Tag Archives: Media Bias

There Were No Calls for Censorship Against Democrats For Their False Claims About the 2016 Election, by Joe Lauria

Posted on March 1, 2021 | Leave a comment

You can toss out whatever conspiracy theory you want about an election, as long as the alleged conspirator or conspirators are not Democrats. From Joe Lauria at consortiumnews.com:

Democrats have pressured social media to take down posts that question the 2020 election, but no such pressure was exerted on Democrats who questioned the 2016 election, writes Joe Lauria.

Sundar Pichai, Google CEO (Wikimedia Commons)

he Democratic Party has pressured social media companies to enter into a highly risky endeavor that is bound to reverberate against the party’s interests.

With the leverage of regulating the social media giants, Democrats have browbeaten the chief executives of Facebook, Twitter and Google (which owns YouTube) to remove any post that questions the legitimacy of the 2020 election. As journalist Glenn Greenwald has shown, the pressure goes beyond getting private sector proxies to do what the government is forbidden to do:  censor communications.

Greenwald cited case law to bolster the argument that Democratic members of Congress are actually violating the First Amendment by doing so. Democrats have grown so bold as to maneuver to get cable television providers to remove Fox News from their channels, the way social media has already banned masses of people.

Consortium News became embroiled in this controversy when Google’s YouTube deleted an episode of CN Live! last week for supposedly breaching YouTube’s policy against “scam, deception and spam.”  The policy reads:

“Content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches changed the outcome of the U.S. 2020 presidential election is not allowed on YouTube.”

But the banned CN Live! episode was about the Jan. 5 Georgia election runoffs, not the Nov. 3 presidential election. It was also about voter suppression not election fraud, errors or glitches, which YouTube may or may not have understood.

YouTube gave Consortium News a “warning” about this video on Feb. 21 and said if we violated the policy again it would cast a strike against us. Three days later, during which Consortium News posted no new videos to its YouTube Channel, the warning was inexplicably turned into a strike. With three strikes CN Live! could be kicked off YouTube, with its massive reach. After YouTube rejected CN‘s 800-character limited appeal, there is no longer any way to communicate directly with them.

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The False and Exaggerated Claims Still Being Spread About the Capitol Riot, by Glenn Greenwald

Posted on February 16, 2021 | 1 comment

Mark Twain reportedly said, “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” The truth about the Capitol riot has finally got its shoes on, but the lies have already traveled all the way around the world. From Glenn Greenwald at greenwald.substack.com:

Insisting on factual accuracy does not make one an apologist for the protesters. False reporting is never justified, especially to inflate threat and fear levels.

Damage is seen inside the US Capitol building early on January 7, 2021 in Washington, DC (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)

What took place at the Capitol on January 6 was undoubtedly a politically motivated riot. As such, it should not be controversial to regard it as a dangerous episode. Any time force or violence is introduced into what ought to be the peaceful resolution of political conflicts, it should be lamented and condemned.

But none of that justifies lying about what happened that day, especially by the news media. Condemning that riot does not allow, let alone require, echoing false claims in order to render the event more menacing and serious than it actually was. There is no circumstance or motive that justifies the dissemination of false claims by journalists. The more consequential the event, the less justified, and more harmful, serial journalistic falsehoods are.

Yet this is exactly what has happened, and continues to happen, since that riot almost seven weeks ago. And anyone who tries to correct these falsehoods is instantly attacked with the cynical accusation that if you want only truthful reporting about what happened, then you’re trying to “minimize” what happened and are likely an apologist for if not a full-fledged supporter of the protesters themselves.

One of the most significant of these falsehoods was the tale — endorsed over and over without any caveats by the media for more than a month — that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was murdered by the pro-Trump mob when they beat him to death with a fire extinguisher. That claim was first published by The New York Times on January 8 in an article headlined “Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage.” It cited “two [anonymous] law enforcement officials” to claim that Sicknick died “with the mob rampaging through the halls of Congress” and after he “was struck with a fire extinguisher.”

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From Concentration Camps to Overflow Facilities: With Biden in Charge, Media Forgets Kids in Cages, by Alan Macleod

Posted on February 10, 2021 | Leave a comment

Anybody who is surprised by the headline has no understanding of the mainstream media. From Alan Macleod at mintpressnews.com:

The lack of critical coverage of Biden’s new announcement suggests that corporate media will no longer be as concerned about “kids in cages” now their preferred candidate is in the White House.

he Biden administration is opening a new child prison along the United States-Mexico border. The center, located in Carrizo Springs, around 100 miles southwest of San Antonio, is being specifically built for unaccompanied migrant children attempting to cross the border and will hold around 700 people when finished, although plans noted it will be expanded if the government deems it necessary.

But corporate media do not see it that way. While the Trump years were filled with stories about “kids in cages” and ICE “concentration camps” along the border, they have instead almost universally referred to the new project as an “overflow facility” to help migrant children, as the following headlines demonstrate:

Media Bias

CNN and others are now using the term “overflow facility” to describe migrant detention centers

“Biden administration prepares to open overflow facility for migrant children,” CNN,

“Biden administration to open overflow facility for 700 migrant children,” New York Post,

“Biden administration to house migrant teens at overflow facility in Texas closed under Trump,” USA Today,

“Biden Admin. to Open Migrant Overflow Facility amid Increase in Unaccompanied Minor Apprehensions,” Yahoo! News,

“Biden administration prepares to open overflow facility for migrant children,” CBS.

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Reality Check: How Trump Found Success In The Media’s Failure, by Jonathan Turley

Posted on November 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

More so even than in 2016, this election demonstrated that the mainstream media has become nothing more than a propaganda arm of the Democratic party. Those who are still reading it and not the alternative media have no idea what’s really going on. From Jonathan Turley at jonathanturley.org:

Below is my column on Fox regarding the recent remarks of NBC analyst Jon Meacham explaining how Trump supporters suffer from “lizard brains.” The statement is indicative of a long-standing trend in the media of insulting and biased comments about Trump supporters. Analysts seem to have dispensed with any notion of restraint or reason in such attacks.  What is most troubling is that there are students who support Trump at Vanderbilt and there have been complaints for years about an increasingly hostile environment for conservative students. Taking a professor who has publicly dismissed your political views as the result of a lizard brain is hardly welcoming.

Here is the column:

We recently discussed how Vanderbilt professor and historian Jon Meacham gave a quiz in his course on the 2020 Election in which students were asked “Was the Constitution designed to perpetuate white supremacy and protect the institution of slavery?” You had to answer “yes” or get points deducted.

It appears that the final exam in the class could prove even more demanding for any intellectually honest student if Meacham asks about the voters themselves. The NBC analyst this week declared that President Trump and his supporters are examples of being controlled by what is called “the lizard brain.”

It only got worse from there.

Meacham addressed a simple question of whether Trump helped himself with his base in the second presidential debate Thursday night. It is impossible on NBC, however, to refer to Trump voters without some derisive or insulting precursor. Meacham did not disappoint his audience.

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Article on Joe and Hunter Biden Censored By The Intercept, by Glenn Greenwald

Posted on October 29, 2020 | Leave a comment

The following article prompted Glenn Greenwald’s resignation from The Intercept after it tried to censor the article. From Glenn Greenwald at greenwald.substack.com:

An attempt to assess the importance of the known evidence, and a critique of media lies to protect their favored candidate, could not be published at The Intercept

I am posting here the most recent draft of my article about Joe and Hunter Biden — the last one seen by Intercept editors before telling me that they refuse to publish it absent major structural changes involving the removal of all sections critical of Joe Biden, leaving only a narrow article critiquing media outlets. I will also, in a separate post, publish all communications I had with Intercept editors surrounding this article so you can see the censorship in action and, given the Intercept’s denials, decide for yourselves (this is the kind of transparency responsible journalists provide, and which the Intercept refuses to this day to provide regarding their conduct in the Reality Winner story). This draft obviously would have gone through one more round of proof-reading and editing by me — to shorten it, fix typos, etc — but it’s important for the integrity of the claims to publish the draft in unchanged form that Intercept editors last saw, and announced that they would not “edit” but completely gut as a condition to publication:

TITLE: THE REAL SCANDAL: U.S. MEDIA USES FALSEHOODS TO DEFEND JOE BIDEN FROM HUNTER’S EMAILS

Publication by the New York Post two weeks ago of emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop, relating to Vice President Joe Biden’s work in Ukraine, and subsequent articles from other outlets concerning the Biden family’s pursuit of business opportunities in China, provoked extraordinary efforts by a de facto union of media outlets, Silicon Valley giants and the intelligence community to suppress these stories.

One outcome is that the Biden campaign concluded, rationally, that there is no need for the front-running presidential candidate to address even the most basic and relevant questions raised by these materials. Rather than condemn Biden for ignoring these questions — the natural instinct of a healthy press when it comes to a presidential election — journalists have instead led the way in concocting excuses to justify his silence.

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The Worst Literal Hitler Ever, by CJ Hopkins

Posted on June 11, 2020 | 1 comment

Donald Trump doesn’t bear much resemblance to any of history’s dictators, but that is to whom he is being likened. From CJ Hopkins at consentfactory.org:

So, the GloboCap-Resistance Minneapolis Putsch appears to have not gone exactly to plan. Once again, Trump failed to go full-Hitler, despite their best efforts to goad him into doing so. They gave it quite a good shot, however. It was more or less a textbook regime-change op, or “color revolution,” or whatever you call it. All the essential pieces were in place. All they needed Trump to do was declare himself dictator and impose martial law, so the generals could step in and remove him from office.

Unfortunately for the Resistance, Trump didn’t do that. Instead, he did what he usually does, which is make a total ass of himself on international television. Which … OK, was cringeworthy, but didn’t quite provide the GloboCap gang with the pretext they needed to perp-walk him out of the Oval Office. Which, needless to say, was incredibly frustrating. After four long years of propaganda foreplay, there we were, finally at the moment of truth, and Adolf goes and loses his erection.

This guy is the worst literal Hitler ever.

Still, as far as regime-change ops go, and given that this one was a domestic operation, so trickier than the usual foreign version, I’d give the Resistance a B+ for effort.

Now, before my “conspiracy theorist” readers get too excited about where I’m going with this column … no, this was not a “fake” uprising. There was an authentic uprising at the center of it. There’s always an authentic uprising at the center of every regime-change op, or at least the type that GloboCap has been carrying out and attempting recently. Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, the Ukraine, Bolivia, Venezuela; these things go pretty much by the numbers.

Here’s a quick breakdown of how that works.

 

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The Campaign Press: Members of the 10 Percent, Reporting for the One Percent, by Matt Taibbi

Posted on August 17, 2019 | Leave a comment

Journalists will usually report what those who sign their paychecks want them to report. From Matt Taibbi at rollingstone.com:

Media companies run by the country’s richest people can’t help but project the mindset of their owners.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) talks to journalists as he walks along Grand Avenue at the Iowa State Fair.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) talks to journalists as he walks along Grand Avenue at the Iowa State Fair.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Bernie Sanders Monday gave a speech in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. He took shots at the press, mentioning coverage of his campaign against Amazon:

I talk about (Amazon’s taxes) all of the time… And then I wonder why The Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, who owns Amazon, doesn’t write particularly good articles about me. I don’t know why.

Employees of the Post were put out by Sanders’s comments. They insisted they hold no ill will against him for regularly bashing the man who writes their checks as one of earth’s most obnoxious plutocrats, and moreover that Sanders is wrong to make the media a “boogeyman” the way he’s turned “billionaires and corporations” into boogeymen. This “doesn’t add up,” noted the Post, going so far as to put the term “corporate media” in quotation marks, as if it were a mythical creature.

Perhaps the negativity toward Sanders isn’t over Amazon. After all, Sanders gets similar treatment from the New York Times, CNN, the Atlantic and other outlets. Still, the Post’s Bernie fixation stands out. The paper humorously once wrote 16 negative pieces about Sanders in the space of 16 hours (e.g. “Clinton Is Running for President. Sanders Is Doing Something Else,” “Bernie Sanders Pledges the US Won’t Be No. 1 in Incarceration. He’ll Need to Release Lots of Criminals,”etc).

The Post in 2017 asked readers how Democrats would “cope” with the Kremlin backing Bernie Sanders with “dirty tricks” in 2020. In April of this year it described the Sanders campaign as a Russian plot to help elect Donald Trump. They’ve run multiple stories about his “$575,000 lake house,” ripping his “socialist hankering” for real estate. “From each according to his ability,” the paper quipped, “to each according to his need for lakefront property…

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Former MSNBC Reporter Spills Details On Pro-Establishment Bias In Media, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on August 16, 2019 | Leave a comment

A reporter named Krystal Ball spills the beans on the mainstream media bias that most people now recognize. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

The ridiculous corporate media freakout over Senator Bernie Sanders’ entirely legitimate accusations of pro-establishment bias continues today, with shrill, absurd new headlines like “Sanders campaign continues attacks on journalists” and “Bernie Sanders isn’t sorry” featuring hysterical MSM drama queens rending their garments over the suggestion that plutocrat-owned media outlets could be favorable to the plutocrat-owned establishment.

In response to this cartoonish display of billionaire-sponsored performance art, The Hill‘s Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjati aired a segment on their online show Rising which is as damning an exposé on the dynamics of mass media empire propaganda as we are ever likely to witness. With startling frankness and honesty, the pair disclose their experience with the way anyone who is critical of the establishment consensus is excluded from mainstream media platforms, as well as the way access journalism, financial incentives, prestige incentives and peer pressure are used to herd mainstream reporters into toeing the establishment line once they’re in.

I strongly urge you to watch the eight-minute segment for yourself, but I’ll be transcribing parts of it as well for those who prefer reading, as well as for posterity, because it really is that historically significant. I will surely be referring back to this segment in my arguments about plutocratic media bias for years to come, because it confirms and validates everything that analysts like Noam Chomsky have been saying about mass media propaganda like nothing else I’ve ever seen. Status quo propaganda is the underlying root of all our problems, and Ball and Enjati have gifted us with an invaluable tool for understanding and attacking it.

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The Genius of Trump’s Tweets, by Rachel Alexander

Posted on June 26, 2017 | Leave a comment

What’s overlooked about Trump’s tweets is that tweeting is the only communication medium with the American people he can trust. Sad. From Rachel Alexander at townhall.com:

President Donald Trump frequently comes under criticism for tweeting, even from his own advisers. But tweeting is probably the smartest thing he has done as president. He is able to speak directly to the American people without going through the biased mainstream media filter. The media doesn’t get to ask him slanted questions or pick and choose parts of his press releases to publish. Instead, Trump gets immense control over every single sentence he issues, which are then read by millions of Americans.

With almost everyone online these days, it is easy for the average American to follow Trump’s tweets on Twitter. Twitter is free, unlike some mainstream media sites. Many of The Washington Post’s articles — the site is a frequent critic of Trump — are behind a paywall. A Twitter account isn’t even required in order to view Trump’s tweets. And even if left-leaning Twitter artificially buries positive news about Trump, it doesn’t matter, people go directly to his tweets.

Google, Twitter and Facebook control much of the news we see today, but Trump’s tweets get around their dominance. Similar to the Drudge Report website, Trump’s tweets are so well-known that people view his tweets independently of the tech giants. The Drudge Report receives comparable traffic to Google News and The New York Times — despite the fact Google News prominently promotes the Times in search results and on its homepage. Drudge isn’t even carried in Google News, since the site merely aggregates links to articles. Google is the most trafficked site in the U.S. as well as in the world.

Most of the time, Google News is full of articles by the left-leaning media critical of Trump and conservatism. But Trump’s tweets changed all that. Reporters race to report on his tweets, filling up Google News with articles that are far more favorable to Trump, since there is so little room left for spin with his tweets. A quick perusal of Google News right now reveals this headline near the top, “Trump accuses Clinton of colluding with Democrats to defeat ‘Crazy Bernie Sanders.’” The Washington Post article acknowledges, “Trump took to Twitter Sunday morning…” There really is very little way to write the headline to make Trump look bad. There wasn’t any extra information to glean something from outside of one short tweet.

To continue reading: The Genius of Trump’s Tweets

 

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Mainstream Media: The Buggy Whip of the 21st Century, by Hardscrabble Farmer

Posted on February 1, 2017 | Leave a comment

A scathing indictment and  well-written obituary for the mainstream media, by Hardscrabble Farmer at theburningplatform.com:

Well, you have certainly had one heck of year, haven’t you? I can’t imagine how it must feel to be you right now. This time last year you were yucking it up with your buddies in the White House about how Obama was going to ram through as many executive actions as he could to push the immigration debate into the ‘win’ category. How’d that work out for you? From there you went right into a National Lampoon-style daily snark against the guy you said didn’t stand a chance of winning and that went even better, right up until November 8th.

The looks on your faces that night were almost worth the past fifty years of your constant obfuscation and perfidy. It was a real-time version of the folks riding First Class on the Titanic realizing that their tuxedoes weren’t buying them a whole lot of sympathy down at the lifeboat boarding station. Stricken is the word that comes to mind. To call what the public delivered to you an ass-whooping would be an understatement. You guys looked like a collectivist version of Ronda Rousey after Holly Holm got done with her. Beaten, down for the count and weepy in the morning.

So why bother trying to keep up with the pretenses? In the grocery business, they’d say you were past your sell by date. There was a time when you had not only a purpose, but a mandate and those must have been heady days indeed, the gravitas and respect measured out in equal parts from every quarter of America. I remember well the way my own Grandparents would hang on every word uttered by the distinguished clergy of the time; Huntley, Brinkley and Cronkite.

To continue reading: Mainstream Media: The Buggy Whip of the 21st Century

 

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