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MEDIA

Mueller stages full body armor predawn arrest of Roger Stone for CNN’s cameras By Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/01/mueller_stages_full_body_armor_midnight_arrest_of_roger_stone_for_cnns_cameras.html

The latest “This is the beginning of the end for Trump…” orgasm in the mainstream media comes with serious action movie production values, courtesy of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller. Roger Stone, who could easily have been notified to turn himself in the way white-collar defendants who are no danger of fleeing normally are handled, was instead subjected to a humiliating midnight predawn raid with cars full of riot gear-clad FBI agents, all staged before the cameras of CNN, which was exclusively granted access to the scene worthy of an action movie. [Update: It is not clear who leaked newsof the raid to CNN, having the effect of staging it for the most anti-Trump of networks. ]This is similar to the treatment of Paul Manafort, but with the added indignity of CNN cameras.

It is notable that Stone was arrested over alleged process crimes, not for conspiracy with Russia, or even “collaboration” (which is not a crime).

Further comment on the six crimes alleged in the indictment will have to wait for more information. But it is clear that Mueller was shown his man first, and then found the crime, following the dictum of Stalin’s head of the KGB, Lavrentiy Beria: “Show me the man, and I will find you the crime.”

MY SAY: TIME FOR AWARDS FOR FAKE NEWS

The news, printed and online is full of lies and the corrections come after opinions have been altered and bias implemented.

I think it is high time to create an award for those institutions and journalist prevaricators who write and disseminate fake news.

How about having the Apate awards? In Greek mythology, Apate was the goddess of deceit and fraud. And just to keep it genderally correct we could couple it with the Dolos award. Dolos is the Greek god of trickery, cunning deception, craftiness, treachery and guile. His Roman equivalent is Mendacious.

Bad, Press By Charles C. W. Cooke

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/02/11/bad-press/How the media fail

Our national press is a national joke. Vain, languid, excitable, morbid, duplicitous, cheap, insular, mawkish, and possessed of a chronic self-obsession that would have made Dorian Gray blush, it rambles around the United States in neon pants, demanding congratulation for its travails. Not since Florence Foster Jenkins have Americans been treated to such an excruciating example of self-delusion. The most vocal among the press corps’ ranks cast themselves openly as “firefighters” when, at worst, they are pyromaniacs and, at best, they are obsequious asbestos salesmen. “You never get it right, do you?” Sybil Fawlty told Basil in Fawlty Towers. “You’re either crawling all over them licking their boots or spitting poison at them like some Benzedrine puff adder.” There is a great deal of space between apologist and bête noire. In the newsrooms of America, that space is empty.

It’s getting worse. Despite presenting an opportunity for sobriety and excellence, the election of President Donald Trump has been an unmitigated disaster for the political media, which have never reckoned with their role in Trump’s elevation and eventual selection, and which have subsequently treated his presidency as a rolling opportunity for high-octane drama, smug self-aggrandizement, and habitual sloth. I did not go to journalism school, but I find it hard to believe that even the least prestigious among those institutions teaches that the correct way to respond to explosive, unsourced reports that just happen to match your political priors is to shout “Boom” or “Bombshell” or “Big if true” and then to set about spreading those reports around the world without so much as a cursory investigation into the details. And yet, in the Trump era, this has become the modus operandi of all but the hardest-nosed scribblers.

The pattern is now drearily familiar. First, a poorly attributed story will break — say, “Source: Donald Trump Killed Leon Trotsky Back in 1940.” Next, thousands of blue-check journalists, with hundreds of millions of followers between them, will send it around Twitter before they have read beyond the headline. In response to this, the cable networks will start chattering, with the excuse that, “true or not, this is going to be a big story today,” while the major newspapers will run stories that confirm the existence of the original claim but not its veracity — and, if Representative Schiff is awake, they will note that “Democrats say this must be investigated.” These signal-boosting measures will be quickly followed by “Perspective” pieces that assume the original story is true and, worse, seek to draw “broader lessons” from it. In the New York Times this might be “The Long History of Queens Residents’ Assassinating Socialist Intellectuals”; in the Washington Post, “Toxic Capitalism: How America’s Red Hatred Explains Our Politics Today”; in The New Yorker, “I’ve Been to Mexico and Was Killed by a Pickaxe to the Head”; in Cosmopolitan, “The Specifics Don’t Matter, Men Are Guilty of Genocide.”

Soros, the NYT, and anti-Israel propaganda. By Rachel Ehrenfeld

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/01/soros_the_nyt_and_antiisrael_propaganda.html

Using the pretext of commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the New York Times Sunday Review published what Alan Dershowitz fittingly described as, “one of the most biased, one-sided, historically inaccurate, ignorant and bigoted articles ever published by that venerable newspaper.” The article, “Time to Break the Silence on Palestine”, is an unhinged anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, pro-Palestinian rant. The newspaper and the article were aptly criticized by Ruth King in the American Thinker, and by Ira Stoll in the Algemeiner.

However, vitriolic smears against Israel are nothing new to the NYT. What is new about this slanted article is that it shows how George Soros’s propaganda machine works.

The essay’s author Michelle Alexander served as “a Soros Justice Fellow” in 2005. She was among of first recipients of the Soros Justice program, with a stipend of $35,000 to $97,000, “to complete a book called The New Jim Crow… about the so-called war on drugs and mass incarceration as the defining racial justice issues of our time.”

Since then, Alexander has been affiliated with numerous Soros-funded organizations, such as The Ella Baker Center for Hunan Rights, which promote “color Justice”, “nationally organize and coordinate demonstrations for illegal-alien amnesty and manage voter-registration campaigns for Democratic candidates.”

Time to Tell the Truth about the Palestinian Issue by Alan M. Dershowitz

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13615/palestinian-issue-truth

The United Nations devotes more resources — time, money and votes — to the Palestinian issue than to the claims of all the other oppressed groups combined. Some of these other groups cannot even get a hearing at the United Nations.

The suffering of the Palestinians, which does not compare to the suffering of other groups, has been largely self-inflicted. They could have had a state, with no occupation, if they had accepted the Peel Commission Report of 1937, the United Nations Partition Plan of 1947, the Clinton-Barak offer of 2000-2001, the Ehud Olmert offer of 2008. They rejected all these offers — responding with violence and terrorism — because they would have required them to accept Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people — something they are unwilling to do even today.

The Palestinian leadership has always wanted there not to be a Jewish state more than they wanted there to be a Palestinian state.

Michele Alexander claims that there is legal discrimination against Israeli Arabs. The reality is that Israeli Arabs have more rights than Arabs anywhere in the Muslim world. They vote freely, have their own political parties, speak openly against the Israeli government and are beneficiaries of affirmative action in Israeli universities. She says there are “streets for Jews only,” which is a categorical lie.

The front page of the New York Times Sunday Review featured one of the most biased, one-sided, historically inaccurate, ignorant and bigoted articles ever published by that venerable newspaper. Written by Michele Alexander, it is entitled: “Time to Break the Silence on Palestine,” as if the Palestinian issue has not been the most over-hyped cause on campuses, in the United Nations and in the media. There is no silence to break.

The High School Deplorables MAGA hats, the March for Life, Covington Catholic—and the mob.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-high-school-deplorables-11548202058

Of the most culturally deplorable boxes one can check in progressive America in 2019, the boys of Covington Catholic High School have most of them: white, male, Christian, attendees at the annual March for Life in Washington, and wearers of MAGA hats. What’s not to dislike? So when four minutes of video footage emerged online this weekend showing the students appearing to harass a Native American Vietnam veteran named Nathan Phillips, America’s media and cultural elite leapt to judgment.

A short video clip of student Nick Sandmann supposedly “smirking” as Mr. Phillips banged his drum in the student’s face went viral, and instantly the boys of Covington Catholic in Kentucky were branded racists.

Best-selling author Reza Aslan tweeted that the high school junior had a “punchable face.” Former Democratic Party chief Howard Dean opined that Covington Catholic is “a hate factory.” GQ’s Nathaniel Friedman urged people to “Doxx ‘em all,” i.e., make their personal information public.

Meanwhile, mainstream news outlets published misleading accounts of what happened based on incomplete information. And pundits on the right and left rushed to demonstrate their own virtue by trashing high school students as somehow symptomatic of America’s cultural rot in the Age of Trump.

What’s Wrong with Radio Free Europe and Voice of America? By Majid Mohammadi

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/01/whats_wrong_with_radio_free_europe_and_voice_of_america.html

Independence, fact-based news broadcast and report, and fair and balanced news and analysis. In Iran, Voice of America has failed in all three categories.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has a budget of more than 123 million dollars (2018), and its mission is to “report the news in 20 countries where a free press is banned by the government or not fully established.” It should “provide what many people cannot get locally: uncensored news, responsible discussion, and open debate.” Is this taxpayer money well spent in the last decade? Does this organization fulfill its mission? Unfortunately, the answer to both these questions is negative.

As an Iran expert who reviews Persian-language media every day, I want to report my take from the organization’s Persian section (Radio Farda). VOA Persian (under the same mother institution, BBG) is as disastrous as Radio Farda.

To explain the waste and politicians’ delusions regarding the efficiency of these two sections of the Congress-fnanced media system, I will focus on three criteria of free and professional media: 1) independence, 2) fact-based news broadcast and report, and 3) fair and balanced news and analysis. Radio Farda and VOA Persian have failed in all three categories.

Manipulated by Obama Admin

VOA and Radio Farda were more open to reporting human rights violations and providing criticism of Islamist points of view before the negotiations for the 5+1 nuclear deal. As Ben Rhodes has mentioned, the Obama team manipulated the media during the JCPOA negotiations. They were desperate to have a foreign policy legacy, and the Iran deal was their only chance. Similar to the administration, both VOA Persian and Radio Farda tried hard to appease the Islamist government and its loyalists abroad to make the deal happen. Before and during the negotiations, tens of Iranian experts abroad were put on their blacklists, and several shows were canceled; in that period, Iran’s lobbyists were regular guests on their programs. VOA put me on that blacklist; before that, I was a regular guest on their news and analysis programs. My fault was to compare ISIS and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Mainstream Media and the Shameless Manipulation of Women

https://thegermanyeye.com/mainstream-media-and-the-shameless-manipulation-of-women-3472

Over a year ago, Donald Trump was elected as the latest US president, in a surprise result which hit the mainstream media (MSM) hard. The problem was that the biggest media players in the US, and indeed worldwide, had nearly completely (and mostly unofficially) endorsed his competitor, Hillary Clinton. The MSM suddenly was faced with the unpalatable truth, that they had failed to adequately influence the outcome of the US presidential election, despite their gargantuan efforts to the contrary. The somewhat surprising result was that the public thought for themselves and the MSM was left with the knowledge that its potential to manipulate public perception on important issues was not as great as it had hoped or thought.

A consequence of this, is that it shone light on the media’s attempt to manipulate democracy to push their ideological position, which usually aligns with their financially advantageous goals.

In an age where newspaper circulation is down and alternative media influence is up, newspapers need to maintain a business model which is realistic and profitable, while retaining their dwindling relevancy. They achieve this mostly through advertising – and they are increasingly desperate to increase their online advertising revenue as hard copy sales take a hit. Companies pay newspapers to advertise their products so as to reach their target demographic. Interestingly, many people fail to realise that most companies’ preferred target demographic is women. Worldwide, 80% of all purchases are made by women. Let that fact sink in for a moment. Men may make more money than women, by working longer hours, engaged in more dangerous careers and entering professions which are more difficult but pay better, such as engineering – but women still spend more money than men do. If you want to sell your product, even if that product is aimed at men, you also target women, as they usually control the purse strings in relationships and the family unit. So when advertisers want to sell something, they know their best chance of capitilising their return on advertising investment (ROI), is to reach out to the main decision maker in financial matters, which is usually women.

So, in their desperate quest to maintain profit margins, newspapers need to deliver the female demographic to potential advertisers. Doing so gives good ROI to the advertisers and makes strong business sense to the publisher.

Shutdown Flimflam The media portray the partial government closure as a disaster. Steven Malanga

https://www.city-journal.org/media-portrayal-of-govt-shutdown

In every confrontation between the press and President Trump, there comes a time when media coverage becomes so aggressively bad that it turns into a parody of itself and “jumps the shark.” I knew that moment had arrived in reporting on the federal government’s partial closure when I opened my news-of-the-day app to find the headline, “How the shutdown will affect the Super Bowl.” Having once attended a Super Bowl during a period of genuine emergency—Super Bowl XXV, played in the first days of Operation Desert Storm in January 1991—I doubted that the furloughing of nonessential federal personnel could threaten the big game. Not surprisingly, much of the story consisted of Atlanta officials assuring the public that they didn’t anticipate any problems, followed by some conjecture about things that might go wrong, anyway.

I’ve been ignoring most such stories, because I’ve seen no evidence that the shutdown will affect me and my family. I’ve heard no friend, neighbor, or relative even mention it. Virtually everyone I know outside of my professional life seems to be going about their business. Still, I’ve taken a thorough look at press coverage over the past two weeks and found nearly 500 stories on how the closure is supposed to affect our lives. Most of the coverage goes beyond the plight of federal workers themselves, who are not getting paid, and who, if they’re living from paycheck to paycheck, are facing real duress. The press seems intent on convincing the rest of us that we’re at risk, too.

Throughout the shutdown, the press has been asking readers for stories about how the situation was disrupting their lives. “Everything from airport security to some food inspections to tax refund processing may be affected,” the Richmond Times Dispatch wrote recently, trying to stoke local concerns. “Is your passport delayed? Is your research grant funding halted? Are you a business providing assistance to Richmond-area federal government workers?” Call us, the paper asked. But is it a national emergency if reporters are begging readers for stories?

The Disgraceful Covington Catholic Pile-On By Bruce Bawer

https://pjmedia.com/trending/the-disgraceful-covington-catholic-pile-on/

The daily media smearing of Donald Trump and his followers is one thing, but the readiness not just of the media but of self-righteous types from all walks of life to demonize a bunch of Kentucky high-school kids on the basis of a couple of news reports was truly breathtaking.

Presumably everyone knows the story by now. Last Friday, after attending the March for Life in Washington, D.C., several boys from Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills, Kentucky, were waiting outside the Lincoln Memorial for their bus home when something happened. The early reports accused the boys, some of whom were wearing Make America Great Again caps, of encircling and harassing an elderly Native American activist and a group of African-Americans. A snippet of video seemed to confirm this account, which was based largely on the testimony of the Native American activist. Next thing you knew, media around the world were reporting on this gang of racist pro-Trump louts and accusing them of White Privilege (even though several of them are black) and famous names on both the left and right were spewing the kids with vitriol.

Then longer videos emerged, and the story turned completely around. The group of African-Americans, who turned out to belong to a racist, anti-Semitic cult, the Black Hebrew Israelites, had been screaming at the boys, calling them “crackers” and “faggots” and the products of incest, among much else. The elderly Indian turned out to be notorious left-wing mischief-maker Nathan Phillips, whose claims to be a Vietnam vet have been challenged and who in 2015 accused some Michigan college students of harassing him. Last Friday, he wasn’t surrounded by the boys from Kentucky; he got up in their faces, banging a drum and chanting. Other Indians with him called the Kentucky boys interlopers on Indian territory and told them to go back to Europe.