Archive for the ‘media’ Category

CNN MSM, CBS, NBC ABC Are Churches & the Press are their Televangelists

Posted: September 3, 2020 by datechguy in culture, media
Tags: ,

There seems to be some confusion as to why the left media are reaching so far to promote the Biden Ticket as to appear crazy.

and this

and this

One might wonder how these places stay in the news / information business with reporting like this.

The answer is these people are not in the news business, they are in the religion business.

Now I don’t mean the religion business in the way that Christianity or Islam is a religion in the sense that they believe in a God whose message of forgiveness and repentance are delivered by his son (Christ and Christianity) or message of submission and obedience are proclaimed by his prophet (Mohammad).

No I mean religion in the sense that their audiences have a fixed set of beliefs from Orange Man Bad to straight white people are the source of all evil to police are murdering innocent people in the street the source of evil.

And because these things are articles of faith to those remaining viewers who tune in to affirm their beliefs all must be framed in the lens of said beliefs.

So when riots violence and looting were going on for months the reassured the faithful that nothing was happen but when it became impossible to ignore suddenly they were Trump riots.

So when Joe Biden had a lackluster convention and a generic speech it was the greatest speech in the history of history, but when Trump brought in people to provide a message of optomism it became a “dark” message.

So when Donald Trump announced his intention to go to Kenosha they reported that Joe Biden wouldn’t go, that he shouldn’t go there, that people didn’t want him there and it would cause violence and trouble.

Then after his visit was a success Joe Biden decided to go to Kenosha, but wouldn’t take questions there, it makes no difference to the faithful

None of it is about reality, it’s all about affirming the beliefs of the church of the liberals

That why we are seeing the “Trump will win in a landslide on election night but will lose a week later” meme from Axios. Part of it of course is the hope that enough votes can be stolen to win (particularly once they know how many they need to steal) but most of it is a Millerite attempt to postpone the day of reckoning where people say, “how can this be? We’ve been told this wasn’t happening for months?

When you think of it this way, it all makes sense.

The presidents and the press

Posted: September 1, 2020 by chrisharper in media
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By Christopher Harper

President Trump probably wouldn’t rank in the top five opponents of the media among U.S. presidents.

That’s the verdict of The New York Times in a review of a recent book, “The Presidents vs. the Press: The Endless Battle Between the White House and the Media — From the Founding Fathers to Fake News” by Harold Holzer. 

Yes, that assessment appeared in DaTimes, albeit from Jack Shafer, the media analyst of Politico.

The book’s author is no fan of President Trump. Holzer worked for U.S. Rep. Bella Abzug and New York Gov. Mario Cuomo. 

John Adams signed sedition acts into law and used them against his critics in the media. George Washington even supported Adams’ anti-media tendencies. In his post-presidential years, Adams lamented that people read only Federalist or Republican newspapers—not both—leaving them with a one-sided view of the government in power. Sounds like a prelude to Fox and MSNBC.

Abraham Lincoln, arguably the best president in the nation’s history, imprisoned editors during the Civil War, banned newspapers from using the mail, and even confiscated printing presses. “Altogether, nearly 200 papers would face federally initiated subjugation during the Civil War,” Holzer writes. 

The Roosevelts enjoyed some of the best press among the presidents. But even they took aim at recalcitrant reporters. Theodore Roosevelt rebuked investigative journalists as “muckrakers,” or those who could only look down into the muck. He also filed a libel suit against Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, which finally was dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

During World War II, Franklin Roosevelt ordered massive censorship of news organizations, including a government Office of the Censor. His administration also penalized any news organization that reported about his paralysis or his ill health in his final years.

President Woodrow Wilson imposed censorship during World War I in a heavy-handed manner, and his Espionage Act still stands as a repressive law against whistleblowers. 

The battle between President Richard Nixon and his press critics is well documented here—as it has been elsewhere. 

Although Holzer batters Trump for his attacks on the press, the author doesn’t hold back on Barack Obama. Holzer recalls the analysis of former Washington Post managing editor Leonard Downie Jr. that Obama’s “war on leaks and other efforts to control information” were the worst Washington had seen since Nixon.

All told, the book analyzes the 18 of the 45 presidents, with many nuggets about the various administrations.

For example, one journalist confides that the press was as much responsible for the New Deal as was FDR because of the glowing media coverage. That sounds about right!

Moreover, the press ignored JFK’s extra-marital affairs because journalists didn’t think the private doings affected public business. That, of course, ignored at least one affair that straddled a mistress and the Mob. One reporter referred to the president as the “swashbuckler in chief.”

Despite JFK’s tryst with the media, he targeted some enemies, including Henry Luce of Time and David Halberstam of DaTimes.

Although I’ve never been a fan of Lyndon Johnson, the saddest tales come from his administration. LBJ had a massive mandate from the voters in 1964–more than 61 percent–and an excellent rapport with the press. He managed to lose both public and the media’s support by misleading them about the war in Vietnam in what became known as the government’s credibility gap.

Last week’s riot toll is three dead

Posted: August 30, 2020 by John Ruberry in crime, culture, elections, media, News/opinion
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By John Ruberry

The mainstream media has been downplaying the rioting and looting that has been occurring this summer across many large American cities–all run by Democrats.

Three people were shot last week in what the mainstream media often calls “unrest,” but are in fact riots.

Powerline has rightly called the downplaying by the media of last week’s looting in Minneapolis “journalistic malpractice.” 

One state over in Wisconsin, during the rioting and looting in Kenosha last week, a 17-year-old from nearby Antioch, Illinois, Kyle Rittenhouse, was charged with murdering three people. The media is focusing on how the riots started–anger over police shooting Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old with a criminal record, seven times. Fair enough.

The media is also exploring Rittenshouse’s possible connection with a local militia. 

Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, responded to the mayhem by sending a small force of National Guard trips, 125 of them, on Monday, which was doubled the next day. After Tuesday’s shootings Evers doubled the deployment again and he’s since accepted Guard assistance from other states and from the federal government. 

But what if Evers dispatched 500 National Guard troops to Kenosha as soon as the rioting started Sunday night? Perhaps that militia would have stayed home and Rittenhouse, who appears to be a troubled cop-wannabe that got his hands on an AR-15 rifle despite being a minor, would have remained home in Illinois. 

Details are still coming in on the shooting death of a man during Saturday’s round of rioting in Portland, Oregon. Last night a pro-Trump group confronted Black Lives Matter in downtown Portland. In what the local police are calling a homicide–a man wearing clothing with a Patriot Prayer logo was shot to death in the middle of a street. The Oregonian is calling Patriot Prayer a far-right group. Of course the mainstream media never calls Antifa far-left, but that’s a subject for another post, of course. 

The rioting, mercifully no longer called “mostly peaceful” by the media, has been a nightly event for three months in Oregon’s largest city. Portland’s ineffective mayor, Ted Wheeler, is deaf to the concern of law-abiding citizens of the Rose City. 

It’s a new week. Hopefully last week’s riot deaths will be the last ones. And perhaps these homicides will finally compel mayors like Wheeler to take back their cities in the names of the rank-and-file citizens they claim to represent. 

Never forget: The most important responsibility of any government is to protect its citizens. 

As for the mainstream media, I believe they are too far gone to save themselves. 

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

DaTruth and DaTimes

Posted: August 25, 2020 by chrisharper in media, Uncomfortable Truths

By Christopher Harper

Against the backdrop of the investigations into Russia and Ukraine, the New York Times failed to mention one of the most egregious failures about the region propagated by the news organization itself.

Fortunately, a recently released motion picture, Mr. Jones, provides the details of how DaTimes manipulated the American public about the Soviet Union and the Ukraine famine, which resulted in the deaths of millions of people.

The film, directed by Agnieszka Holland, recounts the story of Moscow bureau chief Walter Duranty, a chief propagandist for Josef Stalin, and how Welsh journalist Gareth Jones tried to unmask the gross falsehoods created by the then-venerated Times scribe.

Duranty, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Soviet Union in 1931, dismissed Jones’ first-hand accounts of the famine, known as the Holomodor.

Here are some excerpts from Duranty’s reports:

–New York Times, November 15, 1931: “There is no famine or actual starvation, nor is there likely to be.”

–New York Times, August 23, 1933: “Any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda.”

–New York Times, December 9, 1932: “Enemies and foreign critics can say what they please. Weaklings and despondents at home may groan under the burden, but the youth and strength of the Russian people is essentially at one with the Kremlin’s program, believes it worthwhile and supports it, however hard be the sledding.”

–New York Times, May 14, 1933: “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”

At the time, Duranty was so influential that his reporting is credited for convincing FDR to establish diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.

Although Jones and others provided extensive evidence to refute Duranty’s reporting, it wasn’t until 2003 that the Pulitzer Board and DaTimes itself finally sought outside analysis of the work.

The Pulitzer “Board determined that Mr. Duranty’s 1931 work, measured by today’s standards for foreign reporting, falls seriously short…. However, the Board concluded that there was not clear and convincing evidence of deliberate deception, the relevant standard in this case….The famine of 1932-1933 was horrific and has not received the international attention it deserves. By its decision, the Board in no way wishes to diminish the gravity of that loss. The Board extends its sympathy to Ukrainians and others in the United States and throughout the world who still mourn the suffering and deaths brought on by Josef Stalin.”

Ironically, DaTimes’ review of Mr. Jones only references Duranty in passing. At least that’s more than what DaTimes said during the recent debate over Russia and Ukraine. 

H/T to my wife Elizabeth for suggesting we watch the film! See the trailer at https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=15&v=wtWSyFNT9qY&feature=emb_logo

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