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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In the absence of an agreed and credible medium-term deficit reduction plan that would be consistent with sustaining the economic recovery…
My interpretation is that Fitch doesn’t want to sound partisan but they’re strongly implying that an economy-crushing tax increase is not a viable solution.
“…consistent with sustaining the economic recovery…”
And keeping the moonponies groomed…
“…agreed and credible medium-term deficit reduction plan that would be consistent with sustaining the economic recovery…”
Ain’t gonna get Obama, Pelosi, and Reid to agree to anything “credible”.
“Deficit reduction plan” means serious spending cuts, at least all the way back to Bush Administration levels.
“Consistent with sustaining the economic recovery” means the cuts have to be magic ones that don’t actually stop government spending else the economy will hiccup.
Unfortunately, just as chills and fever are part of a healthy body’s way of fighting off the flu, with bed rest being something a wise person does to help the natural recovery process along, fighting off the Obama deficits is going to involve some economic pain as the natural recovery process gets going. (Turning around the debt piled up by Bush, Clinton, et. alia wouldn’t be easy but Obama pissed away all the reserve resources of the nation that could have eased the worst of the pain. Thanks, low-information Obama-phone voters!)
I can’t imagine how such a thing could happen ;-), but I went off on a tangent to the original post. Here’s something more to the point:
Americans should learn to view our news the way the citizens of a totalitarian regime learned to read their media. An alert reader can infer quite a bit.
Forward!
“Journalism didn’t just die. It went to work for the enemy.”
Isn’t that the truth!
They are completely out of control with the attacks on anyone who disagrees with their guy. They are covering up all of the crimes their side is engaged in – fast & furious, EPA’s use of a private email to conduct business, Benghazi, billions missing from Corzine who walks freely, etc, etc, etc…… They are absolutely corrupt with their intermingling with one party. I am not sure there are many media people that are not married to a democrat operative or they themselves were not employees of the party.
I hope that the new media – your blog and others, the big media projects that Glenn Beck is working on, PJ media’s new acquisitions, Breitbart with their new investigative reporters will be able to continue to break through to the general public. Faster please!
“When the Founding Fathers provided the press protections under the First Amendment”
Slight, but important quibble…
Our Constitution didn’t give anything to the “press” as that term is used in your piece. Not a bunch of “reporters” or “journalists”. Not a “profession” or trade.
But rather “the press”, as in the means of mass communication in the day of the Founders. This is a much broader and more democratic (small “d”) concept.
This is a common…and very convenient…corruption of the meaning of the 1st Amendment, and we should out it every chance we get.
Very good point.
I’ve always found it hard to believe that the founders were counting on journalists to watchdog the government. Since the time that mankind started recording stories in written form, we have had people manipulating the truth to fit their own prefered narrative.
In fact, I’d argue that what has changed hasn’t been the press, but instead the American public. Somehow, the public was conned into believing that they could trust journalists/newscasters instead of critically analyzing what they’ve been told and thinking for themselves.
In early American history, there was a very vigorous “alternative media” in the form of “pamphleteers”.
These, of course, included the Federalists, whose “papers” we now consider essential to our understanding of the Constitution in the context of its time.
New Media is just a modern echo of our historical American resistance to a media establishment.
Dear MSM-Lapdog Media:
CANNOT wait to see your performance today when His Infantile Loathsome Majesty gathers the Little Children to his floor and delivers his blather on guns and ammo.
There you’ll ALL be: Slathering, Sighing, Weeping, Swooning and Chorusing as ONE: Mass Fel****o for the Anointed Boy King.
BINGO..!!
Take a gander at the drooling Bob Schieffer’s reporting of the Baby King’s loathsome crap on guns this afternoon. Drudge has a link to Media Research Center and the details.
CANNOT possibly make this stuff up.
Same old stuff sadly. Its all about “mob rule” and most media are indeed part of that mob. The last thing media elites want to be seen doing is actually taking issue with the friendly Pharoah.
Meanwhile Il still waiting for guys like Paul Krugman to provide us with examples of Keynesian success stories that dont include a World War.
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.
I do not see this. In this time and age you have to make an effort to be a low/no information voter. In other words, totally lazy. They are low/no information because they would rather not educate themselves on the what is going on. Even if they do, “oh what can I do? oh that takes too much time and effort on my part”…sorry I have encountered too many of them (most with so-called university degrees).
I also wonder why so many seem to accept the outright ridiculously hatefulness of many Democrats. It is often beyond the pale, yet citizens will often accept it as ‘truth’. Is this correlated with the decline in values, church membership, etc.?
While many are too lazy and/or disinterested to inform themselves, that’s not universal. Some just don’t know enough to feel a need to seek out other information. The best way I can think of to combat that is for those who have a clue to keep trying to educate those they know. Hopefully, that will have a ripple effect and eventually there will be more and more people making the effort to get the information they used to count on MSM to provide.
Still true today.
Without question the MSM is working for the whole one-world government sort of thing. While the gloves have certainly come off with the election of the One, the media has been at this game for decades.
May I suggest a viewing of this 1-hour “Behind the Big News?” It explains a lot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrf2R3UHhKo
“…our facility essentially being unprotected in a sea of Islamist extremists.”
Unprotected because the Obama administration was taking the weapons they ran to Islamists “pals” in Libya and were running them to Islamists “pals” in Syria. The Russians and Turks took exception to Obama arming terrorists that close, and the Russians sent the message.
But that’s not news.
Who owns Reuters? As far as I can tell, it is not an American company.
Reuters is historically British, but they were bought by a Canadian-owned information services conglomerate which is headquartered in NYC. More here.
The pretty people who present the news on most broadcast networks are essentially celebrities and not hard news people in the mold of those just a few generations back. Even though the Cronkites, et al, were liberal, they still presented news as information and searched for facts for the most part (not 100%). And polls reflect that reality, as traditional news sources’ reliability or trustworthiness is pretty mediocre at best. That they still command eyeballs is more a testament to their celebrity than news value.
Traditional newspapers are dying a slow but steady death.
The Internet can be the savior for truthful and factual news. But it can also be the source of a lot of craziness, too. In the case of all the traditional sources, the consumer has figured out what is lacking. The challenge has become developing new ‘filters’ for the Internet (BS filters among others). And the biggest threat remains what is highlighted by Leslie here – many still rely to a degree on a limited number of traditional sources of AP and Reuters (UPI???) for a lot of current news. Thankfully in this case, any conscious and able person can read Fitch’s simple words and figure out the truth.
Here’s an example from this morning:
http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/16/joe-manchin-media-will-put-up-pictures-of-dead-children-to-sway-gun-control-votes/
This is not journalism. This is working for the goal of overturning the 2nd amendment. They are working for the enemy.
I have often wondered what will be the tripping point for domestic militants to declare Jihad on specific liberal journalists to make an example out of them.
As long as leftist remain useful fools for Islamists, they will be spared. When Islamists have no further need of fools, the fools will then be fair game.
WSJ today picks up the Fitch-will-downgrade story,
Fitch Ratings, a credit-rating firm, said Tuesday it wasn’t clear whether the Treasury legally could prioritize bond payments over other government obligations. If it did so, Fitch added, it was “very likely” the firm would downgrade its AAA rating on U.S. debt. That in turn would likely raise U.S. borrowing costs….
Fitch said that if the U.S. were to fall behind on payments to military contractors, Medicare providers or others, that wouldn’t constitute a default in the technical sense of the term used by Republicans. But Fitch’s threat of a downgrade — even if interest payments keep getting made — fits with Mr. Obama’s argument that failing to make payments of other kinds still would cause economic damage.
The Fourth Estate has become a Fifth Columnist (pun intended).
When you know history, you know that Democrats are the political wing of the KKK and the MSM is fine with that. Every act of anger and BS from Democrats and the MSM is merely the display of how the KKK would respond to an issue: keep the poor/minorities in their place and elevate the elite-wanna be/non-minorities.
Dirty Laundry (YouTube audio) by Don Henley:
So true … today’s generation is more concerned with Kim Kardashian’s butt size or Lindsay Lohan’s latest theft arrest than discussing current issues.
You’ve assessed our sad predicament quite well, our republic has dismantled much of its apparatus for correcting course. I think the descent into looting the public and private treasuries envisioned by ATLAS SHRUGGED has already commenced. Our energy is best spent in preparing for a long term American decline — I doubt much can be done to stop it.
Another point that others have noted: so long as we discuss all the ancillary actions of Dear Leader and his sycophants on both sides of the aisle, we’re not pointing out the debt/deficit bomb the Democrats have created–http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/01/15/column-obama-owns-the-debt-now/1830363/
Given all that has happened in the last two months, the MSM seems to ignore the looming fiscal crash of the USA brought on by the Democrats (and supported by Boehner Republicans) over the last 6 years. Coincidence? Nah….planned subversion of The Man….you know, Americans.
More of a semantic quibble, but the great majority of Americans considered to be ‘low information voters’ are not at all low information, in fact, they are high information or too much information voters. The problem is that the steady stream of information they are receiving is bad, wrong, deceptive, manipulative, etc.
You are absolutely correct. The electorate isn’t sure what to believe. Conservatives need to sympathize with this electorate, and not whine with derision. Throughout the 30s, Winston Churchill calmly and assertively warned the electorate that Germany was a serious threat. He was treated like the motley fool — but he persisted with dignity and calm confidence. Because he remained calm, assertive, confident and determined, the entire nation turned to him.
American conservatives need to steadfastly embody the calm, determined leaders that our country will no doubt turn to when the folly of the current ways becomes more apparent. Spewing insults for today’s independents is incredibly misguided, our posture needs to be respectful and reasoned disagreement.
Thanks. I’m against lowering ourselves to liberal political tactics because it isn’t difficult to come up with short and sweet soundbites that drive home critical points, like Thatcher’s quip about the problem with socialism being you eventually run out of other people’s money. It isn’t necessary to abandon principles and turn into complete liars for political gain. Another good quote that makes a point, short and sweet:
“We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” ~Winston Churchill
I agree completely. Perhaps a better term might be high-MISinformation voters.
They were once watchdogs. Now, they’re just dogs.
And that’s how they should be treated until a new generation of reporters (note I didn’t say, ‘journalists’) comes in to replace the corrupt hacks who have destroyed the profession and Constitutional protection of a free, impartial press.
Who tells us the media are watchdogs? THE MEDIA!
They’ve NEVER been nearly as unbiased and reliable as they’ve alleged. I’ll trot out my favorite quotes about the media:
“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.” –Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Norvell (June 11, 1807)
Knoll’s Law of Media Accuracy: Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true—except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge. — Erwin Knoll, editor, “The Progressive”
The fat Russian agent was cornering all the foreign refugees in turn and explaining plausibly that this whole affair was an Anarchist plot. I watched him with some interest, for it was the first time that I had seen a person whose profession was telling lies—unless one counts journalists. –George Orwell, “Homage to Catalonia” (1938)
Also read Malcolm Muggeridge’s account of his leftist reporting days in The Great Liberal Death Wish.
4th Estate — 5th Column.
Yep. That’s what they call “progress”.
Here’s hoping that journalsim as it’s currently practiced further progresses from 5th Column to 6 Feet Under.
Time—Past Time—to take it to the gutters where these scum sucking twits exist. Hit’um harder, dirtier, more ruthlessly than they ever dreamt. They safely assume that our side will continue to be ‘above the fray’ and not smacking them in the sewers they call home. How’d that work for Mitt & Paul??
I used to take pride that, in the United States, we had a free press that would protect the people from the government. My press didn’t take sides, they hated all politicians and were anxious to report on their flaws and the issues. I may have been naive, or that press went away, but it’s quite apparent we no longer have a free press, we have Pravda and Izvestia and they just repeat the government/Democrats line. They do as they’re told, reporting what they’re told to report and not reporting anything that might make Democrats or Obama look bad.
When you lose your credibility, what do you have left?
Journalists tired of sitting between the Government and the American people, and decided to protect Democrat governments from the people and to protect the people from Republican governments.
The wisest investment American taxpayers ever made, knowingly or not, was the Internet, for it disintermediated those who would control us, for better or, usually, for worse.
Thing is, in finance as in foreign policy (and not as much in domestic policy), numbers and facts eventually assert themselves. The press can keep lying about all sorts of doemstic policy stuff that will help Obama and the Dems who follow him, perhaps forever. But eventually the financial system will implode or there will be a foreign crisis that just cannot be swept under the rug, and then all those naive people who trust the media are going to have the mother of all “WTF?” moments.
Should be interesting.
They’ll look around and see who has all the food and guns, and then they’ll say “You did this to us. You did this to us on purpose!” Because whatever goes wrong, it’s your fault and it’s my fault. The MSM will be there to convince them of that in every possible way. I pray that the economy doesn’t entirely implode, but if it does, then remember that we are the new Jew. We are the new Kulak. Come to terms with that. And prepare.
Can you say welcome to the new Valenzuela?
Pat Caddell: “I am appalled right now. This White House, this President, this Vice President, this Secretary of State, all of them, are willing apparently to dishonor themselves and this country for the cheap prospect of getting reelected…willing to cover up and lie.
The worst thing is the very people who are supposed to protect the American people with the truth – the leading mainstream media…they have become a threat, a fundamental threat to American democracy and the enemies of the American people” unquote
–
The institution of the “Press” is Democracy’s most important and noble tool, but the institution has been so infiltrated and corrupted by subversive elements/anti-Freedom and Liberty Socialist Marxists, that they have poisoned the very well that Democracy drinks from. For they seek the destruction of America as a Republic and the US Constitution that limits the govt from imposing tyranny on “We the People”.. Thus every word they speak, write, and espouse, aka propagandize, to this end, hidden in the guise of making whatever they say and do, directed towards the public/populace, as the Truth, when it is in actuality a lie. This is immorality, treachery and insidious sedition of America, Freedom, Liberty, Democracy of the highest order, for they have intentionally betrayed the very institution and cause they have entered, which is meant to serve and protect “We the People”.
Of course, seditious, subversive, insidious elements, and I would even venture to say agents to evil, that act in this manner to achieve this end goal of the destruction of Freedom and Liberty and Democracy, in our US Constitutional Republic, never see themselves as such, for this is the power of indoctrination.
To them, the liberal MSMedia personnel who intentioanlly pursue this course of subversion and sedition against America and Democracy, their ideological end goals are a religion where the ends justifies the means. Thus they have no shame, no conscience of humanity, and serve the same purpose as radical islamist terrorists and their jihad to destroy Western Civilization, Israel, and all Jews / Human Beings on planet earth, which is why they are also aligned and allied together with them, for they have the same end goals, and are even worse than the enemy at the gates.. for they are the treacherous traitor enemies from within, helping the treacherous traitor enemies in charge of govt.-ie; Obama and his crony henchmen and sycophants, against the People.
–
quote-
“No one understood better than Hitler and Stalin that the true object of propaganda is neither to convince nor even to persuade, but to produce a uniform pattern of public utterance in which the first trace of unorthodox thought immediately reveals itself as a jarring dissonance.”
Alan Bullock- in Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives
quote-
“A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victim, and he wears their face and their garments and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the plague.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman Orator – 106-43 B.C.
[…] […]
Simple but boring, tedious, but effective: Some think tank needs to produce a template for distribution to conservative groups of an on-line newspaper that would cover local events, sports scores, weather, school closings, road work projects, obituaries, etc. without any editorial content in a format that is easy to read and in large print font. Slowly people would gravitate to this and destroy the backbone of leftist journalism, the local paper.
[…] a comment at Legal Insurrection […]
I’ve been saying this since 2008. The question is, as always: what can we do about a media who willingly collaborates and propagandizes for the government party in power?
That is the answer to all of this, if you believe the asserted point that the people WANT information, but aren’t getting it because the MSM (local and national, as well as cable) are NOT telling people the truth, by either commission or OMISSION.
Rush had a caller a few days ago who made this point perfectly! And that is the group who is intelligent, driven to vote, yet completely in the dark about truth and reality of what is happening!!
Because they believe the media. They trust the media. They depend on the media to inform them and tell facts, truth, and NEWS.