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| Home Front: Politix |
| Trump's Labeling of 'Fake News' Was an Understatement |
| 2019-10-21 |
| [PJ Media] Journalism isn't just dead ‐ it's decomposed. When Chris Wallace ‐ in all Deep State unctuousness ‐ asked Mick Mulvaney on Fox News Sunday to comment on a "well-connected Republican" who allegedly told Wallace there was a 20 percent chance the GOP would vote to remove the president from office, he not only was aiding in that decomposition, he was picking up a shovel and helping dig its grave. Wallace didn't identify who this "well-connected Republican" is or what he actually said in context, just the tidbit the host wanted to tell us. What Wallace was doing was engaging in propaganda, creating a smear based on the flimsiest hearsay. But, as we all know, he's not alone. This was only one of a myriad of cases and far from the worst. The employment of anonymous sources by media has been debated (and attacked) for years but since Trump was elected, their use has escalated into the stratosphere. ...Almost all of our leading newspapers and networks engage in this activity, some pretending to have checks and balances that are inscrutable from the outside and likely conveniently fudged from the inside. ...Trump made a mistake in labeling this "fake news." Besides being too colloquial, the term is too generic and allows for the possibility that in some cases at least this dishonesty may be an accident. People make mistakes, after all. Yes, but it's hardly ever true in these cases. It's usually quite deliberate deception. A much, much more accurate term would be disinformation, a technique frequently employed by intelligence agencies. It's a safe bet that many of these leaks arrived from ours. In that, our intelligence agencies were following in a grand tradition. The Soviets were experts at it. They wrote the book on disinformation. ...Now the disinformation that is being put out is that Trump is on the rocks with Republicans. Mitt Romney may vote to impeach. Both The Washington Post and the WSJ have new stories warning of ‐ or more properly "concern trolling" about ‐ this disaffection. The word must be out. Chris Wallace was echoing the same narrative. The newly-minted NeverTrumper Matt Drudge is linking all this. But is it true or is it disinfo? I'll go with the latter. In fact, given Trump's popularity with the Republican rank-and-file, it would be suicidal for incumbent Republican politicians to vote him out. They'd be out themselves at the next primary. And reporters at the WaPo and WSJ know that, unless they've been living under the proverbial rock or are willfully disregarding last week's Trump rally in Dallas that had more supporters standing outside the venue than any political candidate in recent memory has had inside. (I know--the polls say he's in trouble. Have you ever done a poll yourself? I have, several, for this website years ago, and learned some interesting things. Just as freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one, the results of a poll belong to the man who sets it up, i. e. asks the questions.) What our media is doing is lying unabashedly as it has been doing since the outset of the Russia probe. Every one of the respected outlets listed above repeatedly reported the existence or the imminent proof of Trump-Russia collusion based on anonymous leaks. None of it ever happened. It would be interesting to know what percentage of those leaks came from members of intelligence agencies. I suspect it would be a scary number. Those same media outlets are now making a big deal out of the Ukraine, even though Trump was obviously trying to figure out who had instigated the Russia probe in the first place. Wouldn't you? |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #5 If CBS reported the sky is blue I would have to go outside and see for myself. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2019-10-21 11:40 |
| #4 Not "propaganda" - it's profit- and ratings-driven. Not "disinformation" - they're too clownish to merit comparison with Beria or the NKVD or KGB. Better term: Shitshow. = corrupt, for-profit low entertainment fueled by blatantly stupid, false, unprofessional, clownishly incompetent tall takes, fibs, fairytales and outright lies. |
| Posted by: Lex 2019-10-21 10:33 |
| #3 Did the left take over the schools or the media first? They seem to dominate both and it appears to be a long-term problem for the Republic. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2019-10-21 10:01 |
| #2 I haven't watched TV news in many years (including Fox News), except for getting the returns on Election Night. Nor do I automatically trust anything I read in any newspaper or on any website, without getting confirmation elsewhere and without waiting a generous amount of time for ALL the relevant facts to be known. Everything is suspect at first. As far as I can tell, the reporting from the MSM is no different from what it would be if their paychecks were issued directly by the Democratic National Committee. In effect, even if not in fact, they are no more than the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2019-10-21 09:21 |
| #1 Trump's Labeling of 'Fake News' Was an Understatement As was his claim of being "wire tapped" at Trump Towers. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2019-10-21 06:32 |