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MEDIA

Journalists Face Disaster as COVID-19 Deaths Drop By Joel Zinberg

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/10/journalists-face-disaster-as-covid-19-

The media are grossly distorting the reality of the pandemic.

T he COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. is ebbing, but you would never know it from the headlines. Bad news, accurate or not, sells. And in the case of COVID-19, it also supports the journalists’ prejudices.

The seven-day moving average of new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations peaked and started to decline in early September. Nationwide, COVID-19 hospitalization rates have decreased 17 percent over the past two weeks. Only 19 states had any increase, and many were small. The remaining 31 states and the District of Columbia saw hospitalization rates decline. But that hasn’t stopped journalists from publicizing localized exceptions to the good news.

A recent article, for example, starts with the statement, “Coronavirus patients are flooding and straining hospitals across the U.S.” and goes on to describe how some states are promulgating “crises standards of care” to guide health-care providers on how to allocate limited resources. The article cites as evidence high ICU utilization, ranging from 77 percent to 90 percent of capacity, in seven states: Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Montana, and Texas.

Yet the most recent government data shows other indicators of pandemic severity and health-care capacity look pretty good in those seven states. New COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100 beds were lower compared with the previous week in five of the states, with only small increases in Idaho and Montana. New COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population were lower in Georgia and Texas and essentially unchanged in Idaho. Test positivity rates (a rough indicator of how widespread disease is and how quickly it is spreading) were lower in all the states other than Montana. New COVID-19 deaths — a lagging indicator — were up in four states, down in another and unchanged in Georgia and Texas, which both showed declines in the three other indicators.

The ICU capacity figures cited in the article also lack context. What is the normal utilization level for the ICUs in those states? Most trauma-center and tertiary-care-center ICUs routinely functioned at 80–90 percent of capacity even before the pandemic. And ICU beds are not a static resource.

A ‘news’ report that encapsulates what’s wrong with today’s media By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/a_news_report_that_encapsulates_whats_wrong_with_todays_media.html

Over at SFGATE, the online San Francisco news outlet realted to the San Francisco Chronicle, the headline and subtitle are damning, in that they accuse Rep. Dan Crenshaw of being both a dangerous scofflaw and a disgraceful hypocrite. However, if you dive into the article, you discover that he’s making a principled stand against a ludicrous rule and that there’s no hypocrisy on his part, only on Nancy Pelosi’s.

As noted, the headline and subtitle are damning:

Houston Rep. Dan Crenshaw fined $5,000 for dodging Capitol metal detectors

The Republican leader failed to comply with security measures installed after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, despite hammering Democratic Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi for the same infraction in April.

Although the “journalist” behind the story, Ariana Garcia, may not be personally responsible for the headline and subtitle, she’s certainly responsible for the article’s contents.

The article opens by saying that Crenshaw, along with “six other lawmakers” is guilty of “dodging the metal detectors inside the U.S. Capitol” this week, exposing each of them to a possible $5,000 fine. The article refers to the police report and the House Committee on Ethics statement about Crenshaw’s wrongdoing. It then explains how the extra security was necessary “following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 during which five people were killed.”

Wait! What? Insurrection? Five people killed?

Well, not quite, Ms. Biased “Journalist.” All the evidence, including admissions from the FBI, is that there was no planned insurrection, that the FBI was involved well in advance and may have been encouraging events, that the Capitol police invited people into the building, and that those who entered treated the People’s place of law with respect.

New York Times Pits “Principle” against Powerful “Rabbis” in Iron Dome Vote by Alan M. Dershowitz

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17809/new-york-times-pits-principle-against-powerful

[Catie Edmondson] cited no support for her “reporting” on the pressure placed by “powerful …rabbis,” nor did she name them, because her “reporting” simply was not true. She just made it up, because it supported the anti-Semitic narrative that AOC and her Squad deploy to deflect justified criticism of their anti-Israel and anti-American votes.

No powerful rabbis or lobbyists were needed to pressure the nearly 500 Democrats and Republicans who voted to fund the Iron Dome defense system….

No mention was made by the Times of powerful pro-Palestinian lobbyists or Imams, or of the pressure placed on AOC and others by radical leftists who hate Israel. No: it was supposedly”principles” that motivated the anti-Israel votes, and “powerful” rabbinical pressures that determined the “yes” and “present” votes. And this purports to be objective “reporting” from the newspaper of record.

After much criticism, the Times quietly removed the reference to “rabbis” without apologizing for its reporter’s mendacious anti-Semitism or disciplining her for her journalistic malpractice. Just imagine how quickly a journalist would be cancelled if she engaged in comparable bigotry toward another group. But the Times has long suffered from a double standard toward Jews and the Jewish nation.

You are not getting “all the news that’s fit to print” about Israel. You are getting only the “news” that its reporters and editors fit into their preconceived and biased narrative.

The Times must publicly, clearly and substantively apologize for its reporter lying about “powerful …rabbis” and explain how its editors could permit such an obviously anti-Semitic canard to be published on its pages. Quietly eliminating the offending words from its online version is cowardly and insufficient. It must acknowledge the harm that its false reporting has caused.

In purporting to “report” — not editorialize— about why AOC changed her vote from “no” to “present” on the iron dome funding, The New York Times congressional correspondent Catie Edmondson “reported” the following:

“[Progressives] have been caught between their principles and the still powerful pro-Israel voices in their party, such as influential lobbyists and rabbis.”

She cited no support for her “reporting” on the pressure placed by “powerful …rabbis,” nor did she name them, because her “reporting” simply was not true. She just made it up, because it supported the anti-Semitic narrative that AOC and her Squad deploy to deflect justified criticism of their anti-Israel and anti-American votes.

New York Times Blames Powerful “Rabbis” for Crushing AOC’s Principles

Last week, the New York Times was the subject of uncomfortable attention for its coverage of a House of Representatives vote in favor of helping Israel procure more interceptors for its Iron Dome missile defense system.

In a piece that spent nearly as much time promoting the anti-Israeli arguments of the eight Democrats who voted against the bill as it did sharing the views of their 210 party colleagues who supported it during the September 23 vote, reporter Catie Edmonson also focused on one Member of Congress who voted “present.”

Along with most other members of the so-called “Squad” of like-minded legislators, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had initially voted against funding for the Iron Dome, which was put into heavy use last May to combat barrages of indiscriminate rockets fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel. A short while later, though, she changed her vote from the House floor.

Edmondson had ideas about why the vote was changed:

Minutes before the vote closed, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez tearfully huddled with her allies before switching her vote to “present.” The tableau underscored how wrenching the vote was for even outspoken progressives, who have been caught between their principles and the still powerful pro-Israel voices in their party, such as influential lobbyists and rabbis.

Yet again, the Times has published a blatantly antisemitic trope. Though they subsequently removed it from the online version, this ugly smear appeared in the print edition — and it has not been corrected.

It is because of coverage like this that CAMERA placed a billboardoutside the New York Times building criticizing the newspaper’s handling of antisemitism, and calling on publisher A.G. Sulzberger to right the ship.

Media Test Positive For Corrupt COVID Coverage

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/09/24/media-test-positive-for-corrupt-covid-coverage/

Policymakers and public health officials need to be held accountable for their miserable pandemic failures. So should the media, which have no interest in objective news, and are following an agenda that is both repulsive and poisonous

Among of the media’s favorite stories of the last 18 months are the deaths of the unvaccinated and those who expressed skepticism about the lethality of the Wuhan coronavirus. A recent example is the death of a 40-year-old California woman, who, according to the British Daily Mail, “regularly posted anti-vax, anti-mask content, proclaiming herself a ‘free thinker’ who ‘questions everything.’ ” The mother of four – who also considered herself “unmuzzled” – “had been battling COVID-19 and resulting pneumonia ahead of her passing.”

Tragic as her death was, it would not have been covered by the media had she been vaccinated and cheerfully compliant with lockdown and mask rules. But in the twisted minds of most of today’s journalists, it’s a story that has to be told to boost their vanity. They are our moral superiors.

The glee with which the story is reported is not overt. But like so many others, it was told in a way to lead readers to classify the victim as a backward, anti-science conservative who might even be a Republican and a Trump supporter. It’s part of the left’s agenda to marginalize such people.

Thankfully, there are exceptions to the cruelty. Journalist Zaid Jilani recently told the media to stop shaming those who aren’t perfectly lined up with the left’s pandemic demands and succumb to their coronavirus infections.

“Maybe they were skeptical of vaccines, or masks or something like that, and maybe they got COVID, and they died,” Jilani told Hill.TV. “That’s usually a very sad circumstance, but it’s turned into sort of a celebration, like ‘ha we got the other side!’ ”

“It’s an odd way to think of a virus,” he added.

Americans Need A New Media

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/09/21/americans-need-a-new-media/
“Today’s journalists are a collection of liberty-loathing progressives, Neo-Marxists, aspiring tyrants, busybodies, and angry juvenile activists”

The news media can be anything they want to be. There are no laws that demand them to be objective, fair, truthful, or accurate. Consequently, we have an army of journalists who are nakedly biased, vainly divisive, childishly spiteful, and purposely destructive. We can only hope our free market economy responds to the great business opportunity at hand before the press and its Democrat allies make doing so impossible as they work to shut down free enterprise.

At one time, long before radio, television, and the Internet, the newspapers in this country were party organs. Wikipedia, citing the work of university researchers, explains that “prior to the 1830s, a majority of U.S. newspapers were aligned with a political party or platform. … This was called partisan press and was not unbiased in opinion.”

The newspapers of the day didn’t pretend to be objective reporters of fact. Their bias was known and accepted. Not a problem.

Today, however, the media, with a few exceptions, try to cover themselves in a veneer of objectivity when in reality they are the modern newsletter of the Democratic Party and the progressive agenda. Those who aren’t part of their tribe are lied to, sneered at, and marginalized by journalists who not only want to establish a political society while killing our civil society, but want to ensure they’re part of the elite that enjoys the privilege and status of power.

From the TV networks to the major daily newspapers to sophomoric gab shows, the media are in the business of lying, covering up and/or ignoring truth that hurts Democrats, instilling fear, creating an environment in which government can more easily control people who already had been freed through revolution, and “othering” and gaslighting dissenters.

As an institution, the press has been almost wholly taken over by a collection of liberty-loathing progressives, resentful leftists, neo-Marxists, aspiring tyrants, busybodies, bitter scolds, elitists, anti-Americans, and angry, juvenile activists – a composition identical to that of the Democratic Party. For those who doubt this, consider the Democrats’ recent proposal to subsidize left-leaning newspapers with taxpayer money.

Enough. 

The TIME 100 is a confederacy of dunces Prince Harry looks as if he has been captured by a militant group and is being made to put out a hostage video

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/time-100-confederacy-dunces-meghan-harry/

To be chosen as one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people is usually an accolade worth fighting for. Yet this year, it seems to be the celebrity equivalent of the booby prize. Cockburn imagines that it was put together by various subversive elements within the publication who hoped to see the mass ridicule that its various choices, both of subjects and of writers, have led to. They will not be disappointed.

That an airbrushed photograph of Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, takes pride of place in the ‘Icons’ section says all that you need to know. He, poor boy, looks as if he has been captured by a militant group and is being made to put out a hostage video, while she — quite literally — is wearing the pants. But it is the text about them by a celebrity chef named José Andrés beggars belief. ‘They turn compassion into boots on the ground…they give voice to the voiceless through media production.’ Dear God. Chef Andrés would be best advised to remain in the kitchen, sharpening his knives, if this is the level of his insight.

But he is not even the worst offender. The parade of sycophancy goes on and on, until the cumulative effect is almost hysterical. ‘She’s a saintly, even godlike figure’, Miley Cyrus gushes about Dolly Parton. David Beckham — a man not known for his Wildean command of the English language — writes of the footballer Tom Brady that ‘What I and his many friends also see is a great human being, a great father, family man, friend and partner.’ Rep. Liz Cheney is described by Cindy McCain as ‘the rarest species of politician yet, the ambitious officeholder who risks her office to speak the unwelcome truth to her own side’. And at a time when Joe Biden’s reputation is plunging into a new nadir, it is droll to see his one-time rival Bernie Sanders praise him for ‘restoring faith among ordinary Americans that their government can work for them, and not just for wealthy campaign contributors’.

There is the odd note of discord to all this mush, such as Nancy Gibbs saying of Donald Trump that his ‘only rule is ruthlessness; he sees norms as opportunities for vandalism, a window left open in our intricate constitutional structure that he can crash through’. But generally speaking, TIME offers a toothless roll-call of empty praise and prissy platitudes that will do little other than bolster the considerable egos of those featured. It is a list that lacks imagination and daring, and seems to have been designed merely to troll the American public.

All Cockburn can say is that if this motley selection are really the hundred most influential people in the world today, then hasten on, climate change, and lay waste to humanity before it’s too late.

The New York Times Labels Hunter Biden Laptop Story ‘Unsubstantiated’ By Isaac Schorr

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/the-new-york-times-labels-hunter-biden-laptop-story-unsubstantiated/

Last October, the New York Post published a bombshell story based on emails recovered from a laptop that Hunter Biden abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop.

The emails suggest that Biden introduced his then-vice president father to an executive at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma while he was sitting on the firm’s board. At the time of the meeting, Joe Biden was running the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy as vice president.

The Post also reported that laptop contained incriminating photos of the younger Biden and that the laptop had been seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In a controversial decision decried by the right and hailed by the left, Twitter flagged and censored the Post story.

According to documents obtained by the New York Times, Twitter will not be held responsible for a campaign finance violation in connection with the decision, which has been deemed a business — rather than a politically motivated — decision by the Federal Election Commission. Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey has called the initial decision to censor the article a “mistake,” and did eventually reverse it.

Curiously, though, the Times describes the Post’s story as “unsubstantiated” without doing any of the work required to actually discredit it. Indeed, the “unsubstantiated” descriptor is tacked on without any supporting evidence suggesting that the Post’s reporting was erroneous. No such evidence is referenced in the Times’ reporting, nor in anyone else’s, though “Russian misinformation” was a common refrain from Democrats last October.

To the contrary, most reporting that has followed the Post’s opening salvo has confirmed rather than contradicted it. Even Hunter Biden himself admitted in April that he had “no idea” if the laptop was his and conceded that it was “certainly possible” that it was.

Why Isn’t the Attack on Larry Elder the Biggest Story in America? By Kyle Smith

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/09/why-isnt-the-attack-on-larry-elder-the-biggest-story-in-america/

A white woman in a gorilla mask threw an egg at a black man seeking to become the first non-white governor of our largest state, and the media shrug.

D o a search for “Larry Elder” and gorilla on the CNN website and nothing comes up. Washington Post? Zilch. Nothing comes up on the New York Times site either, although if you make it to the 15th paragraph of a story entitled “The Vice President pushed back against the effort to recall Newsom in the Bay Area,” you will find a bland passing reference to Wednesday’s disgusting incident. According to our nation’s media leaders, it’s not a story that a white person wearing a gorilla mask attacked Larry Elder, a black man seeking to become the first non-white governor of California, by hurling an egg that touched his head.

If Elder were a Democrat, the attack would have been instantly and with good reason dubbed racist. It would not only be front-page news, it would be just about the only news you were hearing about today on CNN and MSNBC. Charles Blow, Perry Bacon, and Jamelle Bouie would each be writing the first in a series of angry columns about it. So would Gail Collins, Jonathan Capehart, Jennifer Rubin, Michelle Goldberg, Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, Dana Milbank, and Ezra Klein. We would be treated to multiple news analyses about the history of the usage of gorilla tropes against blacks. Joy-Ann Reid, Rachel Maddow, and Don Lemon would be doing hour-long broadcasts on the attack, convening panels discussing just how the attack pulls the scab off racism in America, and proves we have so much work left to do in dealing with the problem. Vox would commission a series about California’s grim history of racism dating back to the Chinese Exclusion Act, and Asian-American and Latino writers would hasten to explain that California’s historic hostility to all sorts of persons of color is as traditional as its Tournament of Roses parade. Three-thousand-word essays about the brutal, unknown history of lynchings in the Golden State would be published in The Atlantic and/or The New Yorker. Al Sharpton, exhibiting a combination of exhaustion and despondency, would be a guest on half a dozen cable TV shows.

NEW COLUMNIST AT THE WSJ?

BlackRock’s China Blunder George Soros  September 7, 2021

Pouring billions into the country now is a bad investment and imperils U.S. national security.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/blackrock-larry-fink-china-hkex-sse-authoritarianism-xi-jinping-term-limits-human-rights-ant-didi-global-national-security-11630938728?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Xi’s Dictatorship Threatens the Chinese State George Soros- August 14, 2021

In his quest for personal power, he’s rejected Deng Xiaoping’s economic reform path and turned the Communist Party into an assemblage of yes-men.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/xi-jinping-deng-xiaoping-dictatorship-ant-didi-economy-communist-party-beijing-authoritarian-11628885076?mod=article_inline