For more than a century we have given the Associated Press tax-exempt status, a nod to its mission of seeking the truth, not profits.
Now we question that. We see the Asociated Press tweeting that Obama's budget will combat terrorism and global warming, and help the middle class, whereas Trump's budget will only make deficits soar.
Does this mean Trump is not combatting terrorism or helping the middle class?
Minor matter? Perhaps. But objectivity requires discipline. If you are going to raise journalism to a professional status, there must be standards that raise it above rumor-mongering and partisanship.
Intelligent people once revered a free press, and supported newspapers, radio, and television. We did not always like what we read, heard or saw, but we accepted their reports as a fair and balanced presentation of the news.
Over the years, we noticed a creeping liberal bias. Certain reporters were not trustworthy. Then a couple of anchors, most notably Dan Rather who forged a memo to try to derail President Bush 43's re-election effort in 2004. Fake, but accurate.
However President Trump's candidacy and presidency have been the real eye-opener.
The media's full-court attack on Trump is relentless and insistent. The WikiLeaks of emails show that there is no happenstance. The media attacks on Trump are coordinated.
Clinton operative John Podesta orchestrated campaign coverage. Likely the media still follows his script. The Russian dossier was the best sale by the Democrats, saddling a new president with a "special counsel" who would follow his every move for the next four (hopefully eight) years.
CNN has become a wrecked train, mangled by its psychotic obsession with ruining Donald Trumps. Its president, Jeff Zucker, is a Napoleon in rags with a colander for a hat with tin foil to deflect the signals from the space satellites.
(Twilight Zone interlude.)
It turns out it is not just MSNBC that has the left-wing loonies, but its corporate parent NBC as well. Anchor Lester Holt did a public relations spot disguised as news for North Korea ahead of the Winter Olympics. I am willing to be that many Americans are so confused by the coverage that they think Kim Jong Un is hosting the Olympics.
The PR was so good for Kim that I wonder who he hired in the Democratic Party hierarchy scripted it. The story line was Kim's sister upstages Vice President Mike Pence.
Trump's ability to use social media to go around the "real" media stymied and alarmed Democrats.
Independent reporter Sharyl Attkisson found that two months before the 2016 election, Democrats formed First Draft to portray conservative media as Fake News.
"On September 13, 2016, First Draft announced a partnership to tackle malicious hoaxes and fake news reports," Attkisson explained.
"The goal was supposedly to separate wheat from chaff, to prevent unproven conspiracy talk from figuring prominently in Internet searches. To relegate today's version of the alien baby story to a special Internet oblivion."
But it turns out the real Fake News comes from the media.
The smeller's the feller, as they say.
@@@
From Leslie Eastman's review at Legal Insurrection:
Surber, a recovering journalist with over 30 years of experience, has been cataloging the #FakeNews that has been regularly offered as serious analysis of President Donald Trump’s actions, policies, and opinions. He has brought his enormous collection together in the longest, most serious book he has yet written: Fake News Follies 2017."Fake News Follies of 2017" is available on Kindle and in paperback.
Autographed copies are available. Email me at DonSurber@GMail.com for details. I am including a "director's cut." I'll email you back the original Chapter 1 that I cut because while the chapter was amusing, it really had nothing to do with the "Fake News Follies of 2017."
Ben Garrison did the cover and I am so happy with it. I told him what the book was about, sent him a copy of the manuscript, and he came up with a perfect cover. I am so pleased.
The media drink their own bathwater.
ReplyDeleteBut then again they really can't afford to look at themselves critically as most of them couldn't handle the truth.
Of course there are a few exceptions, but selective internet news is better.
And they most likely peed in it before drinking it.
DeleteI never knew AP had tax exempt status, Don. How the bloody hell did that happen?
ReplyDeleteThe free press is online. It's right here, on this site, and sites like it. Even if a newspaper or talking head show happens to get something right, it's something we've already known about for weeks.
ReplyDelete"CNN has become a wrecked train."
ReplyDeleteWhy am I thinking of the Carnival train
in Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way
Comes.?" Evil is defeated by love and positive thinking. something the MSM
does not have and is doing everything to stop it. Remember:
Trump:"a rising tide lifts all boats."
Dems and RINOs :"The beatings will continue until morale improves.."
They are all about to turn to dust...TG
So much would heal effortlessly if the media were even somewhat unbiased.
ReplyDeleteJimNorCal
At this point, y'all, look, the MSM is to be considered an enemy. Just the same as you shouldn't talk to the FBI, don't talk to the major "press" either. This country is still in a world of hurt, despite Mr. T's best efforts. Tell em all to go to hell.
ReplyDeleteA perennial favorite:
DeleteMichael Crichton > Quotes > Quotable Quote
“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you
That's why we call them the enemedia. Except for some of the "Anon"s here, we all know the enemedia lies to us (they know it too, but won't admit it.)
DeleteSo, according to the AP, Obama was "fighting terrorism" when he send pallets of cash to Iran?
ReplyDeletePeople always rush to ban guns and poop on the Second Amendment every time there's a shooting, but nobody ever talks about repealing the Freedom of Press provisions of the First Amendment aby time the press pulls their bullshit to try and further their political agendas.
ReplyDeleteThe AP is a business and should be treated as any other business. Tax them! They are NOT unbiased, but have aligned themselves with the democrat party. They print, primarily, propaganda so why should Republicans and Conservatives have to subsidize that? Government and media is not as it was and many of us are attacked by both often, even if that attack is only in the form of refusing to tell the truth.
ReplyDeleteThe AP is a business and should be treated as any other business. Tax them! They are NOT unbiased, but have aligned themselves with the democrat party. They print, primarily, propaganda so why should Republicans and Conservatives have to subsidize that? Government and media is not as it was and many of us are attacked by both often, even if that attack is only in the form of refusing to tell the truth.
ReplyDeleteWho owns the AP?
ReplyDeleteI have to go through a background check to purchase a handgun when I exercise my 2nd Amendment rights. If I choose to carry that handgun concealed I have to go through a training class and get a license. In many states gun owners have to register their guns as well. What do reporters have to go through when engaging in 1st Amendment activities? Do they go through a background check? Do they need a reporting license? Do they have to register their news articles to an approving government bureaucrat before their article gets posted?
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ReplyDelete