Displaying posts categorized under

MEDIA

Heather Mac Donald: Rational Fears of the Irrational Concerns about future Covid lockdowns are conspiracy theories, insists the New York Times—but what credibility does the paper have to assure anyone?

https://www.city-journal.org/article/rational-fears-of-the-irrational

The New York Times has an updated Covid warning for its readers: “Right-wing influencers and conspiracy theorists are stoking fears about mass lockdowns and spreading unsubstantiated new ideas about Covid-19’s links to world events.” Only a right-wing nutcase, according to the Times, would imagine that policymakers and their media boosters would overreact to the latest round of Covid infections, which the Times and other outlets have been assiduously covering:

To conspiracy theorists and right-wing influencers online, each uptick is an opportunity to sow fear and rile up their supporters, according to disinformation experts. The use of “plandemic” and “scamdemic”—two terms describing Covid-19 as a ruse—rose sharply in August on right-wing websites, according to data from Pyrra, a company that monitors threats and misinformation on alternative social networks.

“I would almost call it an obsession for the Covid denier, anti-vax community,” said Welton Chang, the co-founder and chief executive of Pyrra. “They just make mountains out of molehills for every little thing.”

“Opportunity to sow fear?” “Obsession?” “Mountains out of molehills?” Hypocrisy, thy name is the New York Times!

Who can forget the dozens of banner headlines, in fonts of ever-increasing stridency, trumpeting each new threshold of Covid cases? Who can forget the Times’s daily caseload maps and graphs; the diagrams demonstrating the virus’s allegedly Olympian aerial reach; and the “Those We Lost” Covid obituary page, which never once showed an obese victim and which suggested that 96-year-old decedents were robbed of another decade or more of vibrant life by a Covid infection? Who does not recall the Times’s refusal to distinguish “deaths with Covid” and “deaths from Covid?” Or the paper’s fearful reporting on the innocuous Omicron strain, which quoted terrified New Yorkers as models of appropriate Covid response? Or the weeks of opprobrium piled on South Dakota for allowing an outdoor biker gathering while the Times and public health authorities waxed breathless over the nobility of Black Lives Matter protesters?

The Times cites as an example of “Covid misinformation” the claim that Covid vaccines are causing sudden deaths of young people: “While there is no link between Covid-19 vaccines and sudden deaths, conspiracy theorists have often circulated the idea as celebrities and athletes fall ill from unrelated causes.”

Thomas Friedman’s lamentation In his unrelenting laceration of Israel for depriving Palestinians of their own state, the columnist has ignored history and reality.Jerold S. Auerbach

https://www.jns.org/israel-palestinianconflict/thomas-l-friedman/23/9/19/319758/?_se=YW5uZS1tYXJpZS5mYXJvdXpAbGFwb3N0ZS5uZXQ%3D&

Once again (Sept. 5), New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has offered his wisdom for a solution to the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. He claims that “far-right Jewish supremacists,” also known as the “right-wing zealots” who lead the Netanyahu government, pose “an internal Israeli Jewish threat” that obstructs the two-state (Israel and Palestine) solution that Friedman has long craved. Israel’s government, he insists, is not normal.

Friedman’s discomfort with Israel is hardly new. It dates back to his undergraduate years at Brandeis University. He joined a left-wing Jewish advocacy group that favored a two-state solution along pre-1967 lines that would deprive Israel of biblical Judea and Samaria (Jordan’s “West Bank”). As The New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief, Friedman became an incessant critic of Israel. He chastised Israelis for ignoring the plight of Palestinians, absurdly linking their violent uprisings, which he labeled “non-lethal civil disobedience,” with the American civil-rights struggle.

As a columnist, Friedman has been free to write as he wishes about Israel’s failings in the Times. Insisting that there was “no hope for peace without a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank,” he has equated Jewish settlers with Palestinian suicide bombers. With Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, he preposterously warned that if Israel did not “freeze all settlement activity,” it “could become some kind of apartheid-like state” in control of 2.5 million Palestinians. Indeed, “scary religious nationalist zealots” might lead Israel unto the “dark corner” of a “South African future.” To satisfy him, Israel “must freeze all settlement building in the West Bank,” thereby permitting Palestinian control of its biblical homeland.

To be sure, Friedman is hardly alone among Times critics of a Jewish state. It has a long history, dating back to 1928, when Joseph Levy became the first Times reporter in Palestine. For Levy, following murderous Arab riots, Jews were the problem, and he became the conduit for anti-Zionist critics to express their views in his newspaper. Although Levy was the first Times critic of the idea—no less reality, of Jewish statehood—he was hardly the last. A bevy of Jerusalem bureau chiefs, columnists and reporters have followed in his footsteps.

His Magazine Claimed Cancel Culture is Good, Then He Got Cancelled Canceling others is great… until you get canceled. by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/his-magazine-claimed-cancel-culture-is-good-then-he-got-cancelled/

The surviving Baby Boomer counterculture heroes are either keeping very quiet or having brief outbursts while noting that the country has gone insane… before issuing scripted apologies pleading for everyone to forgive them for noticing that the country has gone insane.

Now the time has come for Jan Wenner, the Rolling Stone co-founder that people last paid attention to in the 1980s back before the magazine had come to consist of 90% Trump rants and 10% interviews with elderly celebrity pals. And so matters would have remained if Wenner, his ego so bloated that he doesn’t seem to have noticed the cultural weather outside, decided to freely spout off.

In the interview, he spoke about his decision to not include interviews with women and black artists, and his remarks on the topic were widely criticized.

“The people had to meet a couple criteria, but it was just kind of my personal interest and love of them,” he said, adding “Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.”

He continued, “Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as ‘masters,’ the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level.”

“For public relations sake, maybe I should have gone and found one black and one woman artist to include here that didn’t measure up to that same historical standard, just to avert this kind of criticism,” he told the outlet. “Maybe I’m old-fashioned and I don’t give a (expletive) or whatever.”

It turns out that he does give an expletive after issuing an apology and being kicked off the board for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Earlier this year, Rolling Stone published an article titled, “Why Cancel Culture Is Good for Democracy”.

Does Wenner still agree? Does he agree that, “Those who fear cancel culture may claim they fear suppression of speech, but it’s accountability that they want to avoid”?

The Coverage of Ron DeSantis Is Historically Awful By Becket Adams

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/09/the-coverage-of-ron-desantis-is-historically-awful/

The downright dishonest press treatment of the Florida governor marks a disturbing new low.

Even by today’s low standards, the corporate press’s coverage of Ron DeSantis is breathtakingly bad.

Indeed, after the media’s exceptionally poor showing during the Trump years, it seemed unlikely that the quality of national news coverage, or lack thereof, could get any worse. But our vaunted Fourth Estate is yet capable of surprising us.

Take, for example, what the Associated Press did last week: It suggested Florida’s Republican governor bears responsibility for a racially motivated shooting in Jacksonville, in which a white shooter killed three black people.

“Ron DeSantis scoffed when the NAACP issued a travel advisory this spring warning Black people to use ‘extreme care’ if traveling to Florida,” AP reporter Steven Peoples announced on social media as he promoted a report he co-authored with AP colleague Brendan Farrington.

Peoples added, “Just three months later, DeSantis is leading his state through the aftermath of a racist attack that left three African Americans dead. Black leaders in Florida — and across the nation — say they’re outraged by his actions and rhetoric ahead of the shooting.”

DeSantis was correct to scoff. The “travel advisory” is abject nonsense.

But here’s the thing: The NAACP is free to be as asinine as it pleases. Partisan groups have a tendency toward the intensely stupid. But what excuse is there for the AP, once the gold standard in straight news reporting, to function as a public-relations firm for Democratic interests?

Christopher F. Rufo: MSNBC’s War on Truth

https://christopherrufo.com/p/msnbcs-war-on-truth?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The left-wing news network releases a deeply misleading documentary about the reforms at New College of Florida.

Earlier this week, MSNBC released a documentary about the reforms at New College of Florida titled The War on Woke. The film would more accurately be described as part of MSNBC’s ongoing war on truth. As a trustee of New College, I feel obligated to respond to three accusations in the film that are false and misleading.

First, MSNBC host Alex Wagner claims that New College has recruited a disproportionate number of student athletes, enticed them with generous scholarship offers, and, despite an all-out effort to build a new baseball team, “doesn’t have a baseball field for them to play on.” The intention of these claims is to discredit New College; it is also driven by the same spirit of resentment against men, athletes, and conservatives captured in a recent New York Times headline about the changes: “At College Targeted by DeSantis, Gender Studies Is Out, Jocks Are In.”

None of these charges holds merit. The proportion of student athletes at New College is in line with other liberal arts colleges. It is standard practice for athletic programs to use scholarships to recruit potential students. And the baseball field accusation is simply false: according to New College baseball coach Mariano Jimenez, the college has struck an agreement to use the fields at IMG Academy, a Division I-level athletic facility near the New College campus—a fact that Jimenez directly communicated to the MSNBC producers, who ignored it to advance their narrative.

Second, MSNBC would like viewers to believe that academic life at New College is in chaos. Amy Reid, the gender studies professor whose program is being terminated, complained that “it’s going to be hard for the college to continue without the dedication and expertise and investment of time and energy of our tenured faculty members.” New College parent Tracy Ferro claimed that the school had no academic advisor for marine biology and “not one class for marine bio that was being offered” for her daughter.

These accusations also don’t square with the facts. Reid wants viewers to believe that New College was previously an academic utopia, but during her 28 years as a faculty member, the college’s standings plummeted across all metrics, leaving it as the lowest-performing public university in Florida. Yes, nearly 40 faculty members have departed, but this is a positive development: administrators can now recruit new faculty better suited to restoring the school’s classical liberal arts mission.

Clarence Thomas Discloses, the Media Opposes The justice’s 2022 filing confirms the Journal’s debunking of ProPublica’s botched April story. James Taranto

https://www.wsj.com/articles/clarence-thomas-discloses-the-media-opposes-journal-crow-ethics-402ad421?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

One reason Americans don’t trust the media is that politically biased reporters routinely adulterate the news with tendentious language and prepackaged opinions. The result is crude propaganda—lousy opinion writing and unreliable information rolled into one and deceptively packaged as straight news.

Here’s an example from CNN (emphasis mine): “Justice Clarence Thomas disclosed Thursday that Republican megadonor Harlan Crow paid for private jet trips for Thomas in 2022 to attend a speech in Texas and a vacation at Crow’s luxurious New York estate, as ethics questions continue to rock the Supreme Court.”

What actually happened is too mundane to rock anything: The Judicial Conference of the U.S., which regulates judges’ financial disclosures, changed its rules regarding “transportation that substitutes for commercial transportation.” A private plane trip is now considered a gift, which is subject to disclosure, rather than “personal hospitality,” which isn’t. The rule took effect in March, and Justice Thomas complied with it for his 2022 form.

This week’s coverage is another demonstration that disclosure is a mug’s game. If you follow the rules perfectly, “ethics experts” will fault you for failing to disclose when it isn’t required and for what you disclose when it is. Gabe Roth, who heads an outfit called Fix the Court, tells CNN that although Justice Thomas “says he plans on more closely following the disclosure laws moving forward, his penchant for living a lifestyle few of us can only dream of [sic] is not reflected in today’s report.” Mr. Roth adds that the justice “should go back and amend earlier disclosures to recount the full extent of the lavish gifts he’s received over the years.” The connection with judicial ethics is unclear: As CNN notes in passing, Mr. Crow has never had business before the court.

Justice Thomas’s 2022 disclosure form also vindicates my reporting last April on a real-estate transaction that ProPublica—which styles itself “an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force”—attempted to spin into a scandal.

From One Unapologetic Media Hoax to the Next A discredited media has never expressed remorse for damage done By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2023/08/31/from-one-unapologetic-media-hoax-to-the-next/

Joe Biden lied repeatedly when he claimed he knew nothing of his son Hunter’s influence-peddling businesses.

The President further prevaricated that he had no involvement in Hunter’s various shake down schemes.

Yet, the media continued to misinform by serially ignoring these facts.

Had journalists just been honest and independent, then candidate Joe Biden might have lost a presidential debate and even the 2020 election. The public would have learned that Hunter’s business associates and his laptop proved Joe was deeply involved in his son’s illicit businesses.

Later, as the evidence from IRS whistleblowers mounted, the White House stonewalled subpoenaed efforts and sought to craft an outrageous plea deal reduction in Hunter’s legal exposure.

Reporters ignored the Ukrainians who claimed Joe Biden himself talked to them about quid pro quo arrangements.

They again discounted Hunter’s laptop that explicitly demonstrated that Hunter was whining that he had handed over large percentages of his income to his father Joe—variously referred to as the Big Guy and a “ten percent” recipient on many deals.

They played dumb about Joe Biden’s use of pseudonyms and alias email accounts to hide thousands of his communications to Hunter and associates.

They attacked the former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who now claims Biden was likely bribed by Ukrainians.

Yet the media can no longer hide the reality that the President of the United States likely took bribes to influence or alter U.S. policy to suit his payers. Those two crimes—bribery and treason—are specifically delineated in the Constitution as impeachable offenses.

Media Use Racist Shooting To Smear Ron DeSantis — And Chill Debate David Harsanyi

https://thefederalist.com/2023/08/29/media-use-racist-shooting-to-smear-ron-desantis-and-chill-debate/

Insinuating the governor is partially responsible for racial violence is vile. It’s also meant to shut you up.

A day after a racist psychopath murdered three black customers at a Jacksonville Dollar General store this week, NBC News informs us that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ “policies toward the Black community” are coming “under fresh scrutiny.”

Matt Dixon “reports:”

Florida’s Black community and beyond have been vocally opposed to the DeSantis administration’s focus on wiping out higher education diversity programs, the teaching of institutional racism to public school students, scrutinizing African American history courses and drawing a redistricting map that erased northern Florida’s only Black-performing congressional seat, which included the city of Jacksonville.

What, you may wonder, does that string of completely unrelated left-wing grievances have to do with a shooting? Is the claim here that teaching kids 1619-style pseudohistory or funding “higher education diversity programs” would have changed the mind of a suicidal murderer? I mean, presumably, the shooter was in school when the old Florida AP history course was still being taught, when DEI ideologues still had their state-funded jobs, and when Florida’s only “Black-performing congressional seat” was still a thing.

Of course, even if the 21-year-old went on a shooting spree because he believed Florida’s new honors curriculum was just a clandestine call from DeSantis to engage in racial violence, it says nothing about the text itself. You can read the state’s history standards right here. There is nothing racist about them.

The Washington Post’s ‘Good’ Terrorists by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19920/washington-post-good-terrorists

The attacks by the Fatah-affiliated terrorists came days after The Washington Post published a story from Balata Refugee Camp, near Nablus, in which its correspondents romanticized members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, even documenting them as they visit their barber for a haircut.

The “fighters” The Washington Post is referring to are the terrorists responsible for a series of shooting, stabbing and car-ramming attacks against Jewish civilians and soldiers in the Nablus area and Israel over the past few months. Notably, these terrorists do not hide their involvement in the wave of attacks. In fact, they often boast of the attacks and post videos and posters documenting their role.

What the newspaper fails to mention is that this terrorist [who “bought his M16 [rifle] for $20,000 with the money he earned working in construction in Tel Aviv”] is one of tens of thousands of Palestinians who were granted permits (by Israel) to come and work in Israel as part of an effort to boost the Palestinian economy and improve the living conditions of the Palestinians in the West Bank.

The terrorist did not seek work in the Palestinian Authority-controlled territories because he knew he would have earned much less…. The terrorist was able to save $20,000 from his work in Israel, but instead of using the money to build a new house or improve his living condition, we are told that he chose to establish “the Balata cell of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.”

The correspondents are apparently impressed by the fact that another terrorist, Ammar, paid 20 shekels (six dollars) to buy them coffee. Ammar had been shot multiple times by Israeli soldiers while attempting to murder Jews near Nablus in April. He managed to escape, but two of his fellow gunmen were killed.

The correspondents go on to claim, falsely, that “there are no sports teams” in Balata Refugee Camp.

The truth is that the camp has a soccer club that was established in 1954. It is called The Balata Youth Center and states that it “aspires to be the main supporter of all sports, cultural, social, and scouting activities…It also aspires to have a special playground for all sports, such as football (soccer), basketball, handball, volleyball, table tennis, and other individual and group games.” The local soccer team has even won several championships.

The terrorists could have joined the soccer team, but preferred to form a terror group to attack Jews.

Instead of highlighting that many of the terrorists are involved in intimidation and extortion of the local community, The Washington Post attempts to depict them as honest law-enforcers.

“The [Balata] Camp has been hijacked by an armed group that is terrorizing and threatening to kill residents who dare to speak out,” the Fatah Office of Information and Culture itself said back in 2015. It accused the gunmen of extorting money from wealthy businessmen from Nablus and running a big market for weapons and drugs.

“A recent report by the Post provided what was essentially free advertising for a US-designated terrorist group,” noted Sean Durns, a senior researcher analyst for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. “Worse still, the Post’s foray is part of an ongoing trend in Western news outlets being used by terrorist organizations to promote their propaganda.”

After the recent murder of the Jewish woman near Hebron, one might wonder whether The Washington Post is planning to send its correspondents back to spend time with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorists to hear, first-hand, how proud they are that they murdered an innocent kindergarten teacher in cold blood.

How would the newspaper’s readers have reacted had it sent its correspondents to spend time with Al-Qaeda or Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists to hear their pride in having committed atrocities against American citizens?

The Post piece leaves one with the distinct impression that there is such a thing as a good terrorist: one who targets Jews.

The media sure do hate democracy when it doesn’t suit them! By Jack Hellner

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/08/the_media_sure_do_hate_democracy_when_it_doesnt_suit_them.html

This piece by Washington Post writers is reasonable in a lot of respects.  It decries super-majorities in most states that essentially run roughshod over the minority party.  This is especially true in states like California, New York, and Illinois, and I am sure it is true in Republican states. 

“American democracy is cracking. These forces help explain why.”

As the number of swing districts has declined, another phenomenon has become evident: Even in open-seat races, which historically have been more contested than those involving incumbents, the number of landslide victories by members of both major parties has increased dramatically. …

In just two states is the legislature split between Republicans and Democrats. In more than half of the states, the dominant party enjoys a supermajority, which means they can override vetoes by a governor of a different party or generally have their will on legislation.

Similarly, full control of state government — the legislature and the governor’s office — is the rule rather than the exception. Today 39 states fit this definition. The result is a sharper and sharper divergence in the public policy agendas of the states.

The dominant party has been able to move aggressively to enact its governing priorities. …

These divisions have made it possible for the dominant party to govern with little regard to the interests of those with allegiance to the minority party and often little accountability as well. The result is two Americas with competing agendas and values.