The American Media Should Not Be Trusted

[B-Man]

 

 

 

Joel Kotkin: The media’s great awokening is alienating the masses:

Audiences are fed up with newspapers, Hollywood and Big Tech all singing from the same woke hymn sheet.

 

When I was a cub reporter working at the Washington Post a half-century ago, being a journalist was first and foremost a craft. I once tried to slip my opinion into an article, but my editor wrote on the copy that ‘nobody gives a ***** what you think’.

 

It was harsh, but good training. Our primary job as journalists was not to indoctrinate but to inform. Even when writing an opinion piece, you would try backing up assertions with facts and leave room for the possibility that your point of view may not be the only permissible one.

 

All this may seem quaint today, as the news media – television, print, magazines and online blogs – now serve increasingly as ideological provocateurs. Overall, the whole industry is losing the trust of the public. This has now reached a nadir. In 2005, 50 per cent of Americans had confidence in the mass media. Barely a third do today, notes Gallup. Trust has also been dropping among all age groups, according to Pew.

 

One might have thought that the internet revolution and the growth of the ‘demassified media’ would benefit the customer, as futurist Alvin Toffler optimistically predicted. But today, just a handful of companies control the information pipelines and they largely follow the same script. Nearly two-thirds of US young adults now get their news through the big social-media platforms, like Facebook, X and TikTok.

 

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/06/17/the-medias-great-awokening-is-alienating-the-masses/

 

 

It’s bad enough that it’s oppressive groupthink. It’s also dumb-as-rocks, batshit-crazy groupthink.

 

 

[B-Man]

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BillsFanNC]

 

[Big Blitz]

 

[B-Man]

 

 

 

[B-Man]

The Liars Have Been Exposed

 

 

 

One of the more interesting bits of spin--actually, the ONLY bit of spin from the Democrats--coming out of the debate was that whatever you think of Joe Biden's performance, Trump spewed nothing but one lie after another. 

 

On its face, the claim is ridiculous. Joe Biden pushed so many hoaxes during the debate that it was laughable. Snopes just put the final nail in the coffin of the "fine people" hoax just a few days ago and Biden trotted it out again. It was pathetic. 
 

But as I, Ed, and John have already pointed out today, the biggest liars who were exposed last night were the mainstream media and all the people who have been telling us that Joe Biden is sharp as a tack, doing handstands while solving the dark matter conundrum and curing cancer every day. 

 

Bari Weiss, as she often does, sums up the real bottom line of the debate: the mainstream media are the biggest liars in America. 

 

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2024/06/28/bari-weiss-the-liars-have-been-exposed-n3791124

[BillsFanNC]

🎯 

 

As much as last night was an indictment of the Democratic Party for misleading party members and the country about the mental acuity and health of the president, the media deserve far more derision and scorn.

 

I and others were repeatedly criticized by the media for questioning the competency of the president. Among other false accusations, I was accused of spreading misleading videos which clearly showed Biden’s deterioration.

 

Do you remember the heavily excerpted and edited @POTUS Biden @60Minutes interview where the interviewer covered for the president by saying he was ‘very tired?’

 

@60Minutes knew.

 

The @nytimes knew.

 

@CNN knew.

 

@MSNBC knew.

 

Left wing media have had total and complete access to the president, his staff, and his administration.

They all knew, but they told you otherwise. They outright lied to you.

 

When Robert Hur, the special counsel who deposed the president, said that the president was not fit to stand trial and therefore chose not to bring charges, the media described him as a tool of the Republican Party and character assassinated him.

 

When the @WSJ recently published a several-thousand-word, carefully researched, front page piece on the president’s mental and physical health, it was described by left wing media as outright propaganda.

 

Now consider who has been feeding you propaganda.

 

A favored technique of some of the most evil leaders in history was to mislead the people by constantly repeating the Big Lie.

 

The Big Lie is so audacious that people accept it as truth because it is repeated so often that how can it be that something so important and material could be an outright falsehood?

 

In this case the Big Lie was our president’s fitness for office, let alone a second term.

 

 

A media organization is not supposed to be a branch of the Democratic Party.

 

The media have a profound obligation to tell the truth to the American people, particularly about something as critical for the country as the president’s mental and physical health.

 

People very close to me, my closest family and friends, trusted the media on Biden until the @CNN commentators finally owned up to the truth about Biden last night.

For months I have been accused by many friends and family of being misled by an @X-based ‘right wing echo chamber.’

 

The sad reality is that one of our most important institutions, the so-called ‘Fourth Estate,’ fourth only after the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners, has destroyed any remaining credibility it has.

 

Consider how your perception of @POTUS Biden and @realDonaldTrump has been manipulated.

 

The media can no longer save itself.

 

A suggestion. Rely on empirical data as much as possible. Listen to what someone actually said, rather than a headline summary or article about what someone said.

 

Get your news from people who have a track record of telling the truth, people who do so at significant personal cost like whistleblowers.

 

I follow broad constituencies on @X on multiple issues. That has led me closer to the truth.

 

Citizen journalism has been a much more accurate representation of reality.

 

Thank you @elonmusk for saving this platform. It gives us a fighting chance to save our democracy.