You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
-Great Cultural Revolution
Of a survey of 29 of the largest legacy news sources of record from around the world about arguably the biggest story of alleged corruption (and possibly even sedition) by the US government, 7 mentioned it at all and 22 ignored it completely.
2022-12-05
[SaidIt] This is a "day after" overview of which legacy news orgs think that the first Twitter Files drop can be considered "news". Given that this alleges collusion between Twitter and the Biden campaign to sway the 2020 US election, as well as collusion on other things with the Trump government, it is interesting to see who is and who is not willing to whack the hornet's nest of government. It's now 10 AM EDT, over 15 hours after the files dropped. This is ample time for a hot news story to hit the front pages of any news organization. My methodology is to go to each news site's front page and search for "Twitter". Let's begin:

US NEWS SOURCES
  • CBS News - 3 articles about Kanye being banned, 0 about the Twitter Files

  • ABC News - 0 articles about anything Twitter

  • NBC News - 1 article about the Twitter Files, not the top headline, but right underneath, before the jump, so you see it as soon as the page loads. Kudos to you on that NBC, though the whole article is a puff piece calling it a nothing burger...

  • CNN - 1 small text link about the TF on the section of the page underneath the first jump, buried 7th under "more top stories", which itself is buried underneath 26 other links to other stories about other things.

  • Fox News - Second headline above the jump. There were 14 links total on the front page with most of them related to the Twitter Files story.

  • New York Times - Zero TF articles. 1 reference to Twitter on its front page and that's about how Twitter keeps missing its advertising targets. NYT, it's time to change your slogan from "All the News That's Fit to Print" to "All the News That's Printed to Fit".

  • Washington Post - Jeff Bezos' mouthpiece rag features 5 articles about Twitter, none of them mentioning the Twitter Files. The breakdown? 2 about Kanye West, 2 about how to block Twitter, and 1 about how Twitter needs Apple to survive. "Democracy Dies in Darkness", indeed.

  • New York Post - The only one so far that features the Twitter Files as the top headline, reading "THIS WAS F-KED". 3 jumps down, we have a whole section dedicated to it called "The Twitter Files", with 4 more stories prominently displayed. All told, there are about 6 to 7 articles about this story, with none about Kanye West or how 'Twittter is just about to fail, you guys, I'm serial!'

  • MSNBC - Can't have a good rundown without the one that doesn't even pretend to be balanced. 2 articles mention Twitter; one about how Musk made a huge mistake buying it, and the other sowing fear that spooky Trump might come back. Zero articles mention the Twitter Files.

  • NPR - Poor ol' NPR. They used to really respect their readers' intelligence and would try to present something that yo could use to come to your own conclusions with. Today we've got 1 article mentioning Twitter, featuring former head of safety Yoel Roth discouraging people from using the site. Probably because he's heavily implicated in the collusion and would rather not end up in jail. Zero references to the Twitter Files.

CANADIAN NEWS SOURCES (because I'm from Canada, that's why.)
  • CBC News - Nothing.

  • CTV News - 1 article about Kanye West. Zero TF.

  • The Globe And Mail - Nothing.

  • The Toronto Star - Nothing.

  • Global News - Nothing.

  • National Post - Nothing.

  • La Presse - Our biggest french publication. 2 articles about Kanye West and Nazis. Zero about the Twitter Files.

  • The Toronto Sun - 2 links to the same story about the Twitter files. First is just below the first jump.

It should be noted that all major legacy press sources in Canada started taking Federal government funding starting in 2018. While I understand that it's hard to run a newspaper these days, this is a clear conflict of interest when it comes to the news sources reporting on anything that might be in the public interest, but that the gov't might prefer not to highlight. CBC is our public broadcaster and has been fully gov't funded since its inception in 1952.

UK NEWS SOURCES
  • The Times - 1 Twitter article about tampons and feminists. Zero about the Twitter Files.

  • The Telegraph - 1 article about the Twitter Files below the first jump.

  • The Guardian - 1 article about science denial on Twitter. Zero about the TF.

  • BBC News - Zero articles, though it's funny to note that the search brought me to the link "Have Your Say on Twitter", which was directly above a link reading, "Why you can trust BBC News".

OTHER INTERNATIONAL NEWS SOURCES OF RECORD
  • Deutsche Welle (Germany) - Zero

  • Pravda (Russia) - Zero, surprisingly.

  • Le Monde (France) - No TF articles. One asking if you'll boycott Twitter.

  • Corriere della Sera (Italy) - 1 TF article

  • Al Jazeera (Middle East) - Zero

  • Jerusalem Post (Israel) - One article on Musk talking to Emmanuel Macron about hate speech. No TF article.

  • El Universal (Mexico) - One about Macron. Zero about the TF.
Posted by:Spike the Hairy6811

#6  /\ Twitter had many helpers. They must all be dug up and disposed of before 2024.
Posted by: Besoeker   2022-12-05 17:09  

#5  This would be a good time to blame Twitter for foisting the destructive Biden upon the world. The left must be confident they can steel 2024 without the news blackout of DEM corruption.
Posted by: ruprecht   2022-12-05 16:57  

#4  A high information conservative voter has already tuned out both MSM and social media other to look at either and be reminded it's all dreck, tripe, bunk, etc.
Posted by: M. Murcek    2022-12-05 16:22  

#3  Here is all the article says about Twitter:

The Times of Israel, clearly taking up the story from American newsfeeds, pretty much quotes that verbatim — with the same interpretation. Low information voters on the right will cheer on the claimed position, low info. voters on the left will use it to buttress their hatred of all things Trump, while high info. voters on the left will nod approvingly at the old Twitter behaving righteously. The only ones to object will be the high-knowledge group on the right, who’ll know better than to believe the traditional media’s take on the story.

Instapundit has the original post here.
Posted by: trailing wife   2022-12-05 16:08  

#2  NYTimes had something in today's print.

In the back pages. Somewhat abbreviated.
Posted by: lord garth   2022-12-05 14:59  

#1  I told you people that MSM would not cover this story. The sad fact is, I know lots of people who won't believe that Twitter censored the most important story of 2020 until mainstream media outlets come clean. Dunno what it will take for that to happen. It's no good trying to talk to them. Here's what CBS is saying this morning:

Trump claims grounds for "termination" of U.S. Constitution

Here is all the article says about Twitter:

Trump's latest comments, issued Saturday in a post on his "Truth Social" media platform, came in response to a report by journalist Matt Taibbi that showed Twitter employees deliberating in October 2020 about how to handle a New York Post article about a laptop belonging to President Biden's son Hunter Biden. Taibbi reported that both the Biden campaign and the Trump White House had communicated with Twitter about content on the platform.

Trump claimed the conversations between Twitter and political officials had revealed "a massive fraud" so serious that it "allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution."

Trump also called again for a redo of the 2020 election, renewing his false claim to have won the vote. Trump has kept up a steady drumbeat of false statements about that election, despite his own officials telling him, and the nation, months ago that it was not "stolen," as he claims.
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2022-12-05 11:52  

00:00