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MEDIA

Media Silent As Christopher Steele ‘Hero’ ‘Spymaster’ Narrative Crumbles By Mollie Hemingway

https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/03/media-silent-as-christopher-steele-hero-spymaster-narrative-crumbles/

With such shoddy information collection and analysis methods, there was never any reason to give credence to any of the salacious allegations in the dossier. That didn’t stop corporate media.

It turns out Christopher Steele wasn’t 007.

For years, the media assured Americans that the dossier alleging treasonous collusion between Donald Trump and Russia was based on the scrupulous work of a mastermind British ex-spy and his vast network of credible and well-connected sources spread throughout Europe. It wasn’t true.

Steele did not personally collect any of the factual information in his reports. The “vast network” was instead a “social circle” of an American-based former Brookings Institute junior staffer, recently identified for the first time as Igor Danchenko. The friends didn’t have well-documented claims so much as rumors, drunken gossip, and outright brainstorming, conjecture, and speculation. Even that information was “multiple layers of hearsay upon hearsay” before it got to Steele, who then hyperbolically overstated it. And the damning claims of “collusion” appear to have been scandalously misattributed or invented out of whole cloth.

With such shoddy information collection and analysis methods, there was never any reason to give credence to any of the salacious allegations in the dossier, whether it was claims of secret deals with Russian oil concerns, secret meetings in foreign capitals, prostitutes urinating on Moscow hotel room beds, files of compromising information, or the careful cultivation of Trump, yes Trump, into the most effective Russian agent in history.

The American Left’s Media Purge By Lev Stesin

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/us-media-purge/

 The American Left is intensely frustrated by President Donald Trump’s ability to penetrate their monopoly on the news cycle. When the Left is frustrated, it acts out, up to and past the point of violence. A powerful weapon at its disposal is its ability to silence its perceived enemies. Much of the mainstream US media, cowed by the Left, reflexively capitulates to its demands to “cancel” individuals who express opinions that go against Leftist orthodoxy.

In the wake of the riots and destruction that coursed across the US after the killing of George Floyd, New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet was left with no choice but to resign after allowing the paper to publish an op-ed by US Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas). Cotton argued in his piece that the military should be mobilized to restore order, and the airing of such a view is now verboten in the pages of the Times. Similarly, Stan Wischnowski, long-time editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, was pushed out of his job for daring to print a piece with the headline “Buildings Matter, Too.”

Both were victims not of careful reviews conducted by their papers but of the demands of the mob, which is now in control of the American newsroom. Along the same lines of this trend, Twitter made the executive decision to begin “curating” President Trump’s tweets.

To an extent, these events are simply eruptions coming from a large group of individuals who have not been educated in the norms of liberal democracy, but there is more to it than that. The demand to shame and ultimately silence perceived political opponents reflects the Left’s deep frustration that it has lost its monopoly on the news and is unable to beat Trump at its own game.

MSNBC producer resigns from network with scathing letter: They block ‘diversity of thought’ and ‘amplify fringe voices’By Joseph A. Wulfsohn

https://www.foxnews.com/media/msnbc-producer-ariana-pekary-letter

A former MSNBC producer wrote a scathing open letter explaining why she recently left the cable news network.

“July 24th was my last day at MSNBC. I don’t know what I’m going to do next exactly but I simply couldn’t stay there anymore,” Ariana Pekary wrote on her personal website. “My colleagues are very smart people with good intentions. The problem is the job itself. It forces skilled journalists to make bad decisions on a daily basis.”

Pekary provided a number of examples of why she wanted to leave the cable news network.

“It’s possible that I’m more sensitive to the editorial process due to my background in public radio, where no decision I ever witnessed was predicated on how a topic or guest would ‘rate.’ The longer I was at MSNBC, the more I saw such choices — it’s practically baked in to the editorial process – and those decisions affect news content every day,” Pekary said. “Likewise, it’s taboo to discuss how the ratings scheme distorts content, or it’s simply taken for granted, because everyone in the commercial broadcast news industry is doing the exact same thing. But behind closed doors, industry leaders will admit the damage that’s being done.”

She then quoted someone she described a “successful and insightful TV veteran” who said: “We are a cancer and there is no cure… But if you could find a cure, it would change the world.”

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.