Do we ever learns? Or maybe the better question is: Do they ever learn>
As 2001 drew to a close, the US press began destroying their own reputations. It was one act of professional suicide after another. October 2001, for those who don't know, is when THE NEW YORK TIMES ran their first cover story linking -- falsely linking -- the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US to the government of Iraq.
There was no link.
Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq at the time. He did not allow al Qaeda to operate in Iraq. Had they operated there freely, they would have overthrown him because he was over a secular government and because they were sympathetic to those who were not in power in Saddam's Iraq.
But NYT, THE WASHINGTON POST, the broadcast networks, the cable networks, etc, etc repeated one lie after another to start that illegal war.
It's probably hard if you weren't there when it happened and if you weren't of an age to have grasped it as it happened -- hard to now understand what took place. Back then, the media could talk of nothing but Iraq. That's the same US media that ignores Iraq today that barely noted that the war hit the 19 year mark last month, that acts as though US troops are no longer in Iraq and that the US created (imposed) some wonderful government there.
They lied. They lied over and over.
Liars got rewarded.
Kevin Drum is at MOTHER JONES. No consequences. It's not just big media that rewarded liars, little media has done the same.
But they lied.
Oprah didn't suffer. She brought Judith Miller onto her daily program to lie and when an audience member challenged the lies Judith was spewing, Oprah attacked the audience member.
No one ever took accountability.
And the media suffered. In the aftermath, they wanted to pretend as though there was no reason for so many to distrust them and even now they act that way. Especially now. They don't mention Iraq and they hope everyone else has forgotten.
But that was a sea change for perception of the media.
It appears it was also a behavior shift because the media had not only done nothing to restore trust in their own profession, they have continued to present lies as fact and ignore reality while silencing any questioning.
The rolly polly and disgusting Brian Stelter of CNN was speaking this week about disinformation. No, he wasn't finally taking responsibility for his multitude of journalistic sins. The idiot really thought he had a soap box to stand upon and lecture others from. A conservative student commented with a list of the most recent appalling journalistic sins -- or some of them, there are far too many for one person to ever list unless they're delivering a 24 hour filibuster -- and Brian avoided the question and wanted to instead wanted to talk about Ukraine and how others worked with FOX NEWS there regarding a journalist and -- I'm sorry, we aren't that stupid.
And we're not whining, "Why can't you all work together!"
In fact, the problem has often been that you do work together -- right and left -- such as when you sold the illegal war on Iraq.
Working together is frequently the only work you ever do.
You're certainly not working for the public good.
You 'work' to advances causes and candidates.
You're not telling the truth. You're actively suppressing the truth.
Anne Applebaum, after disgracing herself as THE WASHINGTON POST for years (Bob Somerby long ago dubbed her Annie Apples_ wanted to tell people this week that there was no reason to cover Hunter Biden's laptop and the proof of corruption it contained.
It appears that some media have a new narrative after admitting that the Hunter Biden laptop is legitimate after all. According to Atlantic Magazine writer and Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum, the story never did matter because it was just not interesting and “totally irrelevant” to her. Strangely, however, it once did. Applebaum pushed the false narrative as she was slamming others for publishing “Russian disinformation” and using the Hunter Biden story as an example. It only became uninteresting when it turned out to be true. The one convincing assertion, however, is that it was simply not viewed as “relevant.” What was clearly relevant for Twitter and most media outlets was the election of Joe Biden. Otherwise, as captured by Gaston de La Touche, it is a matter of sheer boredom.
Applebaum was at my alma mater, The University of Chicago, for the Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy conference on Wednesday. The conference appeared largely an echo-chamber, a disappointing lineup for UChicago which is known to value a diversity of opinion. Applebaum slammed Fox and its viewers: “Those who live outside the Fox News bubble and intend to remain there do not, of course, need to learn any of this stuff.” (For the record, I work as a legal analyst at Fox).
What an idiot and what a liar. She's at THE ATLANTIC now so she can probably lie more freely. But the country's not better off because of it.
Hunter Biden's laptop was a news story THE NEW YORK POST can claim credit for having broken in October 2020. I keep waiting for their triumphant column. If i'ts run, I haven't heard of it. To be honest I don't have time to comb through the web for it and depend on friends to keep me up to date.
So when one called last night and was reading from THE POST online, I was really sad. I thought it was Miranda Devine and I thought she was a better writer than what was being read. She is. It was by John Stossel. I loathe John and always have. He can argue he's been mis-portrayed by the media and that may be the case. I loathe him because he's an off-putting ass and that's from his on air personality when he used to be on 20/20.
Is he as big of an idiot as I've always thought?
Yes, he is.
I was going to destroy Mrianda for the column I thought she wrote. But it was John. Writing at THE NEW YORK POST, he wanted you to know how bad it was with the attacks on THE POST.
I'm tired of stupidity.
Ava and I covered the most important point regarding THE NY POST and the laptop and the media's response.
Do not offer that the report was dismissed.
That's not good enough.
If you're on some basic cable show, that might pass for informed.
You're not informed.
And only John could be so stupid to write for THE POST and to leave the most important detail out.
Yes, as we all know, the report was censored -- TWITTER and FACEBOOK. And as we all know, opinion columns insisted it wasn't true.
That's not the worst thing.
The worst thing? THE NEW YORK TIMES did a 'report' that they called an investigation and the 'report' centered on how supposedly people working at THE NEW YORK POST were furious with their paper over that story and did not feel it was accurate or truthful or even journalism.
NYT relied on no named source and most people in the kow say that NYT did a work of fiction (I believe that they did).
So grasp that NYT did not investigate the laptop but they did make time to 'report' on a rival paper, to attack the rival paper.
That's out of bounds. I twas out of bounds when it happened.
But that was part of the attack strategy to dismiss the story.
THE NEW YORK TIMES owes THE NEW YORK POST an apology because when they ran that article -- unsourced -- attacking the paper's integrity, they made it personal.
Again, they owe the paper an apology.
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