Tag Archives: Journalism

The MSM Never Was Objective—and It Never Questioned Power, Either, by Iain Davis

Posted on February 21, 2023 | Leave a comment

Let’s face it, the MSM is a bunch of suck-ups. From Iain Davis at off-guardian.org:

In his excellent exposé of the recent decision by the Knight-Cronkite News Lab (KCNL) to advocate journalism that goes beyond objectivity, and in light of the report from the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) confirming that RussiaGate was fabricated nonsense, genuinely independent researcher, writer and filmmaker James Corbett made a number of very salient points.

As Corbett points out:

As a moment’s sober reflection will immediately reveal, the mouthpiece mockingbirds of the controlled establishment media have never been objective and they have no credibility to damage.

But there is far more to this particular psyop than merely covering up the inconvenient history of media. The new narrative, sold to us in this instance by both KCNL and the CJR, is laying the foundations for a transformation of the media landscape.

The establishment wants us to believe that our “trust” in journalism is a vital component of our democracy—and, moreover, that the state can determine which news media organisation is deserving of our “trust.”

In truth, if democratic principles really matter to us, it is essential that we never trust any “news reports” from any journalist or news provider. Democracy places a duty upon us to be fierce critical thinkers. We should never unquestioningly accept anything we are told.

Journalism Is Story Telling

Every mainstream media (MSM) and “alternative media” outlet presents narratives. They are in the business of telling stories, not simply presenting “objective” facts.

Good journalism expresses an opinion and then cites the evidence that informs it. Well written journalism does this within the engaging and intriguing narratives it weaves. But no journalism is free from the journalist’s own conformation bias, and the tenor of the story is often directed by the editorial policy and allegiances of the publisher.

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“Objectivity Has Got To Go”: News Leaders Call for the End of Objective Journalism, by Jonathan Turley

Posted on February 2, 2023 | 1 comment

There is very little journalism left that even purports to be objective. The profession has been bastardized. From Jonathan Turley at jonathanturley.org:

We previously discussed the movement in journalism schools to get rid of principles of objectivity in journalism. Advocacy journalism is the new touchstone in the media even as polls show that trust in the media is plummeting. Now, former executive editor for The Washington Post Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward have released the results of their interviews with over 75 media leaders and concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and even harmful. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle said it plainly: “Objectivity has got to go.” 

Notably, while Bob Woodward and others have finally admitted that the Russian collusion coverage lacked objectivity and resulted in false reporting, media figures are pushing even harder against objectivity as a core value in journalism.

We have been discussing the rise of advocacy journalism and the rejection of objectivity in journalism schools. Writers, editors, commentators, and academics have embraced rising calls for censorship and speech controls, including President-elect Joe Biden and his key advisers. This movement includes academics rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open advocacy.

Columbia Journalism Dean and New Yorker writer Steve Coll decried how the First Amendment right to freedom of speech was being “weaponized” to protect disinformation. In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Stanford journalism professor, Ted Glasser, insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.”  Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”

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Where’s the Woodward and Bernstein of the Covid Scandals? By Bill Rice

Posted on January 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

Watergate is small change compared to the damages wrought by the Covid response, and the manifest corruption in the approval and marketing of the vaccines. So when will some ambitious journalist step forward and start pursuing the story from beginning to end? From Bill Rice at brownstone.org:

I was just a kid, but I’m old enough to remember Watergate. As I grew older, I learned more specific details about this historic event. Here’s my Watergate takeaway, which I think is the accepted “narrative” on this historic event:

Watergate was the biggest political scandal of the century. The fallout or denouement caused President Nixon to resign from office and sent several “conspirators” to prison. 

It also made Woodward and Bernstein the most famous journalists of all time. 

Few people had heard of these journalists when they began compiling relevant facts about the original Watergate crime and obligatory cover-up, but this changed over the span of about two years.

Based in part on these two journalists doing their jobs, Congressional officials decided to also do their jobs and before you knew it, most of the sordid story was known to the world. 

Woodward and Bernstein, who were already minor celebrities, really cashed in with the publication of their best-selling book All the President’s Men, which was adapted into an Academy Award-winning movie starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, two of the biggest stars of our era.

After filling their mantles with every journalism prize, the Washington Post scribes parlayed this fame and success into a lifetime of speaking gigs. By “breaking” the Watergate scandal, they also acquired the panache that allowed them to play leading roles in future investigations that resulted in even more best-selling books.

Today, the names of both journalists are literally in the history books, where their journalistic accomplishments will live forever. 

Every ambitious journalist who followed wanted to be the next Woodward and Bernstein and break some huge scandal that might elevate them onto a similar professional pedestal. 

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What’s the Difference Between ‘Villain’ Assange & ‘Intrepid’ Woodward? by Lee Camp

Posted on September 26, 2020 | Leave a comment

There is no discernible difference between what Julian Assange has done as a journalist and what Bob Woodward has done his entire career. From Lee Camp at counterpunch.org:

The completely fair super awesome trial of Julian Assange continues in the U.K. as I write this. It’s a beautiful blend of the works of Kafka, Stalin and Joseph Heller.

Seeing as Julian is kept in a glass container in the courtroom, like a captured cockroach, maybe Kafka wins the day.

The court clearly must keep Julian in that giant Tic-Tac container because he’s undoubtedly as dangerous as Hannibal Lecter. If he weren’t in there, no one would know when he might lurch forward and PUBLISH SOMETHING THAT’S TOTALLY TRUE!

What they’re deciding in this trial is whether Assange should be extradited to the United States, or “kidnapped” as the kids call it these days.

If he is lovingly black-bagged by our government, they have promised he will face 175 years in prison if convicted by another super rad show trial presided over by an American government puppet judge. (A puppet judge is just like a real judge but they’ve got the government so far up their backside they can taste the Cheetos.)

Countless excitable activists out there say this persecution of Julian Assange is unheard of. They’re acting like no journalist has ever been prosecuted under the Espionage Act. They’re acting like it’s unprecedented for the U.S. to go after a journalist who’s not even a U.S. citizen and has never operated his organization from the U.S. They’re acting like it’s ridiculous to add on new superseding indictments days before the trial begins.

But all the people saying that are… um… correct. Yeah, they nailed it. (Sorry for the buildup – I thought that paragraph would come out differently.)

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The War on Assange is a War on Truth, by Ron Paul

Posted on September 22, 2020 | Leave a comment

If Assange is railroaded, will any journalist in the future dare publish any kind of government secret? From Ron Paul at ronpaulinstitute.org:

It is dangerous to reveal the truth about the illegal and immoral things our government does with our money and in our name, and the war on journalists who dare reveal such truths is very much a bipartisan affair. Just ask Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who was relentlessly pursued first by the Obama Administration and now by the Trump Administration for the “crime” of reporting on the crimes perpetrated by the United States government.

Assange is now literally fighting for his life, as he tries to avoid being extradited to the United States where he faces 175 years in prison for violating the “Espionage Act.” While it makes no sense to be prosecuted as a traitor to a country of which you are not a citizen, the idea that journalists who do their job and expose criminality in high places are treated like traitors is deeply dangerous in a free society.

To get around the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press, Assange’s tormentors simply claim that he is not a journalist. Then-CIA director Mike Pompeo declared that Wikileaks was a “hostile intelligence service” aided by Russia. Ironically, that’s pretty much what the Democrats say about Assange.

Earlier this month, a US Federal appeals court judge ruled that the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records was illegal. That bulk collection program, born out of the anti-American PATRIOT Act, was first revealed to us by whistleblower Edward Snowden just over seven years ago.

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Julian Assange Must Be Freed, Not Betrayed, by John Pilger

Posted on February 18, 2020 | Leave a comment

Regardless of the kangaroo court decision in the Julian Assange extradition proceeding, that world’s press is on trial and has not acquitted itself with any veracity or honor. From John Pilger at consortiumnews.com:

When Julian Assange steps into Woolwich Crown Court on Feb. 24, true journalism will be the only crime on trial, writes John Pilger.

This Saturday, there will be a march from Australia House in London to Parliament Square, the centre of British democracy. People will carry pictures of the Australian publisher and journalist Julian Assange who, on Feb. 24, faces a court that will decide whether or not he is to be extradited to the United States and a living death.

I know Australia House well. As an Australian myself, I used to go there in my early days in London to read the newspapers from home. Opened by King George V over a century ago, its vastness of marble and stone, chandeliers and solemn portraits, imported from Australia when Australian soldiers were dying in the slaughter of the First World War, have ensured its landmark as an imperial pile of monumental servility.

As one of the oldest “diplomatic missions” in the United Kingdom, this relic of empire provides a pleasurable sinecure for Antipodean politicians:  a “mate” rewarded or a troublemaker exiled.

Australia House

Known as  High Commissioner, the equivalent of an ambassador, the current beneficiary is George Brandis, who as Attorney General tried to water down Australia’s Race Discrimination Act and approved raids on whistleblowers who had revealed the truth about Australia’s  illegal spying on East Timor during negotiations for the carve-up of that impoverished country’s oil and gas.

This led to the prosecution of whistleblowers Bernard Collaery and “Witness K”,  on bogus charges. Like Julian Assange, they are to be silenced in a Kafkaesque trial and put away.

Australia House is the ideal starting point for Saturday’s march.

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The Woke Media: Apologists for the State, by William L. Anderson

Posted on December 10, 2019 | Leave a comment

The mainstream media is one of the government’s most fervent propagandists. From William L. Anderson at mises.org:

In an earlier article, I looked at the rise of “Woke Capitalism” and the challenges that this development presents for a free society (or, to be accurate, a somewhat free society). For the time being we probably do not need to worry about the establishment of the People’s Republic of Google, but a much greater problem than left-wing business corporations has invaded our body politic: The Woke Mainstream Media.

It is one thing for Nike to discontinue a line of sneakers because the Betsy Ross flag offended someone or for PayPal to refuse to serve as a pay conduit for a conservative organization. One may decry the narrow-minded thinking from company executives, but they are private outfits that have — and should have — the privilege of refusing to do business with certain people — and if they make a bad economic choice, the company will pay financially. And, as I pointed out in the article, corporations are not governments, which really can kill and cage people who are helpless against state-sponsored predations.

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American Exceptionalism Driving World to War, by Finian Cunningham and John Pilger

Posted on November 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

The rest of the world grows increasingly resistant to the US government throwing its weight around. From an interview between Finian Cunningham and John Pilger at strategic-culture.org:

Australian-born John Pilger has worked for over five decades as a reporter and documentary film-maker covering wars and conflicts all over the world. In the following interview, the award-winning journalist says the world is arguably at a more perilous geopolitical juncture than even during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 at the height of the Cold War. This is because American “exceptionalism” – which, he points out, mirrors that of Nazi Germany – has developed into a hyper-rogue phase. The relentless denigration of Russia by American and Western media show that there are few red lines left to restrain aggression towards Moscow, as there were, at least, during the past Cold War. Russia and China’s refusal to bow down to Washington’s dictate is infuriating the would-be American hegemon and its desire for zero-sum world domination.

John Pilger also gives his wide-ranging views on the systematic deterioration of Western mainstream journalism which has come to function as a nakedly propaganda matrix for power and corporate profit. He further condemns the ongoing persecution and torture of fellow-Australian publisher Julian Assange who is being held in a maximum-security British prison commonly used for holding mass murderers and convicted terrorists. Assange is being persecuted for telling the truth and for exposing huge crimes by the US and Britain, says Pilger. It is a grim warning of a covert war that is being conducted against independent journalism and free speech, and, more ominously, indicative of a slide towards police-state fascism in so-called Western democracies.

INTERVIEW

Question: In your documentary film, The Coming War on China (2016), you assess that the United States is on a strategic collision path with China for control of Asia-Pacific. Do you still see the threat of war looming between these two powers?

John Pilger: The threat of war may not be immediate, but we know or should know that events can change fast: a chain of incidents and missteps can ignite a war which can spread unpredictably. The calculations are not in dispute: an “enemy” has barely 12 minutes to decide whether and where to order a nuclear retaliation.

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The CIA Wants To Make It Easier To Jail Journalists, and Congress Isn’t Stopping It, by Mac Slavo

Posted on July 23, 2019 | Leave a comment

How do you get rid of civil liberties and freedoms? One micro-incursion at a time. From Mac Slavo at shtfplan.com:

Free speech has been on the chopping block for a long time.  Journalists are already silenced and have to ask the government for permission before running stories while alternative media is censored and blocked by Google’s search algorithms.  But now it’s getting worse, and Congress isn’t stopping it.

The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) wants to make it a whole lot easier to throw journalists in jail if they say or write the wrong things. According to Tech Dirty, the CIA is pushing for an expansion of a 37-year-old law that would deter journalists from covering national security issues or reporting on leaked documents (such as those Julian Assange posted to Wikileaks and is rotting in a jail cell for).

Why EVERYONE Should Be Outraged At Assange’s Arrest

By now, most have heard that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested. The journalist was forcibly taken from the Ecuadorian embassy. Assange is perhaps most known for leaking Hillary Clinton’s campaign advisor’s emails during the 2016 election.

SHTF Plan – When It Hits The Fan, Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You
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Thanks to a disillusioned CIA case officer’s actions in 1975, there are currently a few limits to what can or can’t be reported about covert operatives working overseas.

In 1975, Philip Agee published a memoir about his years with the CIA. Attached to his memoir — which detailed his growing discontentment with the CIA’s clandestine support of overseas dictators — was a list of 250 CIA agents or informants. In response to this disclosure, Congress passed the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), which criminalized disclosing the identity of covert intelligence agents.

The IIPA did what it could to protect journalists by limiting the definition of “covert agent” to agents serving overseas and then only those who were currently working overseas when the disclosure occurred. It also required the government to show proof the person making the disclosure was “engaged in a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose” covert agents. The law was amended in 1999 to expand the coverage to include covert agents working overseas within five years of the disclosure. –Tech Dirty

The CIA wants all of these protections for journalists removed, including the word “overseas.”  This would allow the CIA (and all other intelligence agencies) to designate whoever they want as “protected” by the IIPA in perpetuity, and jail those who report about things the government wants to keep from the prying eyes of the public.

Under the proposed law, any journalist who, say, revealed the names of “covert” CIA officers that had engaged in torture or ordered drone strikes on civilians would now be subject to prosecution — even if the newsworthy actions occurred years or decades prior or the officer in question has always been located in the United States.

In fact, the CIA explicitly referenced the revelations of the agency’s Bush-era torture program in its argument to Congress for IIPA expansion. The New York Times’s Charlie Savage obtained the CIA’s private memo in which it lobbied members of Congress. Under the memo’s “justification” section, the CIA wrote:

“Particularly with the lengths organizations such as WikiLeaks are willing to go to obtain and release sensitive national security information, as well as incidents related to past Agency programs, such as the RDI [Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation — a euphemism used to describe the CIA’s illegal torture program] investigation, the original congressional reasoning mentioned above for a narrow definition of ‘covert agent’ no longer remains valid.” –Gen Medium

Democrats, such as Adam Schiff, are helping make sure journalists rights are trampled and the public doesn’t get any information the government doesn’t want them to have. When you take a good look at his record, Schiff has always favored the secrecy of intelligence agencies over journalists’ rights.

No administration should have the power to prevent journalists from publishing illegal acts undertaken by the government. Ever. For any reason. 

 

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Industrial Rumpswabbery, by the Zman

Posted on December 28, 2018 | Leave a comment

Media commentators used to be experienced reporters; now they’re mostly well-educated twits. From the Zman at theburningplatform.com:

Way back in the before times, when you got news and opinion from TV, newspapers and magazines, you just accepted the authority of the source. If you were a liberal, you were required to swear oaths about the objectivity and integrity of the news media. If you were a normal person you understood that all of it was biased. Alternative sources of information, however, were thin on the ground. If you were lucky, your city still had a paper run by normal people, like the Detroit Free Press or Manchester Union Leader.

Otherwise, normal people had to read their local paper or the news magazines with an eye for the bias. Some columnists made a career out of being lefty wackos, even getting a national reputation for it. Eleanor Clift was a proto-cat lady in the 1990’s, as a barking at the moon lefty for Newsweek. The late John McLaughin would have her on as a regular, mostly because she was such a loon. In the Clinton years he nicknamed her Eleanor Rodham Clift because she was such a ridiculous Clinton rumpswab.

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