Archive for the ‘media’ Category

MSM “What if” or DaTechGuy’s Theory (Law?) of Media Outrage

Posted: March 18, 2017 by datechguy in media

During all that time the theory had been failed to be proven wrong so it could have temporarily have been taken as right but it can never be proven right because tomorrow’s experiment may succeed in proving what you thought was right wrong, so we can never be proved right we can only be sure we’re wrong.

Richard Feynman 1964

Back in my youth one of the more interesting comics that Marvel put out was titled “What If” which provided alternate stories outside of the established Marvel timeline by changing one component of a story (What if Spider-Man joined the Fantastic Four, What if Conan walked the earth today, what if Conan was stranded in the 20th century which was an alternate ending the previous what if alternative event etc…) and postulating a different ending.

When dealing with the MSM however the game is different because rather than postulating on imaginary events we can play with real ones, for example.

What if this video instead of showing Democrats for months stating as fact, that Donald Trump paid no income taxes

Consisted of Republicans making a factual claim about Barack Obama that was conclusively proved false?

Given what we’ve seen in the past our media and press would be not only confronting every single member of the GOP that made this claim, not only asking them why they should be trusted in the present, but further asking other members of the GOP to denounce them.

Or let’s play What IF this tweet from rapper Bow Wow:

“Ayo @realDonaldTrump shut your punk a– up talking s–t about my uncle @SnoopDogg before we pimp your wife and make her work for us.”

and this tweet from the NYT making light of it

The outrage from @BreitbarkNews news is going to be through the woof. https://t.co/9OqILpdLcs

— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) March 15, 2017

Had been about Michelle Obama?

Well as Hollywood in toto tells us we already saw how when a rodeo clown made fun of Barack Obama CNN considered it national news pols were made to condemn him and he was banned for life from the circuit. I suspect that if Mr. Bow Wow was a country singer whose primary audience consisted of Obama opponents pressure would be put on the GOP to condemn him in public, venues would be protested that had him and the journalist who made light of it would not have the public editor of the “paper of record” condemning such a reporter and demanding his resignation for being a misogynist rather than claiming:

After talking to the writer and the Culture editor, Danielle Mattoon, I came away convinced that Deb’s intentions were innocent, that he was not trying to align himself with the off-color sentiments of a rapper, but merely trying to pull off a pun.

The problem is, not everyone is “in” on the joke. Conservatives may use such tweets — or retweets — to further their case that the “liberal media” will do and say anything. More significantly, mainstream readers who hear of or see the tweet out of context might easily take offense. It’s a lose, lose.

…that the main problem with the tweet would be it would be misunderstood or used by their ideological enemies against them.

So in the tradition of Richard Feynman explanation on the scientific method starting with a guess and measuring it against the evidence

I propose the following theory:

The level of Outrage or interest of the media and their allies on the left concerning any insult or prevarication concerning a person or thing will routinely be equal to the inverse of the degree of the political distance between said media / leftists and the target of said insult or prevarication at the time it is made.

Now in fairness we have years of evidence to support this theory at this time but our media friends can at any time provide evidence that this theory is wrong by simply being consistent in their outrage based not on the source or target, but on what is actually said and done.

They just choose not to.

Update 8-18-17:  For those just finding this post thanks to Instapundit’s tweets check out my post for 8-19 with the corollary to this theory.  There isn’t as much money in just reporting and telling the truth as we see it. But if you’d like to help us pay our writers, support independent journalism and reporting (such as my planned coverage of Saturday’s events in Boston) please consider hitting DaTipjar below to help meet our weekly goal ($380 short right now)

MSM in retreat, Braxton Braggs of the Right hardest hit

Posted: January 12, 2017 by datechguy in media
Tags:

Taken aback, Longstreet at last saw what the trouble was. Bragg was miffed because his design for herding the blue coats into McLemore’s Cove had gone astray…In other words, if he could not win in just the way he wanted, he did not care about winning at all, or anyhow he wanted no personal share in such a victory

Shelby Foote The Civil War A Narrative Fredericksburg to Meridian p 744

If there has been one constant in the story of the rise of the alternate media it’s that the mainstream media outlets have been biased against conservatism and have served as defacto media arm of leftists in general and the Democrat party in particular.

The MSM’s unwillingness to report honestly burying stories unfavorable to liberal memes like

while pushing and defending thin or false stories to advance said memes

is what made folks like Matt Drudge, Instapundit and me  what we are today.

In fact the bias of the left is so bad that not only does Newsbusters document it daily but their annual dinner highlighting journalism worst abuses of the year is practically the nerd prom of the right.

So I’m slightly surprised when I see tweets like this upset at some of the POTUS’ tweets about press ethics or lack thereof

Matt used to be at Newsbusters concerned by things like this The irony is palatable particularly given this

and this

and of course this

I understand that some of my fellow conservatives don’t like or trust Donald Trump but this doesn’t require pity for the dishonest media. I’d say Iowahawk puts it very well as always in two tweets

Personally I don’t understand the frustration of any conservative, even one who hates Trump over all this. Consider this lament from the Baltimore Sun

Trump lashed out at BuzzFeed in his press conference today, calling it a “failing pile of garbage.” He also refused to take a question from a CNN correspondent Jim Acosta.

“I’m not going to give you a question,” Trump told Acosta. “You are fake news.”

I wish he had saved all his wrath for BuzzFeed, which clearly deserves it.

Thanks to BuzzFeed, all of us in the press are diminished.

or the Sight of reports on CNN cutting and running from Buzzfeed:

CNN distances itself from BuzzFeed, says Trump is using the website ‘to deflect from CNN’s reporting’

or the joy of Chuck Todd suddenly deciding that Buzzfeed isn’t a great news source:

and NBC undermining CNN

Less than 18 months ago every conservative I know would have given their eye teeth to discredit the dishonest and dishonorable MSM and break their power. Now that it’s happening because of Trump some conservatives are suddenly worried about this kind of thing.

Let me remind everyone that there is an easy way for the MSM to stop bleeding it’s credibility by acting like a bunch of Democrats with bylines:

Stop acting like a bunch of Democrats with bylines!


That’s it, do who what when where and why, confirm your stories and make sure you have at least one or two people with a different ideological bent who can see the bias you can’t before you publish and you’ll be fine but I suspect for the left that’s too high a price to pay for credibility.

As for me I suggest rather than bemoaning Trump I suggest sitting back and enjoying the MSM crashing and burning around me.

Closing Thought, as I recall part of the phony Buzzfeed story was a suggestion that Donald Trump has an affinity for some sexual practices that some might find deviant.

Can anyone really any time in the last 8 years when any critique, let alone condemnation of deviant sexual practices did not elicit a cry of Bigot from places like Buzzfeed why did they consider the idea, false that it was, that Trump enjoyed such practices a cause for celebration and loudly condemn anyone who said otherwise?

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NBC Channels Hitchhikers Guide on Bill Clinton & Jeffrey Epstein

Posted: August 31, 2016 by datechguy in elections, media, politics
Tags: , , ,

You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling anyone or anything.’ But the plans were on display…’ o n display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.’ `That’s the display department.’ `With a torch.’ `Ah, well the lights had probably gone.’ `So had the stairs.’ `But look you found the notice didn’t you?’ `Yes,’ said Arthur, `yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of The Leopard”.’

Douglas Adams The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy 1979 — Douglas Adams.

On Tuesday I led with a piece concerning the hilarity of crying “security” with Anthony Weiner and Huma when Bill Clinton is about to be let back into the white house. In that piece I had a quote from Donny Deutsch

Panelist Donny Deutsch guessed that Trump would have no problem counter-punching with the Epstein connection whenever he was hit for his own behavior with women, as he was last weekend in a piece in the New York Times.

“Here’s the tennis game,” Deutsch said. “Donald Trump kissed a woman in a bathing suit. Trump hits back: Tell me about the president’s relationship with a guy named Jeffrey Epstein. That’s your tennis match.”

In my original piece I had video from the Washington Free Beacon story containing that entire exchange. You might wonder why I didn’t include said video of Deutsch mentioning Jeffery Epstein and see the reaction of the people at the table.

Here is why

nbc copywright

If you look at the view count you will see that seven minute clip had over 100,000 views before NBC decided to play copyright police game.

Maybe it’s just me but given how often we see stuff at mediaite et al it seems rather unusual for a news network to make a copyright claim over a clip from a news story that used as “fair use” by another news organization. Could this suggest that NBC wants to keep this clip out of the public view because it might hurt Hillary?

I can see the NBC reaction now: Nonsense, we’re not censoring the clip at all. The seven minute clip IS available IF you

Go to the Morning Joe site

Hit search taking you to the MSNBC search engine

Search for Donald Trump

Narrow the field to Morning Joe

Narrow the field to May 16th 2016

and sit through all the videos till you find the right one.

And skip ahead to the 12 minute mark on that video.

If you do so you CAN find the clip and watch the Morning Joe panel’s reaction to what Donny Deutsch says

So,  You’ll have absolutely no problem sharing this clip with people far and wide and giving them a hint about the relationship between Jeffery Epstein and Bill Clinton and how the media views it…provided you are someone like me who

already saw the clip

remembered what show it was on

knew what day it was broadcast

And knew what time segment to look for 

As for everyone else NBC says to you: Beware of the Leopard!

The MSM “I’m not Defending Bill Clinton” caucus

Posted: January 15, 2016 by datechguy in elections, media, politics, primaries
Tags: , , ,

I had to laugh when I saw this piece at the Hill where John Podesta was so worried about this answer to a Town Hall question by Bernie Sanders:

“But I hope he’s not thinking about going there, because, again, I think what Trump has done to go in the gutter is reprehensible,” the Clinton campaign chairman added.

Sanders fielded a question late Friday at a town hall in Iowa about Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

“Hillary Clinton is not Bill Clinton. What Bill Clinton did, I think we can all acknowledge was totally, totally, totally disgraceful and unacceptable. But I am running against Hillary Clinton. I am not running against Bill Clinton,” Sanders told the questioner, according to The Washington Post.

Podesta’s warnings to Sanders are laughable as he has as much chance of costing Bernie his seat in VT as I have of being named Secretary of Time Travel in a Ted Cruz administration but more importantly it combined with these little Riffs on Morning Joe crystallizes the problem for a certain group of Democrats and media folks of a particular age.

During the Clinton impeachment hearings Democrat pols and the media that serves them knew what Bill Clinton was and what he had done, they had a choice:  They could back him up, despite the facts OR they could pressure him to resign and be replaced by Al Gore.

They choose the former.

Perhaps because the rest of their caucus couldn’t stand the scrutiny (think Ted Kennedy).  Perhaps because they thought it would lead to a GOP victory a la 1976 or perhaps they decided they didn’t want to risk emboldening a GOP that had only just won the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.

But whatever the reason they not only stuck with Bill Clinton  defending him en masse but for 15 years afterwards proceeded to pretend that nothing had happened acting as if, at worst Bill Clinton was the victim of a partisan witch hunt.

Thanks to Donald Trump and Bill Cosby that position is no longer tenable so plan B has become to acknowledge that what Bill Clinton did was wrong (How many times can Harold Ford say “I’m not defending” ) while maintaining that bringing it up in the context of Hillary is beyond the pale.

In other words: talking about what Bill Clinton did to women is,  in his and people like Donna Brazile’s eyes,  far worse than what he actually did to women.

This reaction is of course completely understandable because if one does not have this reaction it begs the question that nobody in the MSM wants to ask or be asked:

If what Bill Clinton did to women was “disgraceful” and “unacceptable” then why did the media elites and Democrat pols not only defend him at the time but spend that last 15 years treating the ex president as if he had never done a wrong thing?

I submit and suggest that people from Podesta, to Andrea Mitchell to Harold Ford and many others all know the answer to that question, which is why they can’t bear to have it asked.

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