RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://spectator.org/biden-media-coverage/

Having created his presidency, how will establishment media cover President Biden? With the roles so different and so separated, it is easy to forget that establishment media have been instrumental throughout Biden’s three-decade-long presidential quest. In his first two campaigns, establishment media sank Biden by covering him; in his latest, they saved Biden by not covering him. Now with Biden elected, which role will they assume?

The first role establishment media played in Biden campaigns was aggressively direct.

In contrast to their direct role in his first two presidential campaigns, establishment media’s role in Biden’s third presidential campaign has been indirect at best.

In 1988, during his first campaign, they single-handedly destroyed Biden by revealing a pattern of plagiarism. Initially, revelations showed Biden had lifted portions from a speech by UK Labor politician Neil Kinnock. Then came more: “borrowings” from Hubert Humphrey and Robert Kennedy. Finally, they reported that Biden had failed a Syracuse University law course because he used five pages of a law-review publication without attribution.

In 2007, during his second campaign, establishment media again struck. This time they helped disseminate Biden’s offensively back-handed compliment of Barack Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean a nice-looking guy.” A marginal candidate already, Biden sank further, finally dropping out after receiving only 1 percent of support in the 2008 Iowa caucuses.

In contrast to their direct role in his first two presidential campaigns, establishment media’s role in Biden’s third presidential campaign has been indirect at best. Instead of essentially covering him to death, this time they effectively did not cover him at all.

In the 2020 campaign, establishment media did not force Biden into any mistakes or awkward encounters. When he blundered, they did not pursue. When they could have destroyed him, following disappointing Iowa and New Hampshire finishes, they held back.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/journalists-turn-on-free-expression/

Mainstream journalists have used their access to a massive audience to mislead the public in many ways, but this isn’t a free-speech problem.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt, The New Yorker’s Steve Coll contends that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s “profound” support of free speech — oh, how I wish that were true — is problematic because “free speech, a principle that we hold sacred, is being weaponized against the principles of journalism.”

Journalism has turned on free speech, the one belief that had been somewhat impervious to the ideological tendencies of most editors and reporters. There’s absolutely nothing in Coll’s comments — nor in Hunt’s begging a question about the alleged corrosive effects of unfettered speech — which demonstrates that either are particularly concerned about the future of free expression, much less that either hold the principle as “sacred.”

The notion that Facebook’s reluctance to limit users is akin to neglecting efforts to “preserve democracy,” as Coll ludicrously suggests, is also another example of how the contemporary usage of “democracy” means little more than “fulfilling the wishes of liberals.”

If you believe Americans are too stupid to hear wrongthink, transgressive ideas, and, yes, fake news, you’re not a fan of the small-l liberal conception of free expression. That’s fine. Those ideas seem to be falling into disfavor with many. But the sanctity of free speech isn’t predicated on making sure people hear the right things, it’s predicated on letting everyone have their say. Because as always, the question becomes who decides what expression is acceptable. I’m not keen on having the fatuous media reporters at CNN or activist “fact-checkers” at the Washington Post adjudicating what is and isn’t permissible for mass consumption.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/12/03/trump_won_his_other_campaign_–_to_destroy_media_credibility_144775.html

“For four years, major media, along with their Democratic comrades, banded together to bring down Trump. They appear to have succeeded. But as to Trump’s campaign to expose the media’s blatant, often vicious anti-Republican bias so that much of America will never again trust it, Trump won. Huge.”

Convinced that President Donald Trump lost his bid for reelection, the media suddenly became less hysterical. Just like that, the media, at least to some degree, rediscovered concepts such as fairness and perspective, AWOL the last four years. 

Two weeks after the election, New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof haltingly, grudgingly and reluctantly, admitted that yes, Trump was right. Banning in-person school education to fight COVID-19 was and is bad policy. Kristof wrote: “Some things are true even though President Trump says them. Trump has been demanding for months that schools reopen, and on that he seems to have been largely right. Schools, especially elementary schools, do not appear to have been major sources of coronavirus transmission, and remote learning is proving to be a catastrophe for many low-income children.” Kristof, of course, could not acknowledge Trump’s correct judgement without the “somethings are true even though Trump says them” snark. But remember, this is The New York Times, a paper that has not endorsed a Republican for president since 1956. Little steps.

Kristof even took a Trump-like swipe at Democratic-run cities. And, whether inadvertently or not, he made the case for K-12 vouchers for inner city kids: “So Democrats helped preside over school closures that have devastated millions of families and damaged children’s futures. Cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., have closed schools while allowing restaurants to operate. … School closures magnify these inequities, as many private schools remain open and affluent parents are better able to help kids adjust to remote learning. At the same time, low-income children fall even further behind.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/fox-news-murdoch-backed-clinton-foundation-frontpagemagcom/

The controlling shareholders of Fox News, the Murdoch family and its 89-year-old patriarch Rupert Murdoch, have a long history of backing Democrats like Hillary Clinton and their liberal causes.

After four years of fairly critical coverage of President Trump (Fox “confirmed”, for example, a skepticism-inducing report that Trump called fallen soldiers “suckers and losers,” a claim that even Trump foe John Bolton denied,) many conservatives are re-evaluating Fox News’ true commitment to “fair and balanced” media.

Federal election records show that Murdoch has donated to far-left Democratic politicians including John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, Anthony Weiner and even Hillary Clinton, for whom he hosted a fundraiser in 2006, just preceding her first presidential campaign.  

Reporting on the fundraiser, CBS News’ Dan Collins, exclaimed that “Rupert Murdoch Loves Hillary Clinton.”  

But it does not stop there. 

FAIR, a liberal media group, even bragged about how much Fox News (through its parent company News Corp.) was donating to Hillary Clinton during her 2016 campaign against Trump. FAIR wrote: 

“All of the broadcast giants are on board. Clinton is the largest individual recipient of campaign donations from Comcast (NBC News, MSNBC), Time Warner (CNN), News Corp (Fox News), CBS Television and Walt Disney (ABC News).” 

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/wp-admin/post-new.php

USA Today issues daily fact checks, but many of their supposed corrections are actually just regurgitated narratives peddled by the mainstream media and often indistinguishable from leftist politicians’ talking points.

The newspaper has a history of propping up slanted, unnecessary, and long-winded explanations attempting to justify certain statements and behaviors to fit their narrative.

This week, the publication issued a “fact check” on a claim about former Vice President Joe Biden’s pick for press secretary Jen Psaki.

“The claim: A photo shows Jen Psaki, Joe Biden’s pick for press secretary, wearing a hammer and sickle hat while posing with officials from Russia,” USA today’s tweet states. “Our ruling: Missing context.”

Despite USA Today’s portrayal of the claim as “missing context,” nothing in the statement is factually inaccurate. Psaki, who was a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department at the time did, in fact, pose with a Russian official while wearing a hat emblazoned with the communist symbol in Russia.

“The image is real, but claims that the hat was anything more a gift or that Psaki was with Russian officials in any capacity beyond her official role are MISSING CONTEXT,” the fact check states, despite posing a claim that made no such accusations.

https://spectator.us/coming-cable-news-crisis/

TV pundits and reporters may personally be cheering that President Trump appears likely to be booted from office come January, but the transfer of power is bad news for the networks that employ them. CNN and MSNBC saw record-high ratings over the past four years thanks to President Trump, who supplied just the right kind of drama for their wine-sipping audiences.

What will the networks talk about if they’re not melting down over Trump tossing a roll of paper towels during a hurricane relief effort or serving a personally purchased fast-food spread to championship-winning college athletes? Can anything capture the attention of college-educated whites like Rachel Maddow’s bizarre Trump tax return conspiracies or Jake Tapper keeping tally of how many cabinet officials have resigned or been fired (and then interviewing them once they release the requisite Trump-bashing memoir)?

CNN president Jeff Zucker, who recognized Trump’s TV prowess during the 2016 campaign and offered him a weekly show on his network, admitted to Vanity Fair that cable news loses its audience when anchors cut away from constant Trump coverage.

‘We’ve seen that anytime you break away from the Trump story and cover other events in this era, the audience goes away,’ he said in 2018. ‘So we know that, right now, Donald Trump dominates.’

The biggest challenge for cable news, then, is finding something else for viewers to obsess over.