In the wake of the pathetic and distorted American coverage of the attack on our Libyan embassy and the subsequent death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, I wrote: American Journalism Has Been Officially Outsourced.
The stories from international sources proved to be far more accurate, and we are still awaiting any serious investigation behind the decisions that lead to our facility essentially being unprotected in a sea of Islamist extremists.
The collaboration of our media with the White House continues on domestic matters as well. San Diego pundit W.C. Varones recently caught some fascinating word-smithing by Reuters to make it seem like a prestigious financial firm was just aces with raising the debt ceiling.
Here’s what Reuters said about Fitch’s debt ceiling warning:
Jan 15 (Reuters) – There is a material risk the United States would lose its triple-A if there is a repeat of 2011 wrangling over raising the country’s self-imposed debt ceiling, rating firm Fitch said on Tuesday.
“If anything the pressure on the U.S. rating is increasing,” Fitch’s head of sovereign ratings David Riley said at a conference hosted by the firm.
“If we have a repeat of the August 2011 debt ceiling crisis we will place the U.S. rating under review. There will be a material risk of the U.S rating coming down,” he added.
Makes it seem like if Congress doesn’t vote a big yes to more budget-busting financing that we are doomed!
Yet, as W.C. Varones notes, that isn’t quite the complete story:
Here’s what Reuters left out:
“In the absence of an agreed and credible medium-term deficit reduction plan that would be consistent with sustaining the economic recovery and restoring confidence in the long-run sustainability of U.S. public finances, the current negative outlook on the ‘AAA’ rating is likely to be resolved with a downgrade later this year even if another debt ceiling crisis is averted.”
In other words, the exact opposite of Reuters’ spin.
Is it any wonder the Democrats keep winning the PR battles with the MSM carrying their water like this?
When the Founding Fathers provided the press protections under the First Amendment, it was because they recognized that journalists would be watchdogs that provided citizens the information they needed to make informed decisions. Now, they are collaborators.
Perhaps instead of being “low information voters”, most American are “no information voters”. And not because they aren’t trying to get informed — but because the press isn’t providing the data, explanations, background, and materials needed.
W.C. Varones offered these views on the state of today’s press:
Fast and furious, Black Panthers, warrantless wiretapping, drone strikes… the list goes on and on. How much did you hear about those in the mainstream media and how much would you have heard if a Republican were in office?
Journalists have always been left-leaning as a group and overwhelmingly always vote Democrat. But even when Journolist-ing, though they were using unethical tactics to manipulate an election, they could at least rationalize it by the notion that they were opposing those currently in power, i.e. a truly “adversarial” press. Now that their guy is entrenched in power, they no longer have that fig leaf.
Journalism didn’t just die. It went to work for the enemy.
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