-hour while she was on the air.
Imagine how difficult that must be with only ten minutes of commercial breaks.
MSNBC Mistaken
History: Segregationist George Wallace Was A Republican? Former Alabama Governor George Wallace was many things:
segregationist, lawyer, Methodist. But one thing he most certainly was not: a Republican. But during a segment of
last night's [6/11/2013] All In on MSNBC, a chyron mistakenly identified the well-known racist governor as a member
of the GOP, despite his affiliation with the Democratic Party of that era.
Mainstream
Media Fail to Break Even One of Four Obama Scandals. Over the past few weeks, four major scandals have broken over the Obama
administration, and it is a very sad (and frightening) truth that our pathetic, American, lapdog mainstream media is not responsible for
breaking even a single one.
Brace yourself for deep disillusionment. Another News
Channel Abandons 'Advertising Trick' Of 'Breaking News' Coverage. In a slick new advertisement released Monday
afternoon [6/3/2013], WDRB urged its viewers to recognize that "breaking news" is simply a "marketing ploy." The narrator
asserted that stations claiming to be "first" in "breaking news" use that branding as an "advertising trick" despite it being
"simply not true." "Breaking news is seldom breaking," the narrator continued, "and quite often isn't even news."
MSNBC
Chief Phil Griffin: Our Network Is 'Not The Place' For Breaking News. Over the last several months, it has become
pretty clear that when it comes to ratings, MSNBC struggles during breaking news events, while CNN and Fox both receive boosts.
In an interview with the New York Times this morning, MSNBC chief Phil Griffin essentially conceded the "breaking news" mantle to the
other networks, telling viewers that his network is not focused on that sort of coverage.
The article itself is off-topic — see remarks below. Aust
signs global arms control treaty. Australia has signed a landmark global arms treaty, joining 60 other countries
in a move to stop the vast illicit trade in weapons. The treaty, co-authored by Australia, is designed to end the free-for-all
of international arms sales.
The Editor says...
This is the first and only time I've ever seen Australia referred to as Aust. Is bandwidth (or ink) so scarce that
Australia can't be spelled out, or is it just a matter of laziness?
Sins Of The Fourth Estate (Part I).
The one clear thing that came out of last week's chaotic activity in Boston, Massachusetts is that real reporters were missing.
For that matter, they've been missing since last year's attack in Benghazi. From Benghazi, the Gosnell abortion trial, gun control
debates, immigration and then the Boston Marathon bombings, television news reporting has become positively painful to watch. The
First Amendment to the Constitution grants freedom of the press but this was supposed to endow it with a responsibility to be the
people's watchdog. The modern Fourth Estate represented by the mainstream media has made a mockery of this privilege.
Media
outlets can't get their stories straight. Here is what we know thus far: The cops have photos of one of the suspects,
or two. The suspect(s) may be either "dark-skinned" (CNN) or "white" (CBS). They were carrying backpacks, or maybe bags.
The backpacks, or bags, were black, unless they were blue. The bombs were detonated by control boards, unless it was cellphones,
unless it was egg timers. Yesterday's [4/17/2013] press conference was supposed to take place at 5, until it was supposed to
take place at 8, until it was canceled.
The media's
'marathon' meltdown. The fast-moving news out of Boston on Wednesday [4/17/2013] snared some of the most respected
reporters and news outlets in the country into offering false or conflicting information about whether a suspect had been
arrested — leaving CNN and the Associated Press, among others, scrambling to clean up their reports as the day
went on.
Two
NY Times Columnists Embarrass Themselves on Guns in Sunday Review. Two New York Times columnists embarrassed themselves over
the weekend, betraying anti-gun ignorance in the paper's Sunday Review. Frank Bruni went hunting for the first time (with the chef of a ritzy
Manhattan restaurant), and remarked "what an unfair fight" hunting is, as if he was the first person to think that up.
WaPo page one
oops: '70 deer per square acre'. In the fifth paragraph, right there on the front page, it reads, "With
70 deer per square acre, the park has about four times the density considered ideal." Error one: an acre is a square
measurement. It's redundant and ignorant to say "square acre." Error two: anyone who has any idea of how big
an acre is would know that "70 deer per square acre" is pretty much impossible.
DHS
Backdooring Gun Registration in Missouri. Missouri cannot be alone in this scandal; doubtless numerous
other states have complied with DHS requests as well. We are seeing but the tip of the iceberg.
The Editor says... Backdoor is not a word, and certainly isn't a verb. Please develop an adequate vocabulary before becoming a writer.
'Heckle' and Jive. It
started as an awkwardly written article by Ken Dixon, a reporter at the Connecticut Post of Bridgeport. It became a fast-moving
rumor and in some cases an outright lie propagated by national journalists.
It's Time for Media Control. Was there anything about
the Sandy Hook massacre the media got right on the day it happened? In their rush to be first, they ignored their obligation to be right.
Nearly every detail they disseminated Friday was wrong, even down to the name of the killer. [...] As liberals love to remind us, broadcasters make
their living over "public airwaves." Conveying false information over them is a violation of the trust placed in those institutions by the
public and should be punished.
Chris
Matthews Claims GOP Ignorant of Science While Claiming Plants Absorb Carbon Monoxide. Note to Chris Matthews:
when seeking to slam Republicans for their supposed ignorance of science, try not to expose your own. On Tuesday's [11/13/2012]
Hardball, Matthews — mocking the Republican congressmen vying for the chairmanship of the House Science
Committee — committed this whopper: "As we all learned in grammar school — young people
watching — trees absorb carbon monoxide."
The Real Culprits. Anyone willing to invest a little
time in a search for facts can find plenty of them literally at his fingertips. But vast numbers of Americans are still totally dependent
for their information — and thus in large measure for their political opinions — on the TV networks and the printed
media. It is the duty of the press to perform the crucial function of enlightening the public. But the liberal media refuses to act
as a guardian of democracy, fulfilling its obligation enshrined in the First Amendment. Rather than supplying its customers with unbiased,
factual information, it feeds them a steady diet of blatant propaganda.
An Ode to Citizen
Journalists. Why are newspapers published? ... During my thirty years in journalism, I've interviewed
dozens of candidates who were hoping to be hired as a reporter or editor. I asked each one: Why are
newspapers published? In thirty years, no recent graduate of a journalism school has known the answer.
How Republics Fall. [Scroll
down] This is how republics die, in thrall to the inane, the frivolous, and the inconsequential. A liberalism incapable of persuading
the public to embrace its policies has been converted by its media tribunes into a publicity stunt. As a result, the nation that gave the
world the Federalist Papers and the Lincoln-Douglas debates may very well reelect a flawed chief executive for no other reason than that
he has been continuously portrayed as a super-nice guy by the media lackeys who tend the Obama cult.
NBC
Skips 9/11 Moment of Silence to Talk Breast Implants with Kardashian. This morning after 8AM Eastern most of the
networks observed a moment of silence to commemorate the terror attacks that hit the Big Apple on Sept 11, 2001. But
not NBC. No, NBC thought it would be much for fun to talk about boobs with a Kardashian. ABC, CBS, Fox, MSNBC and
CNN all took a moment out of their busy broadcast mornings to observe the moment of silence for those who fell that day.
MSNBC Host
Asks Brother of Colorado Shooting Victim How His Dead Sister Is Doing. NewsBusters has been for years exposing the breathtaking
ignorance, incompetence, and unprofessionalism of the on air personalities associated with the so-called cable "news network" MSNBC.
On Monday [7/23/2012], Michael Eric Dyson, filling in for Ed Schultz, actually asked the brother of one of the victims of Friday's shootings in
Aurora, Colorado, how his dead sister is doing.
Brian Ross of ABC takes heat for another blunder. In television
journalism, few reporters are as controversial as Brian Ross of ABC News. The investigative correspondent has landed major scoops and won
prestigious awards for his reporting on the Peace Corps, Solyndra, and U.S. antiterrorism efforts — to name just a few. And
yet, he has also produced more high-level haphazard reporting than perhaps any other reporter on television.
Chicago Tribune
Journalism Offshoring Scandal Ends. For months the Chicago Tribune has been suffering the slings and arrows of local
critics for having hired a web-based company called Journatic to write many of its small, "hyper local" stories for its Trib Local
newspapers. Critics lambasted the stories after it was discovered they were written by writers in the Philippines for 35 cents
per piece — people that had never even heard of the Chicago suburbs they were writing about. Another big reason
the Trib was so mercilessly mocked is because the stories often carried fake bylines with American names instead of the names of
the Filipino writers that really wrote them.
After
U.S. Uproar, Another Syrian "Civilian Massacre" Story Falls Apart. Yet another alleged "massacre" of "civilians" by the
Syrian regime was in the establishment-press headlines this week, supposedly a brutal killing spree by dictator Bashar al-Assad's forces
in the village of Tremseh that left up to 250 people dead. As has become typical, Western governments and mainstream media
outlets — the New York Times, the BBC, and others included — parroted anonymous "opposition activists" for the
claims. But within days, after foreign powers seeking regime change had their chance to beat the war drums even louder, the
carefully constructed tale was already falling apart.
ABC's Terry Moran is a
Know Nothing On Bush v Gore. Terry Moran was on the panel on George Stephanopolous' ABC Sunday morning program today [4/1/2012],
as he was last week. He was introduced as ABC's Supreme Court "expert." For the second straight week, Moran misstated the Supreme
Court's vote in Bush v Gore in December, 2000. The vote to overturn the Florida Supreme Court's decision on how ballots
should be counted in the Florida recount controversy was not a 5-4 decision, but 7-2.
The fruits of the public school system: MSNBC blows it again on U.S.
geography. For all of MSNBC's efforts to promote public policy on education, the graphics department
at that network might be proof there is a lot of work that needs to be done in this area. During Alex Witt's
7 a.m. program on Saturday [3/10/2012] on the channel, Alabama was labeled as Mississippi and Mississippi
as Alabama.
When English is the official language of this
country, lots of writers and reporters will be out of a job. Nation
wondering: what happening to language? Something funny going on across the country. Verbs
disappearing. Other speech parts, too. Meanwhile: sentence fragments, participial phrases running
amok — starting in New York and Los Angeles, then blanketing the entire nation. Law enforcement puzzled.
FBI, no leads yet. Investigations ongoing. And now a theory: Nightly news to blame.
Secrets of the American
Nomenklatura. [#1] The media and the Democrats are joined at the hip and have created a "hereditary
celebrity class". ... TV news is now officially entertainment and if you are looking for journalism turn it off
and look elsewhere.
The Hot-Air Car.
It would be so easy for "journalists" to ask an engineer to verify the claims in their stories, but
then they would not have a story.
It's
no wonder that the public hates journalists. I'm ashamed to be a journalist. Yes,
again. Like little kids who continually put their hands in a flame and get burned every time, my
profession just never learns from its mistakes. We have an unfortunate habit of hyping the wrong
stories. Over and over. And when it comes to assessing the effect that our foolishness
has on our craft's reputation, it's practically a fatal flaw.
Murdoch to media: You dug yourself a huge
hole. With newspapers cutting back and predictions of even worse times ahead, Rupert Murdoch said
the profession may still have a bright future if it can shake free of reporters and editors who he said have
forfeited the trust and loyalty of their readers. ... Murdoch, whose company's holdings also include MySpace
and the Wall Street Journal, criticized what he described as a culture of "complacency and condescension" in
some newsrooms.
The Problems with Al Gore:
[Scroll down slowly] The world is full of ignorant people. As a college professor, I interact
constantly with students, many of whom are very concerned with global warming. But in my interactions
I have invariably found that the more science a student knows, the more skeptical they are of the standard
global warming alarmist scenario. Students majoring in engineering or physics have some appreciation
for the scientific method and the uncertainties involved in understanding and predicting climate change. ... Students
who buy into global warming alarmism are almost always from non-technical majors such as journalism. They
can't think quantitatively, critically, or analytically. They have beliefs, but no interest in or
appreciation for facts.
Mike Huckabee: Journalism is dead.
Former Arkansas GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee, currently a Fox News talk show host, ripped the media this weekend, claiming that
journalism has been reduced to "ink-stained drivel that smeared the pages of paper and the people who attempted to
read it."
Doctors are the most trustworthy and journalists the least, poll finds.
It is the 25th year running that doctors have been rated as the most trustworthy in the survey commission by the Royal
College of Physicians. Four times as many people believe doctors tell the truth as believe politicians do, the poll
found. More than nine in ten adults in Britain trust doctors, compared with 87 who trust teachers, 79 percent
who trust professors, 78 percent trust judges and 74 percent trust clergymen.
Media
Rubes: The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines a "rube" as a "naïve or inexperienced
person," or "an awkward unsophisticated person." Clearly, no better set of adjectives can be found to
describe a great many American journalists, who together have managed to provide Obama with an 86 percent
favorable report rating, at least through March of this year.
Modified Media Mea Culpa.
[Scroll down] The Cardiff researchers did point out that British reporters today have about two-thirds
less time to check their stories as their media counterparts did 20 years ago. Nevertheless, "The
researchers went on to look at those stories which relied on a specific statement of fact and found that with
a staggering 70 percent of them, the claimed fact passed into print without any corroboration at all,"
Powers writes. Indeed the Guardian is so infamous that there is even a web site devoted exclusively
to exposing its inaccuracies .
Crypto box failure causes MTA credit card
processing failure. There are a few lessons here. One, of course, is that headline writers
shouldn't be trusted to get technical details right. Saying "M.T.A. Blames Encryption for MetroCard
Problems" is just wrong — the MTA didn't blame encryption, they blamed the failure of a particular
unit.
Spitzer's Media Enablers:
The fall of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer holds many lessons, and the press will surely be examining them in
coming months. But don't expect the press corps to delve into the biggest lesson of all — its
own role as his enabler. What makes this more embarrassing for any self-respecting journalist is
that Mr. Spitzer knew all this, and played the media like a Stradivarius. He doled out scoops to
favored reporters, who repaid him with allegiance. News organizations that dared to criticize him
were cut off. After a time, few criticized anymore.
Network
TV News: Evil or Incompetent? In the complex and intense world of the 21st Century, an
informed and aware public is more essential than ever. Citizens are asked to make judgments on issues
and candidates where the decision could literally mean life or death for millions. And yet, what is the
public fed nightly by those over-paid "news" organizations at what is called the Networks? The public is
force fed a steady diet of propaganda, distortions and outright pap.
Alinsky, Stalinsky,
It's Still the Same Old Agitprop. [Scroll down] "Mainstream" now means homogenized, lowbrow,
ignorant, robotic, group-thinking cheap plastic puppets. America used to have great
journalists — Benjamin Franklin was one, and Mark Twain, and Henry Louis Mencken, all sharp writers and
independent thinkers. They would be nauseated by today's media. Today, the only real journalists
write for blogs.
The Mainstream Moron Media:
[At the Democratic National Convention] the media gaggle, with few exceptions, has plangently repeated —
tediously and cheerlessly — many things that I know to be untrue. The preeminent untruth resounding
across the airways is that the Clintons are political geniuses. Since the early 1990s I have sedulously
researched the Clintons' life and work. My finding is that they are mediocrities in all things political,
save one: huckstering. Moreover, they are accomplished hucksters solely because the media are
composed of credulous ignoramuses.
ATF Seizes Gun Shipment Labeled
'Toys' — But They Really Were Toys. Working from a Customs and Border Protection
(CBP) press release entitled "Tacoma Seaport U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers Seize Shipment of
Machineguns," these news organizations had every reason to feel that they were just reporting the news ... But
there was much, much more to the story that [Rolando] Suliveras and the CBP failed to mention, starting with
the fact that the 30 "machine guns" seized in the raid really were toys.
Media Blunders in Covering
California's Prop 8. Six months ago, California voters passed Proposition 8, denying legal
recognition to same gender marriages. Petitions are now being circulated to put the issue back to the
voters in June 2010. Before venturing into this thorny thicket again, the media should realize what a
poor job it did in covering the fundraising for Prop 8. The reporting blunders include gross
inaccuracies and one where the media did not recognize a good story right before their eyes.
Media Malpractice:
Now I am not a scientist, but the idea that a few alleged degrees of warming — with none apparently in
the last decade — could cause an increase in earthquakes seemed pure quackery to me. So, I decided
to perform Google and Yahoo searches of the "scientist" who had issued the finding, one Thomas Chalko, MSc, Ph.D.
In less than five minutes I found that Chalko was perhaps the last person who should be quoted on the purported
impact of allegedly man-caused global warming.
CBS Pulls Unvetted
Story Blaming Earthquakes on Global Warming. CBS News and the Associated Press were quick to
regurgitate claims that global warming has increased the intensity of earthquakes fivefold in the past
20 years. But had either taken the time to investigate, they would have discovered that both
the source's facts and credentials were, if you'll pardon the expression, on very tremorous ground.
The Editor says...
I am amazed that a story like this got on the CBS web site, and may have aired on CBS stations. Anyone
with a milligram of critical thinking skills should be able to conclude that a one-half degree temperature
change is not enough to cause an earthquake, without having someone else point it out.
Happy Birthday, Monicagate! The press loves
anniversaries of big public events because they're predictable, a quality seldom found in the news.
Coverage can be planned in advance. Stories can be written, laid out, and put to bed without any worry
that later developments will compel revisions. Sputnik is turning 50? Let's cover it. The
only thing it can possibly do while we're not looking is turn 51. Given this predisposition, I find
it worth studying the rare instances when the press accords a significant anniversary little attention.
Citizen journalist 1, MSM 0.
Is there anything that moves slower than a government bureaucracy? Actually, it seems that there is: the mainstream
media. Back on March 17, [2006,] I posted a story about FEMA going after people who received duplicate or fraudulent
Hurricane Katrina disaster payments. It was a followup to a February 13 story on the Government Accountability
Office's report on people defrauding FEMA. And despite their having access to the same sources I do — and a
whole lot more — it's taken the mainstream media until today [4/21/2006] to get a story out.
Highway Robbery: Rick Perry's vision for Texas,
the Trans Texas Corridor, made it through the State Legislature in 2003. H.B. 3588, the enabling
bill for the Trans Texas Corridor and, hence, the largest spending bill in the state's history, became law in
large part because Texas' mainstream press, used as a watchdog, was inexplicably asleep.
Ship collision with San Francisco Bay Bridge:
Despite many reports calling it a tanker, the Cosco Busan was actually a container ship, and the fuel on board
was solely for the purpose of running the ship.
Norman Hsu Who? Radio
personality Rush Limbaugh has coined the term "Drive-By Media" to refer to those in the MSM who shot up a
story and then leave others to clean up the mess, or not. First the WSJ broke the Norman Hsu story.
Then, last October the LATimes broke the story of the vanishing NYC Chinatown donors. Neither story was
completed. The "Drive-By's" just shot them up and drove on down the road. Meanwhile, where's Hsu
and what's his story?
Treason, Plagiarism and The Washington Post:
Winning a Pulitzer Prize for a story about CIA "secret prisons" has been quite lucrative for Dana Priest of the
Washington Post. But the article for which she won the prize not only damaged the security of the United
States and endangered the safety of American citizens but appears to have been largely based on the work of
London-based journalist Stephen Grey.
The End
of America As We Know It: [Scroll down] Add to that a heavily partisan, politicized environment
where different political parties can't even agree on the most basic facts, much less the issues —
and an incompetent mainstream media that cries wolf on an almost daily basis about something that's going to
kill us — and we're producing a society riddled with people who have extreme difficulty coping with
or even recognizing basic threats.
Journalism's Hoax on Duke: As the
late commentator and editor Michael Kelly wrote, "most journalists learn to see the world through a
set of standard templates into which they plug each day's events." The most obvious templates
concern race — whites are oppressing blacks, gender — men are oppressing
women, and class — the privileged are oppressing the poor. Since all three of
these templates were in play during the Duke race case, how surprising is it that this triple
high tide resulted in some of the worst journalism of the decade?
Don't
know much about voting. Two-thirds of those surveyed in NYU's Foundations of Journalism
course would trade their vote for a year's tuition, department chair Brooke Kroeger found. Twenty
percent would trade it for an iPod, and 90 percent would give up their franchise forever for
$1 million. At the same time, it is claimed, the students "value" their votes. About
70 percent still believe that one vote can make a difference. This result is strange for a
profession which counts "government watchdog" among its roles.
Journalism
School Probes Possible Cheating on Ethics Exam. It was an ethics exam in a journalism class, and
someone may have cheated. Ironic? Yes. Unfortunate? Certainly. But what made the
incident particularly notable was where and when it took place: at Columbia University, one of the
premier journalism schools in the country, at a time when media ethics are much in question.
Scooping the
mainstream media: The Associated Press reached a new level of incompetence, and the "news"
industry they serve doesn't seem to care. If you want political opinion, you'll find it in Associated
Press dispatches. If you want news, you might have to read conservative opinion columns.
Clueless
Press Can't Decide If Espionage Is Journalism. Imagine the year is 1942 and the German government
runs a news bureau in Washington, D.C. collecting government secrets. Even FDR would have laughed at
claims they were actual journalists, locked them up and thrown away the key. He would have been right.
There's a huge difference between an individual or an organization reporting abuses in government or business
one at a time and the same people stealing enough classified material to run a spy agency.
Amateur
Hour at CNN: Error-Filled Chyron During Beck Rally. There is something about CNN and the
people writing chyrons for the alleged "most trusted name in news" with the "best political team on television."
Last week, these geniuses clarified the White House's position on President Barack Obama's religion.
However on CNN Aug. 28 coverage of Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally, which CNN reporters and anchors
seemingly held their collective noses up and reported on throughout the event, the chyron on the screen was
something likened to one of those parlor games where you circle the numerous errors involved.
The Media
is the Politics. The "debates" between the current crop of presidential wannabes bear little
resemblance to the stirring intellectual drama of Lincoln and Douglas, but they accurately reflect our
times. Short answers to trivial questions for short attention spans. There's little opportunity for
eloquence in a sound bite and it's not likely that television audiences would stay tuned if there were.
The News Media Vs. the Innocent.
Years ago, Ray Donovan, Ronald Reagan's Labor Secretary, was prosecuted for corruption, only to be acquitted.
After the verdict, Donovan asked plaintively, "Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?" Steven
Hatfill knows where to go to get his reputation back. But upon arriving there, he finds the door blocked
by someone who says her privileges are more important than his good name. That someone, of course, is a
journalist. And, not surprisingly, she enjoys the broad support of other journalists, who have proved to
be slow learners about the obligations they share with their fellow citizens.
AFP Takes
Lessons from TNR. The caption that accompanied the photo read: "An elderly Iraqi woman shows
two bullets which she said hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite
Baghdad suburb of Sadr City." The only way these "bullets" could have hit the woman's house was if
they'd been thrown at it. They'd obviously never been fired.
Haditha Massacre: Media and Terrorist
Hoax? As charges against U.S. Marines — regarding an apparent fabrication of the
"Haditha massacre" — continue to be proved false and based upon unsubstantiated "evidence," only
some of the leftist media appear to be standing by their original spin on the story.
A press storm over
secrets. The media may not be the most detested institution in America, but it is surely a
contender for the title. A Harris poll in March found that only 14 percent of American adults
express a "great deal" of confidence in the press, while 34 percent — one American in
three — have "hardly any" confidence in it.
Media
Should Have 'Outed' Foley. The finger-pointing in the Mark Foley scandal has curiously not focused
on one particularly powerful player complicit in allowing the Florida Republican to continue his detrimental
behavior for years: the American media.
Update: After
election, Foley story fizzles. If ever a news story bolstered Rush Limbaugh's low opinion of the
"drive-by media," it is the tawdry saga of former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. When the story about Foley's
e-mails to former House pages first broke, cable news was All Foley/All the Time. … When the House
Committee on Standards of Official Conduct report came out this month finding no violations by GOP leadership
of House rules or standards, the once-big story devolved into news briefs and tepid editorials. No big
scandal, no big story.
Hillary and the Ghost of LBJ:
Much complained about every four years is the tendency of the media to play elections for the presidency as a
horse race. There is reason for this. Exciting, colorful, horse races never fail to capture an audience.
They have a winner and a batch of losers. But horse races always end. What the horse racing model of media
coverage never does is illuminate the long-term success or failure of the underlying ideas at stake in the ever
fluid, always forward-moving history of the American experience. But those ideas do win —
and they do lose. One of the most continually defeated ideas that has appeared in American politics
is that of weakness and appeasement in foreign policy.
Big Media are Repeatedly Wrong Claiming
'Record-High' Gas Prices. Since Hurricane Katrina swept ashore on the Gulf Coast, we've heard
seemingly countless reports of "record high" gas or oil prices. From the beginning of September last
year, the big three networks — ABC, CBS and NBC — have told us about record high gas
or oil prices close to 100 times. They've been wrong each and every time.
The
media's shabbiest moments. The year 2005 is ending as it began, with another
successful election in Iraq and a liberal media still flapping around trying to find other
controversies to submerge it. It does not matter to them that a Gallup poll found
that 74 percent of Americans express confidence in their military, but only 28 percent
express confidence in their newspapers or TV news outlets.
Jellyfish of the Year: The
intellectual flubber of Time's decision is manifest on many levels. Though some argue that
Time was patting the American people on the head for voting the way they wanted in the last election,
the more obvious explanation is that Time's editors didn't want to offend anybody. "If you choose
an individual, you have to justify how that person affected millions of people," Richard Stengel, Time's
newly vintaged managing editor, told the Associated Press. "But if you choose millions of people, you
don't have to justify it to anyone."
The KGB's Useful Idiots:
There are numerous examples of leftists unwittingly serving the Soviet cause in the 1980s, which today sit in
Communist government and media archives, some of which have been translated and are easily accessible in the
United States. There they gather dust, as liberal historians and journalists ignore them, failing to
do their jobs, never reporting the real history that exists.
Anchors
Aweigh: According to a Pew Research Center survey of 552 journalists and news media executives
from November 20, 1998 to February 11, 1999: "40% of journalists working for national news
organizations and 55% of those working for local outlets said that news reports were increasingly marred by
factual errors and sloppy reporting. About 60% said the boundary between reporting and commentary had eroded."
Funniest Media Gaffes of 2006: In the dubious
sources category: "Don Spille — A man who told the Tallahassee Democrat that he lost everything
in Katrina — including his father. Ed Spille Sr., his father, later contacted the newspaper to
disagree."
Media Report
of Raids on Tulsa Illegals Draws Outrage. A series of raids in Oklahoma last week led to the
arrests of 127 criminal aliens, fugitives and other immigration violators despite a TV station's news report
that not only exposed the operation to the public, but also described the people and the vehicles being used
in the effort.
This Ain't Nightline. It's not Ted Koppel's
fault that the New York Times has made him a Times contributing columnist. … [T]he fault belongs
to whomever assigned, accepted, and edited or rewrote Koppel's self-indulgent, self-congratulatory,
late-to-the-party, and punishingly obvious 1,500-word piece about the state of television
news. (It's bad.)
The Press And the Rush To Judgment. Remember
those January newspaper headlines heralding the survival of all 12 trapped miners in West Virginia? Even
the august New York Times reported "12 Found Alive 41 Hours After Explosion," but only one miner had actually
survived. In the frenzy to scoop competitors, reporters failed their journalistic responsibility, and
this penchant to rush to judgment before all the facts are verified is again occurring on two recent hot
button issues — homeland security funding cuts to New York City and the Haditha civilian deaths.
Life
after Ted Koppel: Koppel's debut as a New York Times columnist has been widely panned,
but it is a revealing column, for Koppel confirms what many of us had figured out as he and his broadcast
became increasingly irrelevant. He writes that journalists "should be telling their viewers what is
important, not the other way around." Finally, all of his cards are on the table and he's revealed
the contempt that he had for his audience all along.
Whatever happened to news as
information? Most hurricane reporters aren't exactly war reporters, so once they've
proved how hard the wind is blowing, they pack it in. … And have you noticed where most of
these reporters were "reporting" from? More often than not, it's either just outside their
station's office building or on the patio of some hotel. There's nothing seriously wrong with
reporting from your hotel, but it's awfully lazy.
Myths of rich
and poor: There is a fundamental difference between seeking the truth and scoring
points. In politics, the truth is strictly optional and that also seems to be true in parts
of the media.
Journalists have become ambitious
courtiers. Gone are the days of the cheerfully humble reporter sticking
to the facts and keeping his opinions to himself. Today's media forget how much they
don't know. … You may have noticed, for example, how thoroughly the media omit
any religious perspective on the news — which means that they miss the
actual significance of the news for countless Americans. They utter self-assured
pronouncements about the Constitution from depths of confusion.
How the CIA Uses the
Press: One of the fascinating aspects of coverage of the Joseph Wilson
affair is the tendency of the media to go to the defense of the CIA, which arranged for
Wilson's dubious Africa trip.
When accountability is
compromised: The disgraceful affair of Wen Ho Lee, the onetime Los Alamos scientist
defamed but never tried for supposedly stealing nuclear secrets for China, is over. The U.S. government
and five news organizations will pay Lee $1.64 million for sliming him by publishing private information
from his personnel files to support espionage allegations that nobody could ever prove and that apparently
were unfounded.
Hiding
Barrett. In a very clever year-end column the venerable William Safire writing in the
New York Times asks whether "special prosecutor David Barrett's 400-page expose of political influence
within the Internal Revenue Service and the Clinton Justice Department" will be the government
report "most likely to resist investigative reporting" this year. I certainly hope not.
Media
Report Miracle Mine Rescue — Then Carry the Tragic Truth. In one of the most
disturbing media performances of its kind in recent years, TV news and many newspapers carried the
tragically wrong news late Tuesday and early Wednesday [1/4/2006] that 12 of 13 trapped coal miners
in West Virginia had been found alive and safe. Hours later they had to reverse course. … It
was "Dewey Defeats Truman" all over again.
United Flight Diverted
Because of Unruly Passenger. Boston's Channel 7, an NBC affiliate, reported that the woman had
a screwdriver, Vaseline and a note referencing the al-Qaeda terrorist group. [George Naccara, federal
security director for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration at Logan Airport] said she was not
in fact carrying any of these items.
Judith Miller, TWA 800 and
the Death of Press Freedom. All those wonderful federal sources who spoon-fed you, the
dominant media journalist, story after story for which you were praised and rewarded with even better
stories — as long as you did not demand that officially sanctioned stories be backed up
with actual documents and other provable facts. These "sources" would never again be available
to you if you ever crossed the Beast, the National Security State. You'd actually have to push
away from your desk, get out of your chair, go out into the cold, cruel world, walk past your favorite
pub and find sources.
And now, a touching, fake story of
bogus courage and false hope. Who can really blame student journalist Michael
Brenner, editor of The Daily Egyptian at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Ill., for
grabbing onto what seemed to be a really good story when it dropped into his lap? How was
he to know that it wasn't true at all?
Conventionally
Ignorant: Washington is an echo chamber. One pundit, one senator, one reporter
proclaim a snazzy "truth" and almost immediately it reverberates as gospel. Conventional wisdom
about Iraq is rarely questioned. A notion seems to find validity not on its logic or through
empirical evidence, but simply by the degree to which it is repeated and felt to resonate.
Why the media passes off bunk as news.
I like oddball news as much as anyone. In fact, I make a decent living showcasing a daily collection of
silly news, offbeat items, and real news with amusing headlines on my website, Fark.com, which attracts
3.5 million unique visitors each month. What's scary, though, is that the ratio of filler news to
real news is now so high that the content of Fark and major news websites is often nearly identical. That
should never happen because, in theory, mass media outlets are staffed by full-time, serious journalists who
have better things to do.
No, they really don't. Disgruntled
CNN visitor launches website due to marimba-playing robots. Do you ever go to CNN.com to check up
on the latest news? Neither do we. Well, unless we're writing about CNN's political analyst Jeffrey
Toobin watching baseball on his laptop during a vice presidential debate. But why bring that up? At
least one disgruntled CNN visitor is challenging the network's choice of news selection. Not that the
network is too liberal or too conservative but too fluffy.
Math Is Harder for Girls. The
New York Times is determined to show that women are discriminated against in the sciences; too bad the facts
say otherwise. Either the Times is deliberately concealing the results of the study or its reporter cannot
understand the most basic science reporting.
Clinton's Mythical
FEMA. While making the rounds of the network morning shows, [Senator
Hillary Clinton has] been very hard on the Federal Emergency Management Administration
and, of course, the Bush Administration. She went as far as complaining that Bush
damaged "Bill's FEMA." Naturally, the mainstream media are too lazy to
investigate her politically-charged exploitation of Katrina to not only revise her
hubby's legacy, but also to score brownie points as she eyes a 2008 presidential run.
Media Mind Control
in the War on Terror. By using graphic images, focusing only on what
they want you to see and hear, shaping events by reporting only on those that fit
the media's political agenda, ignoring anything that is counterproductive to their
goals, they control an empire that is actually a fourth arm of government.
Preserving the public
trust: Most of the truly profitable newspapers in the country today are essentially shopping
circulars with some cheap journalism printed on those pages not devoted to shopping mall sales. The
great newspaper chains take over local papers, fire journalists, and set out to fill their pages with
still more advertisements.
USA Today's Reporting Scandals: USA
Today recently acted correctly to remove a reporter guilty of fabricating facts and sources for several
articles. Too bad they weren't so responsive several years when Michael Fumento reported
major errors in reporting on the Gulf War Syndrome story by a reporter named John Hanchette.
Schools for
Scribblers: On the education of young journalists, there has been much recent
debate. There is one argument over whether or not journalists should aspire to objectivity
and another about the liberal bias that permeates journalism programs. But the problem
isn't that journalists are being taught improperly; it's that the foundations of journalistic
education are faulty.
Soft on the stars'
scientology. Many people believe, as I do, that Scientology is a cult, an oppressive
organization that splits families and milks believers for every cent they can muster. But to
entertainment journalists, Scientology is about as harmless as scuba diving.
Fannie Mae's bailout
tab: Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored mortgage association, has been battling a
mounting scandal since last year. It has accounting errors of about $11 billion. [That's
Enron × 19.] This is news — $30 billion worth of
news — but only print reporters are out there covering it regularly. TV news
is out to lunch.
The
hardest numbers: Polls on unfamiliar issues are notoriously volatile,
and results can shift wildly when questions are worded slightly differently.
Poor
reflections in the media mirror. The mainstream public does not
perceive that the "mainstream media" takes the time to check facts and eschews
opinion in its "reporting." According to the Pew Center for the People and
the Press, only 35 percent of Americans think the media get the facts right.
Self-indulgence: The
enraged speeches and street disorders across the country that accompanied the inauguration of President
Bush may tell us more than we want to know about what is happening to this country. Elections are
supposed to be an alternative to other ways of settling political differences, including riots, military
coups and dictatorships. But riots have been re-christened "demonstrations" by the mealy-mouth
media.
Tainted
media: Who in the major media has asked why John Kerry would need to be
issued an honorable discharge during the Carter administration, years after leaving
the navy, unless his original discharge was less than honorable? One of Jimmy
Carter's first acts as President was to issue an order granting amnesties to draft
dodgers who had fled the country during the Vietnam war and also allowing an upgrading
of military discharges that had been less than honorable.
How to skew the news without really
trying. As columnist Jill Stewart notes, "disingenuous reporters hate … term limits because
reporters must woo new legislators every eight years, working their butts off for leaks and cell phone
numbers." Journalism depends on access. Term limits, by making old cultivated sources of access
irrelevant every few terms, make reporters work harder. Why would they want that?
Be Doubly Afraid Of Cell Phones Lost In
Airports. Earlier this week, a scare story about the supposed dangers of hidden data left on used
cell phones did the rounds, spurred on by a self-serving vendor's "research". … Somehow, stories
like this would be a lot more believable if they didn't originate from vendors who just happen to have a
solution to these invented problems for sale.
News 4 sale: Local newscasts
are passing off corporate press releases as news, according to a new report.
The Editor says...
Manufacturers and marketers of new products know how local TV news works. The stations
have time to fill, and one of the highest priorities is getting video on the air other
than a studio camera pointed at the happy team of news anchors.
Pre-packaged "news" stories, called Video News Releases (VNR's) are fed via satellite, sometimes two or three
times a week. In some cases, the items are syndicated and available only to subscribing stations, and in
other cases they're made available to any station that wants them. Someone at the station looks them over,
and decides if the donated items are interesting enough to use as filler. Naturally, the "news" in each
story is about some problem that a new product — a drug or gadget or software package —
will fix, and that's the point of the story. Sometimes, the satellite feed contains footage of the product,
along with "suggested anchor lead-in" scripts, and sometimes it is a complete pre-produced "package,"
essentially a 90-second infomercial, ready for air. Small market stations probably put the stories
on the air exactly as they were received. In larger markets, if it's interesting enough, the story
is given to a reporter, who then re-records the announcer track in his or her own voice, often without
even rephrasing it (except to remove verbs!), making it look like (s)he went out and dug up the
story. Thus the station gives the appearance of providing "local news" coverage, without spending
any money, and without mentioning that the footage was shot a thousand miles away by somebody else.
There has apparently been some backlash to the story above, because the news managers at many stations
are now being careful not to run VNR's.
Simpletons
in the press. Can we have a serious political debate in this country any
more? Why is it that when a politician, addressing an important national
issue — articulating the position held by an overwhelming majority of
Americans — is ridiculed, his words distorted, twisted, caricaturized?
The Malkin
Media Diversity Test: The diversity they seek is, by definition, skin-deep. They
call themselves "journalists of color." Not journalists of substance. Or journalists of
integrity. Or journalists of independent thought.
When diversity is only
skin-deep: What the convention should have been told is that it is neither moral nor
progressive to view the world through a racial prism. Unity's "journalists of color" should have heard
the blunt message that journalism does not need more reporters and editors of color. It doesn't need
more white journalists, either. What it needs are men and women of talent and integrity —
adults who have no interest in a "diversity" that is merely skin-deep.
Real Sherrod Story
Still Untold. [Scroll down] The major media reported the settlement as though it were
the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. For the last forty years, as the civil rights industry has
manufactured more and more absurd grievances — most notably the Tea Party smear that incited
Breitbart's reprisal — the media have reported on them with increasingly wide-eyed innocence.
In the various stories on the settlement, not one reporter that I could identify stopped to do the
math. ... Although 86,000 black farmers are alleged to have received payments, at no time in the last three
decades have there been more than 40,000 black farmers. Nor is there much turnover in the farming
business.
Blame
uninformed voters. Whether you are liberal or conservative, Democrat or
Republican, if your only news source is the boob tube you are simply underinformed,
though not necessarily misinformed. Unfortunately, most Americans are
underinformed.
Climate
Reality Bites. Thankfully, the American system makes it hard for colossal tax and regulatory
burdens to foxtrot into law without scrutiny. So we hope our politicians will take responsibility for
the global-warming policies they say they favor. Or even begin to understand what they say they favor.
For a bill as grandly ambitious as Warner-Lieberman, very few staff, much less Senators, even know what's
in it. The press corps mainly cheerleads this political fad, without examining how it would work or
what it would cost.
Media
ignorance: Many media people have been journalism and/or communication
majors. Most of these programs have little analytical rigor. Along with departments of
education, they are a dumping ground for the most ill-prepared students. That might
explain a lot.
All the News We Get From the
ACLU: In case you aren't able to read ACLU press releases for yourself, The Associated Press
and The New York Times will helpfully restate them for you as important, breaking "news."
CNN called Castro's
"megaphone": After analyzing every Cuba-based story that has appeared on CNN since it established
a Havana bureau five years ago, the Media Research Center is calling the network a "propaganda tool for
Fidel Castro's government" and a "megaphone for a dictator."
Chris Matthews'
latest verbal blunder. Discussing the Ground Zero Mosque: "Suppose they built this thing
right square over....right over the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem." Obviously, he does not realize that the
Dome of the Rock Muslim "Shrine" was built directly on the site of the 2nd Temple...
Juan Williams and the Left's Intellectual Bankruptcy.
Juan Williams makes the understandable post-9/11 observation that the sight of Muslims on airplanes makes him nervous, and NPR
immediately fires him. Bill O'Reilly states the obvious truth that Muslims attacked the United States on 9/11, and Whoopi
Goldberg and Joy Behar walk off the set. These incidents and others demonstrate that the Leftists in the mainstream media
and their Islamic supremacist allies are wholly intellectually bereft — and so they cannot engage their opponents on
the level of ideas, but must instead bludgeon them into silence.
Why do reporters and news anchors constantly refer to ordinary people
as "folks"? When will they stop using "absolutely" as an expletive? Why must news writers
refer to snow as "the white stuff"? Why are politicians called "lawmakers" in the press when
nobody uses that term in person? When was the last time you went somewhere and then "fled the
scene?" The Medical Examiner probably doesn't actually say, "I pronounce you dead at the
scene," but that's the way it's often reported when someone dies on the highway. What
are these news writers thinking?
The most overworked cliché in the field is the ubiquitous "How do you feel?" to which every
reporter resorts when he or she runs out of ideas during an interview. Of course, many reporters
start out with that question because it makes the other guy talk a lot, and because it adds emotional
appeal to the story. (If they start to cry, zoom in!)
I'm sure to face stiff opposition from some of you, but you owe it to yourself to keep reading.
15
Most Annoying Expressions in Politics. Irritating phrases and words are not confined to political
circles, or solely to Washington, although here in the nation's capital they burrow in and proliferate like obsolete,
but entrenched, government programs.
150 journalism
cliches — and counting. Over the past few years, some colleagues at The Washington Post and I have played
our own parlor game, assembling a list of verbal crutches, stock phrases, filler words, cliches and perpetually misused expressions
that we should avoid in The Post's Sunday Outlook section — or at least think hard about before using.
Lake Superior State University Banished Words
List. This "breaking news" just in: Lake Superior State University releases its 33rd annual List
of Words and Phrases Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness.
Groaners! You know 'em. You
love 'em. But can't we live without 'em? Groaners are those horrible, overused, hackneyed
phrases that turn news copy into boring, "same old, same old" stuff. This is a list of some of
the worst offenders.
[But they left out "every parent's worst nightmare", "an emotional roller coaster"
and "a mile-long path of destruction."]
Sports Clichés: The Sports Cliché List
was assembled from a detailed survey of numerous player and coach interviews, pre-game, post-game, and
halftime analyses, sports radio commentaries, television sportscasts, and printed sports
reports. … For the purpose of this website, we define a sports cliché as an
expression that has been used in and around sports with sufficient frequency over a protracted
period such that it is "tired" at best and meaningless at worst.
At the end of the day, do an about-face on
clichés. Chris Pash is an executive with Factiva, the database company that loads news
articles from 10,000 sources, including 1,600 American newspapers. [He took] the leading 55
clichés and developed a detailed index which charted how often each cliché was used and
which publications used that cliché the most.
More Clichés Than You Can Shake a Stick At. Some
of these are classics. Others might more accurately be called newspaper or media jargon because you'll
never see or hear these phrases anywhere else. What normal person says "densely wooded area"
or "blueprint for growth" in everyday — or any — conversation?
Inspiring 'overcomer' stories are
newsroom cliches. "Supercrips are everywhere in the media," Wolfe went on. "The person
with no use of her arms who paints masterpieces with her feet, the guy with Tourette's syndrome who becomes
a radio announcer, Stephen Hawking explaining the universe from his wheelchair. And, of course,
that blind mountain climber."
Banned For Life: This page is devoted to those
expressions so hackneyed and insufferable that they should be forever banned from the nation's news
reports.
rising tide of clichés, The.
Periodically an old (or hoary old) question is raised. Is the standard of writing at the BBC declining
(or plummeting or plunging or even in free-fall)? Or is it improving (or soaring or rocketing)? ... It is
lucky for the BBC that the only people who continue to be worried about such matters are the Radio Four audience,
and the smattering of news snobs who insist in a superior fashion that they much prefer the World Service bulletins.
Listeners to other networks give no sign of knowing or caring about good English. The same applies to the
television news, in which words count for almost nothing.
The Cliché Community:
But let's turn the page! Paul[ McCartney]'s right that the times are ever-changing, but I wish they'd change a little more
quickly, so we could get a new set of insta-clichés and cant phrases for everybody to start using all at once —
or better, so we could all return to using the perfectly fine words we were using before we popped these new verbal pacifiers
into our mouths.
Show me where Stalin
is buried and I'll show you a Communist Plot. Cable networks in particular label weather
phenomenon as The Battle for Des Moines! Crisis in the Heartland! The term hero is applied to
everything from crossing guards to anyone in the military. It's heroes and battles all the time.
Watch the language of the media carefully and see if you don't detect it. The battle for this, a politician
goes to war for such and such. A Senator speaks of how hard he had to fight. And on and on it
goes. Naked plagiarism of Soviet era propaganda.
See No Evil. [Scroll down
slowly] If reporters ever read their own words or listened to their own voices, they would stop
repeating the ugly cliché that the Taliban (or gang X) has "claimed credit" for some revolting
crime or attempted crime. Do we say that "The jury assigned credit to Joe Shmoe for beating up an
old lady and kicking her dog down the stairs"? The word reporters are looking for is guilt.
The Taliban have admitted guilt, once again, for an attempted mass murder. Do liberals ever listen to
what they are saying?
Man up, Media and
Open Your Eyes! One of my complaints in the local newsrooms that I worked in was that we did not
do "real" very well. We liked telling viewers early and often in our promos that we are, "part of your community,"
or, "your neighbors in the newsroom," or, "watching out for your neighborhood," or whatever silly slogan was used.
The reality is that the local TV newsrooms are more connected to grabbing stories out of the daily newspaper and repeating
them, or repeating what they are told by the last public official they spoke to than they are at being on the pulse of a
community. If you try to do "real" on a TV newscast you don't last very long...