Displaying posts categorized under

MEDIA

Manhattan Contrarian Gaslighting Roundup Francis Menton

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-8-2-manhattan-contrarian-gaslighti

Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse where a person or group makes someone question their sanity, perception of reality, or memories. People experiencing gaslighting often feel confused, anxious, and unable to trust themselves.

But how does the term apply to political news? To investigate, I got out some issues of the print version of the New York Times to see what among its various pieces might best fit the definition. And of course, I quickly realized that essentially every single article that deals with a big issue of the moment — and particularly any article that is part of coverage of some major issue over the course of multiple weeks or months — absolutely fits the definition of “gaslighting.” And not a very subtle form of the phenomenon.

Let’s try to make a list of the biggest stories of the last several years, the ones that have dominated the front page of Pravda for weeks and months on end. Gaslighting or not gaslighting?

Charles Lipson: When ‘J’Accuse” Is Just a Smear The false, malicious attacks on Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass

https://spectator.us/jaccuse-smear-john-kass-chicago-tribune-george-soros/

Last week, the Chicago Tribune’s most prominent writer, John Kass, wrote a column decrying the rise in urban violence. Its compelling title: ‘Something grows in the big cities run by Democrats: an overwhelming sense of lawlessness.’

In today’s woke world, it is risky to speak such hard truths about gang shootings, unprosecuted shoplifting, looting, carjackings and more. This rising lawlessness is often cloaked in the language of protest, racial justice and income equality. Speaking out against it runs real risks. You might be doxxed, your home tagged with graffiti, or your family threatened. If you are a columnist, like John Kass, you might face ostracism from left-wing colleagues, attacks by the reporters’ union, and concessions to the mob by your paper’s editor, Colin McMahon.

The dispute began when the union representing Tribune writers (of which Kass is not a member) decided to go after him, full-bore. Their false charge was…wait for it…Kass’s column was anti-Semitic. Why? Because Kass noted that a major accelerant of urban violence has been the weak response by public officials, especially state and local prosecutors. Some of those prosecutors won office as part of a progressive political movement, specifically focused on winning control of prosecutors’ offices. That quiet movement had met with a lot of electoral success. One of its major supporters and funders is George Soros. Soros’s family background is Jewish.

Eulogy for a Conservative Warrior Honoring the legacy of Mike S. Adams. by Mark Tapson

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/eulogy-conservative-warrior-mark-tapson/

Many conservatives were shocked to learn last week that Townhall columnist, pro-life advocate, free speech warrior, and conservative professor Mike S. Adams was found dead at his home in North Carolina.

The author of such politically-incorrect titles as Welcome to the Ivory Tower of Babel: Confessions of a Conservative Professor (2004), Feminists Say the Darnedest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts “Womyn” on Campus (2008), and Letters to a Young Progressive: How to Avoid Wasting Your Life Protesting Things You Don’t Understand (2013), Adams toiled in the front lines of the culture war, fighting for the unborn and against the progressive suppression of free speech. His death is a terrible loss for those causes, for the many Christian and conservative students he mentored on a hostile campus, and for patriots all over the country.

Friends and supporters, myself included, could not help but suspect foul play, because the police report on Mike’s death referred to a “gsw” or “gun shot wound” (the investigation is still ongoing, and as of this writing, no cause of death has been confirmed). We considered Mike a fearless warrior, and he had just opted for early retirement after winning a half-million dollar settlement from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, which a jury found had discriminated against him for his Christian conservative beliefs. So suicide seemed unthinkable. It’s painful to admit that a brother-in-arms may have wrestled with and lost an internal struggle of which we were unaware, but until evidence otherwise comes to light, we must come to terms with the fact that he did indeed take his own life.

Newsweek and CNN accuse Trump of attacking ‘protesters’ By Civis Americanus

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/07/newsweek_and_cnn_accuse_trump_of_attacking_protesters.html

Voters must similarly rely on information provided by the Fourth Estate to make informed decisions on Election Day. A strong argument can be made that fake news and distorted news that defrauds citizens is ethically identical to election fraud. This is, in turn, a strong argument for holding media outlets to the same ethical standards as the U.S. Military Academy’s Honor Code and disregarding sources that don’t measure up.

The U.S. Military Academy’s Honor Code states, “Cadets violate the Honor Code by lying if they deliberately deceive another by stating an untruth or by any direct form of communication to include the telling of a partial truth and the vague or ambiguous use of information or language with the intent to deceive or mislead” (emphasis is mine). Lying is cause for expulsion because military professionals must rely on the accuracy of information with which they are provided.

I once regarded Newsweek and CNN as mainstream news sources, their recent actions have lost my trust.

Newsweek: Police Use “Chemical Agents” on “Protesters”

Newsweek reported, “Virginia Police Use Chemical Agents on Protesters After City Dump Truck Set on Fire,” which reinforces Media Bias/Fact Check’s assessment that Newsweek is not only left-biased, it gets a rating of “Mixed for factual reporting due to multiple failed fact checks by IFCN fact-checkers.”

The sensationalistic headline conveys the impression of First World War Germans in gas masks and spiked helmets, along with Dr. Poison from the Wonder Woman movie, spraying peaceful demonstrators with chemical weapons, although it is at least honest enough to stipulate that a city dump truck was set on fire. Only when we read the body of the article do we find the details. The “chemical agents” — nonlethal tear gas, of course — were used after one or more arsonists (not “protesters”) set the truck on fire and, in addition, rioters committed other violent felonies as well.

Florida Is A Case Study In Media-Induced COVID-19 Panic

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/07/27/florida-is-a-case-study-in-media-induced-covid-19-panic/

What do all these news accounts have in common?

“Florida Sets Yet Another Coronavirus Record: 173 Deaths In A Day”

“A record 173 Floridians died from the virus Thursday, an average of more than one every eight minutes.” 

“The 134 new confirmed deaths is the second-largest increase on record, coming five days after the largest one-day jump of 156 last week.”

“COVID-19 has ravaged Florida, with more than 237,000 people testing positive and 2,013 dying from the virus in July alone.”

So what characteristic do all of the reports share? They are all false.

It is not true that 173 people died from COVID-19 “in a day” in Florida. Nor did 134, or 156 on previous days.

It is also untrue than 2,013 had died in July when that story was published. 

All of these scary headlines are based on the number of deaths reported by the state on any given day. This is not the same as the number of deaths that occurred on those days.

The difference might seem trivial. But it’s crucial because the press is using the timing of Florida’s death reports to whip up a frenzy about COVID-19 running riot in the state.

Take a look at the chart below. The blue bars are the number of deaths reported in four days last week. Notice the sharp uphill climb? That’s the story the press has been telling.

More willful blindness by the media on spying by Obama administration Jonathan Turley

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/509002-more-willful-blindness-by-the-media-on-spying-by-obama-administration

The Washington press corps seems engaged in a collective demonstration of the legal concept of willful blindness, or deliberately ignoring facts, following the release of yet another declassified document that directly refutes past statements about the Russia collusion investigation. The document shows the FBI used a security briefing of then candidate Donald Trump and top aides to gather possible evidence for Crossfire Hurricane, its code name for the Russia investigation.

What is astonishing is that the media has refused to see what should be one of the biggest stories in decades. The Obama administration targeted the campaign of the opposing party based on false evidence. The media endlessly covered former Obama administration officials ridiculing suggestions of spying on the Trump campaign or of  improper conduct in the Russia investigation. When Attorney General William Barr told the Senate last year that he believed spying did occur, he was lambasted in the media, including by James Comey and others involved in that investigation. The mocking “wow” response of the fired FBI director received extensive coverage.

The new document shows that, in the summer of 2016, FBI agent Joe Pientka briefed Trump campaign advisers Michael Flynn and Chris Christie on national security issues, a standard practice ahead of the election. It included a discussion of Russia interfering in the election. But this was different. The document detailing the questions asked by Trump and his aides and their reactions was filed a few days after the meeting under Crossfire Hurricane and Crossfire Razor, the FBI investigation of Flynn. The two FBI officials listed who approved the report are Kevin Clinesmith and Peter Strzok.

Another company stands up to the cancel culture mob By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/07/another_company_stands_up_to_the_cancel_culture_mob.html

For quite a while now, we’ve been treated to the demoralizing and unedifying spectacle of media outlets and corporations bowing down to the mob’s cancel culture demands. Authors have been banned, editors fired, Trader Joe’s products renamed, statues dragged down, and much more, merely because spoiled, entitled, college-educated snowflakes, secure in their victimhood, have said that words or products hurt their feelings and made them feel “unsafe.”

Thankfully, after the first shock of this Maoist attack on American institutions, some are beginning to recover their backbone. First, Goya Foods stood up to the mob. Then Red Bull refused to back down. And now the Wall Street Journal has declined to allow its baby journalists to hold its editorial page hostage.

The back story to the Journal’s courageous stand is that 280 employees in the News department signed a letter to the publisher, Almar Latour, criticizing the paper’s opinion pages. The letter is a marvel of Orwellian writing. It opens by expressing support for the First Amendment and then spends three pages explaining why the paper’s opinion page needs to stifle itself because it publishes material with which the letter’s signatories disagree. Not coincidentally, they invariably disagree with conservative content.

The greatest offender, according to the letter, was Heather MacDonald’s piece about a pair of academics’ cowardly decision to withdraw from publication a study showing the absence of systemic racism when it came to the police shooting blacks in America. The academics wanted to withdraw the piece because MacDonald had relied on its findings. (NB: MacDonald had not twisted the results; she had merely relied on them.)

MacDonald wrote about this academic game in the Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages, something the letter writers found unacceptable. Indeed, the MacDonald article caused psychic pain greater than any snowflake should have to bear:

Multiple employees of color publicly spoke out about the pain this Opinion piece caused them during company-held discussions surrounding diversity initiatives…. If the company is serious about better supporting its employees of color, at a bare minimum it should raise Opinion’s standards so that misinformation about racism isn’t published.

A Note to Readers These pages won’t wilt under cancel-culture pressure.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-note-to-readers-11595547898

We’ve been gratified this week by the outpouring of support from readers after some 280 of our Wall Street Journal colleagues signed (and someone leaked) a letter to our publisher criticizing the opinion pages. But the support has often been mixed with concern that perhaps the letter will cause us to change our principles and content. On that point, reassurance is in order.

In the spirit of collegiality, we won’t respond in kind to the letter signers. Their anxieties aren’t our responsibility in any case. The signers report to the News editors or other parts of the business, and the News and Opinion departments operate with separate staffs and editors. Both report to Publisher Almar Latour. This separation allows us to pursue stories and inform readers with independent judgment.

It was probably inevitable that the wave of progressive cancel culture would arrive at the Journal, as it has at nearly every other cultural, business, academic and journalistic institution. But we are not the New York Times. Most Journal reporters attempt to cover the news fairly and down the middle, and our opinion pages offer an alternative to the uniform progressive views that dominate nearly all of today’s media.

As long as our proprietors allow us the privilege to do so, the opinion pages will continue to publish contributors who speak their minds within the tradition of vigorous, reasoned discourse. And these columns will continue to promote the principles of free people and free markets, which are more important than ever in what is a culture of growing progressive conformity and intolerance.

New York Times-Hyped Korean Report Actually Shows Kids Are Not Spreading Coronavirus Phil Kerpen 

https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/22/new-york-times-hyped-korean-report-actually-shows-kids-are-not-spreading-coronavirus/

In an incredible redux of when they hyped the Christian Drosten fake paper claiming children were highly infectious — when his math actually showed the opposite — the New York Times and Chicago Tribune pushed screaming headlines that a new Korean government report proves children ages 10 to 19 are highly infectious.

The Korean government report, based on data from March and ignoring all newer research, does make that claim, with qualifications, in its narrative summary. Its actual math, however, shows exactly the opposite. Do the elite newspapers even bother to consult anyone numerate?

As Professor Francois Balloux of the University of Lausanne Genetics Institute immediately replied, the New York Times writer completely misunderstood the report.

In fact, the report found that it was extremely rare for children to bring an infection into the home. It found that just 2.7 percent of potential “index cases” (first case in the home) were under age 20. Imagine twisting that into a call for school closures. It’s astonishingly reckless.

The report also did no genetic mapping and therefore was unable to determine true index cases. The paper itself says, “[W]e could not determine direction of transmission.” Contrast that with the contact tracing study from Iceland, which mapped haplotypes to determine direction of transmission and found it was almost always parent to child.

The supposedly highly contagious 10-19 group had only 3.7 contacts per potential index patient, which is dwarfed by the adult categories. This report, to the extent it tells us anything, indicates children play no significant role in community transmission, consistent with all of the most recent research.

You’ll also notice the number of potential under-age-20 “index cases” in the report is 153, not the 65,000 suggested by the New York Times’ dishonest sub-headline.

New FBI Notes Re-Debunk Major NYT Story, Highlight Media Collusion To Produce Russia Hoax By Mollie Hemingway

https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/23/new-fbi-notes-re-debunk-major-nyt-story-highlight-media-collusion-to-produce-russia-hoax/

The FBI official who ran the investigation into whether the Donald Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election privately admitted in newly released notes that a major New York Times article was riddled with lies, falsehoods, and “misleading and inaccurate” information. The February 2017 story was penned by three reporters who would win Pulitzers for their reporting on Trump’s supposed collusion with Russia.

The FBI’s public posture and leaks at the time supported the now-discredited conspiracy theory that led to the formation of a special counsel probe to investigate the Trump campaign and undermine his administration.

“We have not seen evidence of any individuals affiliated with the Trump team in contact with [Russian Intelligence Officials]. . . . We are unaware of ANY Trump advisors engaging in conversations with Russian intelligence officials,” former FBI counterespionage official Peter Strzok wrote of the Feb. 14, 2017 New York Times story “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence.” That story, which was based on the unsubstantiated claims of four anonymous intelligence officials, was echoed by a similarly sourced CNN story published a day later and headlined “Trump aides were in constant touch with senior Russian officials during campaign.”

Strzok’s notes are the latest factual debunking of these stories, which were previously shown to be false with the release of Robert Mueller’s special counsel report finding no evidence whatsoever in support of the Hillary Clinton campaign assertion that Trump affiliates colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. A report from the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General on just one aspect of the investigation into Russia collusion — FBI spying on Trump campaign affiliates — also debunked these news reports.