I believe main stream media has become the enemy of the people.
The media in a democracy has the most important role of protecting and defending free speech and our institutions from attack. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States, from 1933 until his death in 1945, said “Freedom of the press is essential to the preservation of a democracy; but there is a difference between freedom and license. Editorialists who tell downright lies in order to advance their own agendas do more to discredit the press than all the censors in the world.”
The Roman satirist Juvenal, in a famous passage, asked, “Who will watch the watchmen?”
That question is more important today than ever before. Who will watch the media? The media is supposed to hold all institutions, all governments, into account without choosing sides. Yet, we are witnessing a bias in the media that has the potential to take down western culture. Across the western world, freedom-loving nations are under attack from a left-wing media monopoly that chooses to omit salient facts in order to promote left wing ideology.
The most egregious example of left wing media bias and total journalistic failure occurred in America with the reporting of the 2016 American elections. The media failed to report all of the facts.
“The omission is the most powerful form of lie, and it is the duty of the historian to ensure that those lies do not creep into the history books.” —George Orwell, author of ‘1984’
I wrote about Fake News in my book Anatomy of #FakeNews in the Era of Donald Trump: A case study of unethical journalism.
#FakeNews is not just the danger of factual errors but more importantly the egregious omission of facts. This type of #FakeNews is dangerous because the omission of facts about events and sources, especially on a regular basis, can promote a particular narrative; a bias, that affects perspective and can lead to the polarization of a country. The reason the omission of facts is so dangerous is that the consumer of news has no idea that facts have been omitted. This #FakeNews becomes propaganda. And media outlets together can form a coalition of #FakeNewsMedia.
Alan Bloom wrote:
“The most successful tyranny is not one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes awareness of other possibilities…that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.”
More than 60 million voters were shocked when Donald Trump won. That speaks to the failure. The left wing media had decided to promote the Democrats and Hillary Clinton and did not prepare half the country for the possibility that Hillary could lose. When she lost, the media needed a scapegoat for their failure. The reason she lost had to be because Trump cheated. And the Russian conspiracy was born along with calls to impeach the President minutes after he was sworn in. Nothing was going to get in the way of removing a President not endorsed by the media. #FakeNews took off.
The media in America continues to promote a left wing dialogue, sharing left wing talking points and leaving out facts and differing opinions. They are poisoning the well. They are poisoning America.
This segment on CNN should have been a wake-up call to all “journalists.” Don Lemon, Rick Wilson ex-GOP strategist, and New York Times columnist and CNN contributor Wajahat Ali, epitomize the levels to which main stream media will stoop, attacking Americans who do not agree with them, because they know they are the arbiters of truth and morality. I know about Rick Wilson because the ex-GOP strategist has been out promoting his anti-Trump book on the CBC programme, The Current. Makes sense as the CBC is no different from any of the left-wing outlets in America. They all have the same agenda. The CBC is no friend of Donald Trump or Conservative ideas or values. For those unaware, the CBC, the tax-payer funded media outlet, is the mouthpiece for the left in Canada, particularly the Liberal government as the Liberal government promised to fund them in the last election. But I digress.
CNN thought that it was a good idea to mock Trump supporters, again, because to them that IS the job of media.
Here is the dialogue. Wilson speaking first.
“[Pompeo] also knows deep within his heart that Donald Trump couldn’t find Ukraine on a map if you had the letter U and a picture of an actual physical crane next to it,” causing Lemon to chuckle. “He knows that this is, you know, an administration defined by ignorance of the world. And so that’s partly him playing to the base and playing to their audience. You know, the credulous boomer rube demo that backs Donald Trump.”
As Lemon began crying with tears of laughter, Wilson went on to depict what he thought a typical Trump supporter sounded like.
“‘Donald Trump’s the smart one — and y’all elitists are dumb!'” Wilson said with a heavy southern accent.
New York Times reporter Ali said “‘You elitists with your geography and your maps- and your spelling!'”
“‘Your math and your reading!'” Wilson added. “‘All those lines on the map!'”
So what does this do to a country? It divides it. The left, morally superior to the right, the rubes, the red necks who must be dismissed, their votes nullified.
This is the sad state of affairs of today’s media; no longer reporting facts, except those that support the values of the left. And instead of attacking the institutions, holding them to account, the media attacks the citizens who will not stick to the media’s script provided to them by their bosses, the left.
From the Ethics of the Fathers: “Rabbi Tarfon used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it.”
Organizations like Honest Reporting and Palestine Media Watch reveal the bias, most often bias by omission of facts, the most dangerous bias. get links
The Washington Post and The New York Times won the 2018 Pultizer Prize for their national reporting of President Donald Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia. They were awarded $15,000 in a joint prize. The “award winning“ journalists include Maggie Haberman, Jo Becker, Matt Apuzzo and Mark Mazetti from The 6 Times and Rosalind Helderman, Tom Hamburger, Ellen Nakashima, Adam Entous and Greg Miller from Washington Post. They received the award “for deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration. (The New York Times entry, submitted in this category, was moved into contention by the Board and then jointly awarded the Prize.)
#FakeNews is not just the danger of factual errors but more importantly the egregious omission of facts. This type of #FakeNews is dangerous because the omission of facts about events and sources, especially on a regular basis, can promote a particular narrative; a bias, that affects perspective and can lead to the polarization of a country. The reason the omission of facts is so dangerous is that the consumer of news has no idea that facts have been omitted. This #FakeNews becomes propaganda. And media outlets together can form a coalition of #FakeNewsMedia. Alan Bloom wrote “The most successful tyranny is not one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes awareness of other possibilities…that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.” While media outlets and journalists, as well as politicians and
