Media, Ministry of Truth Issues; foreign manipulation of US media/social media

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/technology/twitter-russia-election.html?emc=edit_na_20170927&nl=breaking-news&nlid=49641193&ref=cta&_r=0

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.dailywire.com/news/21977/democracy-dies-darkness-washington-post-hides-ryan-saavedra

[ccp]

I don't recall where but there was an interview on cable with Bezos ant ther interviewer asked him if he bought the Wcompost to influence politics (of course in usual leftist fashion)

and he resolutely said no not all.

some people in the audience could be heard busting out laughing.

the interview if i recall had a smirk on his face but did not follow up.

*Bezos , we are not all as brilliant as you but we are not that stupid either!*

[Crafty_Dog]

Not sure I agree with some of this, but a subject worth considering

The Media Needs to Stop Inspiring Copycat Murders. Here's How.
After a wave of teen suicides in the 1980s, news outlets began reporting on these deaths more cautiously. Similar guidelines could help prevent more shooting sprees.

sandy-hook-graphic3.jpg
After the Newtown shootings, newspapers printed detailed information about the killer and his methods. (McClatchy Papers)

You might not have noticed, but the mass media rarely reports on suicides, particularly teen suicides. When it does, the coverage is careful, understated, and dampened. This is no accident: Following guidelines endorsed by the Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Mental Health, the media carefully and voluntarily avoids sensationalizing such deaths especially among teenagers. They almost never make the news unless the person is a public figure; methods of suicide are rarely mentioned; suicide pacts are not reported upon.

This is for good reason: Suicide, especially among teens, is contagious. It's a morbidly attractive idea that offers an established path of action for a troubled youngster. And we know from research in many fields that establishing a path of action -- a complete narrative in which you can visualize your steps and their effects -- is important in enabling follow-through.

This, for example, is exactly why political campaigns ask people about where and how they plan to vote -- imagined events are more likely to be carried out in real life. If you have a full story in your head, you are more likely to enact it, step by step. We also know such "contagion" effects are especially strong in adolescence and young adulthood -- an especially turbulent time for mental health.

In the Middle Ages, psychosis may have involved visions of the devil. Today, it can involve dressing in pseudo-combat gear and walking through a public place in a blaze of violence.

As a sociologist, I am increasingly concerned that the tornado of media coverage that swirls around each such mass killing, and the acute interest in the identity and characteristics of the shooter -- as well as the detailed and sensationalist reporting of the killer's steps just before and during the shootings -- may be creating a vicious cycle of copycat effects similar to those found in teen and other suicides.


Indeed, the rate of mass public shootings in the United States has been accelerating. In 2012 alone, there were at least a dozen of them. Seven dead at an Oakland college in April. Five killed at a Seattle coffee shop in May. Twelve killed in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater in July. Six murdered at a Wisconsin Sikh temple in August, and six more killed in Minneapolis in September. Three dead in the Milwaukee spa shootings in October. And most recently, and unimaginably, 20 children as young as six, along with six adults, murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The trend is disturbingly clear.


As many have pointed out, these mass public rampages are inextricably linked with the availability of high-capacity guns and ammunition, as well as with lack of strong mental health infrastructure -- especially for those in late adolescence and early adulthood, the typical onset period for major psychotic disorder.


But it's also important to recognize that while mental illness plagues every society, the ways people express it are heavily influenced by the norms, heroes, anti-heroes, and spectacles of their own places and times. In the Middle Ages, psychosis may have involved visions of the devil, snakes, or witches. In the 21st century, it can involve dressing in pseudo-combat gear, donning numerous high-powered rifles, and walking through a public place in a blaze of violence. The shock value is part of the goal -- and the higher the shock value, predictably, the higher the ensuing media coverage, which fuels interest in the shooter and creates a whirlwind of attention and spectacle.

My aim here is not to blame the media: such events have undeniable news value, and there is intense public interest in uncovering their details. But it's important to recognize that such incidents are not mono-causal, and sensational news coverage is, increasingly, part of the mix of events that contributes to these rampages.

We need to figure out how to balance the public interest in learning about a mass shooting with the public interest in reducing copycat crime. The guidelines on reporting on teen suicides were established after a spate of teenage suicides in the United States, some through suicide pacts, in the 1980s. Those who created the guidelines looked at examples from other countries -- for example, the subway suicides in Vienna in the 1980s, which decreased after the media changed its coverage -- and provided specific recommendations: Don't refer to the word suicide in the headline. Don't report the method of the suicide. Don't present it as an inexplicable act of an otherwise healthy person.


With that as a model, here are some initial recommendations.

1. Law enforcement should not release details of the methods and manner of the killings, and those who learn those details should not share them. In other words, there should be no immediate stories about which guns exactly were used or how much robo-cop gear was utilized. There should be no extensive timelines -- no details about which room was entered first or which victim was killed second. In particular, there should be no reporting of the killer's words, or actions before or during the shooting.

Yes, I am a scholar of social media and I understand that these things will leak. But there is a big difference between information that can only be found if you really look for it and news stories that are blasted by every television station and paper in the country. At a minimum, we can and should greatly delay the release of these details by weeks, if not months.

2. If and when social media accounts of the killers are located, law enforcement should work with the platforms to immediately pull them. Yes, there will be screenshots, and again, I am not proposing that such information can be entirely shut out. But by making it harder to find, we can dampen the impact of the spectacle.

3- The name of the killer should not be revealed immediately. If possible, law enforcement and media sources should agree to withhold it for weeks. The identity can be released later during trial (if there is one) or during the release of the investigative report. Once again, merely delaying the release of information may greatly reduce the spectacle effect. The name may "leak," but that is very different from the full blast of attention that currently surrounds the perpetrators immediately after each incident.



Similarly, the killer should not be profiled extensively, at least not at first. There should not be an intense search for clues or reasoning beyond "troubled person commits unspeakable act; wish he had gotten help earlier," in as flat a reporting style as possible. We know that the killers tend to be young men, and they tend to have mental health issues. We do not need to know which exact video games they played, what they wore, or what their favorite bands were.

4. The intense push to interview survivors and loved ones in their most vulnerable moments should be stopped. This, too, may help reduce the sense of spectacle and trauma.

I don't claim that these are the only and best ways to deal with this issue. but I offer them as fodder for a conversation that I hoped will be taken up by media and mental health experts. And we shouldn't be concerned that such guidelines will be impossible to follow. Just yesterday, news outlets revealed that Richard Engel of NBC had been kidnapped in Syria -- and released. The information about his capture, though obviously newsworthy, was held back in order to aid the negotiations and rescue efforts.


There are many such cases of media voluntarily acting to dampen coverage of certain events, especially when it involves one of their own. Let's entreat them to do it for the sake of potential shooting victims as well.

[ccp]

A important news flash from NYT in N Korea -  they make good pizza over there and children are having a grand time :


https://www.spartareport.com/2017/09/nyt-columnist-north-korea-great-pizza-live-music/

Good reporting NYT!  Bravo!

[Crafty_Dog]

https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2017/10/06/dear-cnn-really-this-animation-of-a-bump-stock-is-just-embarrassing/

[G M]

https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2017/10/06/dear-cnn-really-this-animation-of-a-bump-stock-is-just-embarrassing/

All it needs is some *chicka-chicka, bow-bow* music to go along with the video. 

[ccp]

you reap what you sow:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cnn-faces-a-class-action-racial-discrimination-lawsuit_us_595e8f87e4b0cf3c8e8d5730

[ccp]

media complicit in protecting a Crat's seat:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/452444/robert-menendez-tim-murphy-republican-scandal-always-gets-more-coverage

[DougMacG]

I wish to revise and retract anything positive I have said about Chris Wallace.  His interview the with NRA executive director yesterday was AWFUL.  He blamed him, accused him, spewed liberal talking points, interrupted, didn't let him answer.  Not fair, no balance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhX07uILJDE
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-chris-wallace-takes-nra-to-task-you-need-to-address-this

2 or 3 of their panelists were worthless too.  Juan Williams every week for balance?  Not exactly compelling TV or analysis.

One thing in media, why they don't split their time something like 50-50, allow a guest to give his/her side of it and also challenge them where they are wrong or where there is another side to it.

This is noteworthy in media because it seems that Fox News is ripe for replacement on the right.  They want to be fair and balanced and end up on the far left part of the time.  That leaves an opening a mile wide for a conservative alternative to emerge.

NRA already agreed with 'bump stock' regulation.  What else would have helped here?
http://abc7.com/nra-open-to-regulation-of-bump-stock-device/2494412/

Disclaimer, I don't watch cable news so must admit an occasional once a week peek is not a full examination.  Their radio news however often speaks with the same liberal talking points of the hated MSM.

[Crafty_Dog]

OAN One America News is not without merit.

===================================

http://www.dailywire.com/news/22056/enablers-matt-damon-russell-crowe-helped-kill-2004-amanda-prestigiacomo?utm_source=dwemail&utm_medium=email&utm_content=100917news&utm_campaign=Position2

http://www.dailywire.com/news/22061/snls-lorne-michaels-says-they-cut-weinstein-joke-emily-zanotti?utm_source=dwemail&utm_medium=email&utm_content=100917news&utm_campaign=position7?utm_source=dwemail&utm_medium=email&utm_content=100917news&utm_campaign=Position7

[Crafty_Dog]

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/2017/10/09/abc-news-chief-political-analyst-caught-pushing-fake-terrorism-claim/

[Crafty_Dog]

The "fake news" problem isn't just about "alternative facts." The problem has more to do with the spin, the narrative, the context that inclines you to believe, for example, whether there was or was not collusion between Donald Trump's campaign and officials of the Russian government. And the problem is that 60 percent of Americans get their news through social media, mostly Facebook, which uses mysterious algorithms to customize each of our news feeds, selecting all and only what interests me, as computed from every time I press "Like" or forward an article to friends.

It's not just Facebook. Sit with a friend or, better yet, a friendly enemy — someone you know has political views contrary to your own — and, using your own devices, type the same entries into your respective Google search windows. Try "BP," standing for the oil company that used to be British Petroleum but tried rebranding itself as Beyond Petroleum. You and your friendly enemy — perhaps your crackpot brother-in-law? — are going to get different results from your searches because of what Google knows about each of you and what you've searched before. If you are an avid environmentalist and he's a rabid lefty, you'll get more results about the environmental effects of the Deepwater Horizon disaster while he'll get more about its nefarious corporate causes.
Trending Toward Personalization

Personalization has a long and illustrious history, best understood in contrast with its opposite, the mass market of the post-World War II boom. The structure of that marketplace featured mass production that reduced costs with economies of scale. The customer was a mass market that was only gradually differentiated, first by demographic characteristics — age, income and education — and later by psychographics such as likes, dislikes, values and personality traits.

From 1983 until 1986, I served as the director of research for SRI International's Values and Lifestyles Program. Our clients were mostly marketers trying to match their messages about the right product for the right customer through the right media. As early as the 1980s, it became clear that this matching game — never an issue for mass markets — would only become finer-grained as technologies and media evolved. Demographic and psychographic segments would be sliced and diced into subsegments until finally, with the advent of the internet, we arrived at markets of one.

As Farhad Manjoo describes the process in his book True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society:

    "The mainstream is drying up. In some ways, we are returning to the freewheeling days before radio and television launched the very idea of mass media — the era of partisan newspapers and pamphleteers. But our niches, now, are more niche than ever before. We are entering what you might call the trillion-channel universe: over the last two decades, advances in technology… have helped turn each of us into producers, distributors and editors of our own media diet."

Personalization has its bright sides. It can make shopping easier: Instead of wandering aimlessly down the endless aisles of vast department stores, Amazon will guide you toward the book you might like next based on what it knows about your recent purchases. For the customer, personalization can mean that whatever messaging manages to reach her, she will not be subjected to blaring announcements to the mass market; the ads she receives will be about only the things she's interested in. They will be targeted.

And that's what Facebook can sell to its advertisers: its success at solving the matching game; its ability to put in front of you, next to your news feed, all and only those things it knows you and your friends are interested in.

Personalization reverses the polarity of the messaging in the marketplace. Instead of all push from producer to consumer, now it's pull from consumer to producer. Rather than passively listening to broadcasting from the networks, or narrowcasting from the cable channels, today's consumer is narrowcatching by pulling from the internet, via Google, whatever he or she wants to know.
Politics and the Filter Bubble

Thanks to personalization, marketers and customers can find each other more easily. But what is good for the marketplace and the consumer is not necessarily good for the polity and its citizens, as Eli Pariser makes clear in his book The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think.

    "Ultimately, the filter bubble can affect your ability to choose how you want to live. To be the author of your life... you have to be aware of a diverse array of options and lifestyles. When you enter a filter bubble, you're letting the companies that construct it choose which options you're aware of. You may think you're the captain of your own destiny, but personalization can lead you down a road to a kind of informational determinism in which what you've clicked on in the past determines what you see next — a Web history you're doomed to repeat. You can get stuck in a static, ever-narrowing version of yourself — an endless you-loop."

Founding head of MIT's Media Lab and columnist for Wired magazine Nicholas Negroponte put it this way:

    "Imagine a future in which your interface agent can read every newswire and newspaper and catch every TV and radio broadcast on the planet, and then construct a personalized summary. This kind of newspaper is printed in an edition of one... Call it the Daily Me."

From another authoritative source, Pariser quotes Google CEO Eric Schmidt:

    "Most people will have personalized newsreading experiences on mobile-type devices that will largely replace their traditional reading of newspapers. And that kind of news consumption will be very personal, very targeted. It will remember what you know. It will suggest things that you might want to know. It will have advertising. Right? And it will be as convenient and fun as reading a traditional newspaper or magazine."

But what is convenient and fun for the reader is not always good for the citizen. Pariser himself says: "The filter bubble will often block out the things in our society that are important but complex or unpleasant. It renders them invisible. And it's not just the issues that disappear. Increasingly, it's the whole political process."

In a world that's becoming fragmented into friends of friends, "the news" becomes equally fragmented. In place of different views on the same world, people are living in different worlds. This ontological point is a main theme of Manjoo, who writes:

    "While new technology eases connections between people, it also, paradoxically, facilitates a closeted view of the world, keeping us coiled tightly with those who share our ideas. In a world that lacks real gatekeepers and authority figures, and in which digital manipulation is so effortless, spin, conspiracy theories, myths, and outright lies may get the better of many of us."

Unintended Consequences

Now this is not what the early inventors of and writers about the internet had in mind. Geniuses like Norbert Wiener, who helped invent cybernetics, and Douglas Engelbart, who invented the mouse, wanted to facilitate a more connected and friendly world. As Pariser describes what I'll call "The Dream" that united many of us in the San Francisco Bay Area during the lifetime of Wired magazine, "Despite their libertarian orientation, the writings of Esther Dyson, John Perry Barlow, and Kevin Kelly... fairly ache with a longing to return to an egalitarian world."

In his just-published World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech, Franklin Foer cites Kevin Kelly's description of the ultimate book, following on Google's digitization of all books: "The real magic will come in the second act as each word in each book is cross-linked, clustered, cited, extracted, indexed, analyzed, annotated, remixed, reassembled and woven deeper into the culture than ever before."

Foer, who was not so incidentally the editor of the New Republic, a left-wing publication by any measure, expostulates on The Dream:

    "There was a political corollary to this prelapsarian dream. Not only would volumes melt into one beautiful book, disagreements would fade too… As readers worked together to annotate and edit texts, they would find common ground. The path of the network takes our most contentious debates and leads them toward consensus. Facebook puts it this way: 'By enabling people from diverse backgrounds to easily connect and share their ideas, we can decrease world conflict in the short and long term.'"

But that's not exactly the way it's working out. As Fred Turner puts it in From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism:

    ... "to the degree that the libertarian rhetoric of self-reliance embraces a New Communalist vision of consciousness-centered, information-oriented elite, it can also permit a deep denial of the moral and material costs of the long-term shift toward network modes of production and ubiquitous computing."

And further:

    "Even as they suggested that such a world would in fact represent a return to a more natural, more intimate state of being, writers such as Kevin Kelly, Esther Dyson, and John Perry Barlow deprived their many readers of a language with which to think about the complex ways in which embodiment shapes all of human life, about the natural and social infrastructures on which that life depends, and about the effects that digital technologies and the network mode of production might have on life and its essential infrastructures."

I think Turner is being a little rough on my friends and, after 32 years of crossing paths and working together in the San Francisco Bay area, I count each of them as a friend. But he has a point.
Fixing a Network Gone Wrong

Is there a remedy for this network gone wrong? According to Foer, Pariser, Manjoo and Turner, the internet has evolved from unifying force for social solidarity to a divisive bubble machine. Foer calls for a regulatory fix, a Data Protection Authority akin to Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But reviewers give that idea little credibility.

Foer's take on the current state of the news media veers from the apoplectic to the righteous:

    "Google and Facebook … are, after all, organizing the entire output of humanity.

    "Of course, this is not an innocent activity — even though the tech companies disavow any responsibility for the material they publish and promote. They plead that they are mere platforms, neutral utilities for everyone's use and everyone's benefit. When Facebook was assailed for abetting the onslaught of false news stories during the 2016 presidential campaign … Mark Zuckerberg initially disclaimed any culpability. 'Our goal is to give every person a voice,' he posted on Facebook, washing his hands of the matter. It's galling to watch Zuckerberg walk away from the catastrophic collapse of the news business and the degradation of American civic culture, because his site has played such a seminal role in both. Though Zuckerberg denies it, the process of guiding the public to information is a source of tremendous cultural and political power. In the olden days, we described that power as gatekeeping — and it was a sacred obligation."

While often as critical as Foer when lamenting the way social media has evolved, Pariser is ultimately more optimistic when it comes to the future. He quotes one of the inventors of the internet:

    "'We create the Web,' Sir Tim Berners-Lee wrote. 'We choose what properties we want it to have and not have. It is by no means finished (and it's certainly not dead).' It's still possible to build information systems that introduce us to new ideas, that push us in new ways. It's still possible to create media that show us what we don't know, rather than reflecting what we do. It's still possible to erect systems that don't trap us in an endless loop of self-flattery about our own interests or shield us from fields of inquiry that aren't our own."

In the meantime, as an antidote to echo chambers like Fox News, MSNBC or Facebook's news feed, the four books cited in this column read like celebrations of the need for something like Stratfor.

[G M]

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/10/11/project-veritas-releases-second-new-york-times-video/

Professional Journalists!

[DougMacG]

Journalism is about covering important stories.
With a pillow, until they stop moving.



   - David Burge, Iowahawk via PJ Instapundit Glenn Reynolds

How NBC ‘Killed’ Ronan Farrow’s Weinstein Exposé
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-nbc-killed-ronan-farrows-weinstein-expose

[Crafty_Dog]

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/355051-trump-news-network-licenses-must-be-challenged-and-if-appropriate?rnd=1507767656

[G M]

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/355051-trump-news-network-licenses-must-be-challenged-and-if-appropriate?rnd=1507767656

Nope. It's war. Did the left give a shiite when Obama used the IRS and other federal agencies to go after the right?

[G M]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y2aSiGBvao

Professional journalists! With credentials!

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/opinion/cia-fake-news-russia.html?emc=edit_th_20171014&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0

[ccp]

https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/wtf-msm-virtually-no-coverage-of-the-obama-clinton-russian-uranium-bombshell

[Crafty_Dog]

https://s2.washingtonpost.com/299ca/59ea1eeafe1ff6159ed37af5/Y3JhZnR5ZG9nQGRvZ2Jyb3RoZXJzLmNvbQ%3D%3D/8/119/1cd93351a621c9cb215c0c081ac150ab

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.jpost.com/Author/Caroline-B-Glick

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/business/media/bill-oreilly-sexual-harassment.html?emc=edit_na_20171021&nl=breaking-news&nlid=49641193&ref=cta&_r=0

[ccp]

"non consensual sex"

Rape  

or she had an sexual affair and is claiming he coerced or harassed her

$ 32 million is a lot of dough !!!

There are a lot of women who around the world who would love that kind of harassment.  Sorry politically correct folks but , true.

[ccp]

She pissed off many pro Trump Republicans with her non stop attacks on him and the LEFT hates her because she worked for Fox ( a crime )  and had a right ward lean.  She can't please anyone now:

https://spectator.org/the-manipulative-feminism-of-megyn-kelly/

[Crafty_Dog]

Bought Sharyl Attkinson's book "Smear" for my nephew , , , after I give it a quick read first for myself

[rickn]

I heard somewhere recently that O'Reilly, who was divorced in 2011, had been dating Lis Wiehl.  And then there was a falling out between the two.  There could have been business relationships intertwined with their personal relationship.

The only thing I would note about the timing of the complaints is that these women complainants appear to play this card when their contracts are up for renewal.  Fatal Attraction was big at the box office in the late 1970's.  I guess the lesson of that movie has been forgotten by many - even those old enough to have seen it during its original release.    

[ccp]

Rick,

Prior to " Fatal Attraction" was a movie called "Play Misty for Me"  (1971) starring Clint Eastwood.

The theme from Fatal Attraction was clearly taken from this earlier movie right down to the psychotic knife attack at the end.  Perhaps you have seen it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play_Misty_for_Me

[Crafty_Dog]

I have three very clever nephews and a couple of months ago had a very enjoyable political conversation with one of them.  Though a Dem, I was very proud of how he conducted himself in the conversation.  Like many good people being fed only by pravda sources he doubted what I was telling me and invited me to back my assertions up.

Of course I mentioned this thread, AND I bought him Sharyl attkisson's "The Smear"-- which I will be sending him tomorrow.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_sLX8CiJec

[ccp]

Melania would have to be foolish to speak to CNN about anything beyond the weather.  CNN is guaranteed to turn everything she says around on her and make it as negative as possible:

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/cnn-journalist-reveals-melania-trump-194352280.html

[G M]

http://thedeclination.com/modern-media-superiority-complexes-and-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect/

Modern Media, Superiority Complexes, and the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect
by Dystopic | Nov 3, 2017 |

Social media is full of long-winded, acrimonious debates about politics, sociology, cats, etc… It’s enough to make a man seriously consider giving it up completely. My colleague at Liberty’s Torch discussed cutting that particular line earlier, and though I have not done what he did, I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t think about it.  Mostly, the arguments are just for show. People don’t expect to win hearts and minds in them, not really. Rather, it’s often just a virtue signal, or the refilling of narcissistic supply.

A few posts in, and the insults about stupidity, bigotry, Dunning-Kruger, and otherwise will make themselves known. And in them we see the true purpose of many such debates: feeling superior. If you infer that your opponent is a Nazi, you feel morally superior to him. If you call him stupid, you can feel intellectually superior. The bigger the audience, the better, so more people can affirm your superiority over your enemy. The actual issue at hand is rarely as important as these feelings. Find me a Facebook debate, and I can almost guarantee you at least one participant who is engaging in this behavior.

And since no one is really arguing in a dialectical manner (though you will see the word “facts” repeated as mantra for things that aren’t), nothing gets resolved. No new knowledge is gained, no insight or deeper understanding. It is purposeless mental masturbation. It certainly doesn’t make one an intellectual, or more intelligent.

What I’ve come to realize is that this behavior on social media is a microcosm for our society at large. The same behavior applies at the highest levels of media and politics. Most of these people have no idea what they are talking about, even most of the so-called experts (contrary to Tom Nichols’ assessment of political expertise). Find me an expert pilot, and we can go through his records, how many hours he’s logged, on what aircraft, and with what results. It is demonstrable. There is no similar metric for media talking heads, especially where results are concerned. And for politics, and measure of this is bound to be skewed by the political views of its members, such that our reliance upon it is already suspect.
This leads to an environment of low accountability. Oh, sure, if a man like Dan Rather gets snookered by some fake memos very publicly, the house of cards can fall down on him. But the mistake has to be high profile enough and, paradoxically, covered by the media enough, for it to get out in the first place.
Michael Crichton explained the problem as the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect. Observe:
Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I call it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.)
 
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
 
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
 
That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I’d point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all.
 
But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn’t. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.

A combination of superficial understanding and political narratives results in articles and news programs that make no sense. The percentage of the problem attributable to either feature varies widely from case-to-case. Sometimes it is blatantly political, and it cannot be explained by ignorance. Other times, it is probably best explained with stupidity. Most cases are probably a little of both. The media and its supporters, meanwhile, are quite blind to this. I came across this gem this afternoon, and it made me laugh out loud for the sheer stupidity of it:



lolol

The amusing thing is how easy this is to disprove. A quick glance at the SAT scores of incoming college students, broken down by major, is sufficient to reveal the error (see page 13 here). Of the STEM majors, all outscored journalists (see: engineering, physical sciences, mathematics, computer/information sciences). Some did so by staggering margins (see: mathematics). That the author of that tweet couldn’t be bothered to check his work, when claiming high intellect, is actually pretty damned hilarious. It’s enough to make me wonder if the guy is secretly trolling.
Anyway, point is, try Michael Crichton’s test for yourself. It’s something I’ve spoken of before – I just lacked the convenient name for it. Talk to other people who have done the same for different subjects, people you trust. You’ll soon see just how wrong the media is. Trump frequently calls CNN fake news, but in reality pretty much every outlet I’ve seen is full of shit to greater or lesser degree. Sometime I’d like to see a counter for how many times individual journalists have been caught in lies, or made serious mistakes driven by stupidity and ignorance.
These are the same people who, like the randoms on Facebook, want to demonstrate how enlightened they are, how wise, all-knowing, and progressive. They have a bigger podium, of course, and more spectators. But the motivations are similar enough. It’s all about appearances and narcissistic supply. It all boils down to a statement even a toddler could understand, and likely hears frequently on the playground. “I’m better than you! Neener-neener!” But they aren’t willing to do the work. They all expected Hillary Clinton to win, right up until she didn’t. Never forget how badly they called that election. If you get amnesia about their smaller mistakes, at least hold on to that one. They pretend to expert status. Meanwhile Trump, the supposedly stupid bigot, baits them like a matador. It’s comical how he plays them.

They want so desperately to shout down this man. I once thought it was because of his immigration policies – and I have no doubt that was a major factor, at least at first. But I’ve come to realize that there’s a deeper reason. He makes them look like idiots. He hurts their egos. Because, deep down, they know they aren’t the superior intellects they pretend to be. They know they are fake news. And he not only sees through them, he’s exposed them as frauds in front of the world. This they cannot forgive, or forget.

[G M]

http://thedeclination.com/the-spin-doctor-is-in-the-house/

The Spin Doctor is in the House
by Dystopic | Nov 8, 2017 | Culture War |

It’s been a crazy last few days, hasn’t it? Before we get into the meat of today’s entry, I want to express both my sorrow for those who died in the Texas shooting, and my deep respect for the men who fought back against the shooter and ran him down. You may kill people in Texas, if you are evil enough and determined enough, but know that Texas will kill you back. The two men who fought back did so quickly and decisively, before more lives could be lost. As for those who died in the shooting, I can only say that a just and true God awaits them. He knows His own. Others have said more, and said it better than I can, so I will leave it at that, for now.

Something else has been on my mind for a while as well. Rand Paul was recently attacked by a neighbor while out mowing his lawn. The neighbor broke 5 of his ribs, such was the fury of the assault. But that isn’t what bothers me per se. While I generally like Rand Paul (and that’s significant praise from me – I loathe most politicians), this hardly ascends to the level of the Scalise shooting, right? Well… kind of, in a different way. Check out this article:

Rand Paul is not a perfect neighbor, says community developer

First off, HOAs are generally as loathsome as any other political entity (which is what they are, don’t let them claim otherwise). But this is a fascinating bit of spin. Rand is not a “perfect” neighbor. Note the choice of words. My friends, none of us are perfect neighbors. I’m sure I do things that irritate some of my neighbors, and they have done things that irritate me from time-to-time, though I am generally blessed with neighbors who are very good people. Mostly, we all get along anyway. Hell, some of them are even good friends (and yes, it is still possible to irritate your good friends sometimes, too).

Point is nobody is perfect. Lack of perfection by no means excuses the actions of Rand’s neighbor. It counts for nothing at all. Zero. Zilch. So why mention it?

Dear readers, the spin doctor is in the house. It’s time to make the attack on Rand look, if not excusable, then at least less bad. This is media and its allies in politics
conducting damage control. They can imply that, oh maybe the neighbor shouldn’t have attacked Rand BUT and then insert a long stream of excuses that diminishes the impact of the crime. Let us fisk a few of these, shall we?

The history between U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and his neighbor, who is accused of attacking him, is filled with years of angst and petty arguments over misplaced lawn trimmings and branches, the neighborhood’s developer said.

Ah yes. Misplaced lawn trimmings and branches excuse violence. What? Note that it doesn’t even mention who was misplacing the trimmings. The piece insinuates that it’s Rand’s fault, because of the not perfect headline, but it stops short of claiming that. This is common media rhetorical technique, such that if it came out that the trimmings were the neighbor’s, and not Rand’s, the journalist can escape by saying he didn’t really claim that.

The two men have been neighbors for more than 17 years, said Boucher’s lawyer, Matt Baker, in a statement Monday.

While there’s no official word on what caused the fight, Skaggs suggested it might have stemmed from Paul allegedly blowing lawn trimmings into his neighbor’s yard.

Again with the weasel wording. Skaggs suggested that it might have allegedly stemmed from this. Yet the inattentive reader is given the picture that Rand was being an asshole. Pure rhetoric. No facts.

There have been disagreements in the past, Skaggs said, over lawn clippings or who should cut down a tree branch when it stretched over a property line. The two men live on different streets but their lots join and their homes are 269 feet apart, according to Google Maps.

Skaggs described Boucher as a “near-perfect” neighbor, but he said the libertarian politician is a different story.

By near perfect, I wonder if Skaggs means ‘shares my political orientation?’ But that is rhetorical supposition, and at least I’ll admit it is.

Paul “was probably the hardest person to encourage to follow the (homeowner’s association regulations) of anyone out here because he has a strong belief in property rights,” said Skaggs, who is the former chairman of the Warren County Republican Party.

Ah. A libertarian-leaning Republican has a strong belief in property rights. Why, what a crime that is! It almost drives a man to break 5 of his ribs! Look carefully at the last bit, however, where the journalist drops “former chairman of the Warren County Republican Party.” This is another rhetorical technique. The author can insinuate that Skaggs’ criticism of Rand is justified because they share a political party, thus deflecting the notion that the criticism is rooted in politics, not substance. But we are not informed if Skaggs is still a Republican, or if he is a liberal Republican, or anything of the sort.

Skaggs noted the 13 pages of regulations are extensive. But even from the start of Paul’s residence in Rivergreen, Skaggs said Paul has been difficult to work with.
“The major problem was getting the house plans approved,” Skaggs said. “He wanted to actually own the property rights and build any kind of house he wanted. He didn’t end up doing that, but it was a struggle.”

So Rand wanted something the HOA was not prepared to approve, but ultimately decided to follow the HOA guidelines. Why, that’s just terrible isn’t it? Why is this even news?

But Rob Porter, a 20-year friend of the senator, said he had never even heard of Boucher before.

“When I saw Rand after the incident, he even acknowledged that he hadn’t talked to Boucher in years,” Porter said. “If there was some kind of ongoing rift, i wasn’t aware of it and Rand didn’t act like he was aware of it.”

At least the author acknowledges this. If there was an ongoing feud, as Skaggs and the author imply, why would no one else be aware of it? But even if there was a feud, how does that justify even slightly attacking Rand that way?

Voter records from March 2017 show Boucher registered as a Democrat, but his lawyer said Monday that politics had nothing to do with the dispute between neighbors.

Boucher’s lawyer, Baker, said he would not comment on what the argument was over until he conducted more interviews with other neighbors.

Somehow, I very much doubt this is true. It sounds like standard lawyer boilerplate.

“We would really like to see this all over and you back in your house and him back in his house and try to be friends with each other, even though you’ll never like each other,” Skaggs said he told Boucher.

This Skaggs guy, if the author is accurately quoting him, is an idiot. How can you “be friends with each other even though you’ll never like each other”? It makes no sense. That is word salad, devoid of any meaning. What I think Skaggs is trying to communicate here is that the neighbors should pretend to be friends, even though they hate each other’s guts. So Skaggs criticizes Rand for being imperfect, but tells the attacker that he’d really like to see everyone just be friends.

And people wonder why I hate HOAs. Too bad they are almost inescapable, short of moving to the country, these days.

[ccp]

A while back I posted how I suspect insiders are being paid off by reporters for dirt on Trump

This story suggests the reporters are paid off by Fusion GPS:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/11/with_reports_of_journalists_taking_cash_from_fusion_gps_is_it_any_wonder_the_media_isnt_trusted.html

Bribery  in the news business ..  nah............

This fusion GPS is like a mafia crime business that is running all over DC doing the dirty work mostly for the DNC /Clintons/ and the vast Left wing conspiracy (not sure if the never Trump boys involved as well)

[G M]

https://www.redstate.com/arbogast/2017/11/08/observe-how-the-media-describes-stephen-willefords-firearm-vs-devin-kelley/

Observe How The Media Describes Stephen Willeford’s Firearm Vs. Devin Kelley
Posted at 10:55 pm on November 8, 2017 by Carl Arbogast


 
 
It must pain some members of the press to have to report on Stephen Willeford. Willeford, a certified NRA instructor, prevented Devin Kelley from killing more people in a Sutherland Hills, Texas church. Willeford, who lived next door, heard the gunshots and responded. Sutherland fired at Kelley who, like a coward, dropped his gun and ran.

If there’s anything the media hates, it’s a story about a good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun. Worse for them is knowing the guy is an NRA instructor. But it goes further than that. Looking through the stories about Willeford, a pattern emerges in their reporting.

Here are some examples. CNN:

When Devin Patrick Kelley opened fire inside First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs on Sunday, Stephen Willeford, who lives near the church, grabbed his own gun and ran out of the house barefoot to confront the gunman.
USA Today:

Willeford said he had very little time to think Sunday when his daughter told him about the shooting. He loaded his magazine and ran across the street to the church, not even taking the time to put on shoes. When Willeford saw the gunman, he exchanged gunfire.
Huffington Post:

Willeford said he grabbed his rifle from a safe and ran barefoot to the church when his daughter told him about the shooting. Once there, he confronted 26-year-old gunman Devin Patrick Kelley and the two traded gunfire.
NPR:

Willeford says his daughter alerted him to what sounded like shots being fired at the nearby First Baptist Church. That is when, he said, he got his rifle out of his safe.
Inside Edition:

Willeford said he was at home in Sutherland Springs when his daughter heard gunfire at the church. He grabbed his rifle, loaded it and ran barefoot to the church.
Notice what Willeford is using? A rifle. A gun.

 
 
What they don’t tell you is Willeford used an AR-15. That’s right. One of those “military-style assault weapons” they’re always crowing about.

Do you see how it is? Nearly every story about Kelley talked about the type of gun he used and naturally, the stories were punctuated by describing the gun as “military style” and an “assault weapon.” But Willeford just used a gun. Or a rifle.

Here’s a Google search of “Devin Kelley military style” and just look at the host of stories that come up describing his rifle that way.

Should we expect anything different from the press?

[ccp]

" Worse for them is knowing the guy is an NRA instructor  "

Rush had a quiz question :

what is the one thing that all the mass murderers had in common?

someone called in to guess if it is that NONE of them were NRA members.

Rush said that is exactly the right answer

[ccp]

laws were enforced during Obama :

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453652/new-york-times-immigration-enforcement-fairy-tale

 

[ccp]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/11/15/fox-news-shepherd-smith-debunks-his-networks-hillary-clinton-scandal-story-infuriates-viewers/?utm_term=.e4331e46126d

yeah right Shep .  And Reagan caused the spread of aids

your agenda is obvious and wrong.

[DougMacG]

ccp, Clinton crime family thread:
"Seth Rich"
the man who out of no where was shot in the back during a robbery attempt
and then NOT robbed
almost zero mention about it by the "drive by's"
-----------------------------------------------------------
That brings us to Michelle Malkin, Silence on the Sleaze, column today.

Regarding early accusations on Roy Moore, I told someone who reads, watches and listens to news everyday that there is a sitting Senator indicted, charged and on trial right now for corruption.  I got a blank stare back.  She hadn't heard a word and I wouldn't tell her.  I let her google it and see for herself.

https://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2017/11/15/silence-on-sleazebob-menendez-n2409548

Silence on Sleaze-Bob Menendez
Michelle Malkin Michelle Malkin |Posted: Nov 15, 2017
Silence on Sleaze-Bob Menendez
 
Michelle Malkin
Silence on Sleaze-Bob Menendez

The verdict is in.

I pronounce Democrat leaders, left-wing feminists and Beltway journalists guilty of gross negligence and hypocrisy over a dirty rotten sleazeball in their midst.

For the past 11 weeks, Bob Menendez has been on trial for 18 counts of bribery, fraud and corruption involving nearly $1 million in gifts and donations. The jury remained deadlocked as of Tuesday. A new Media Research Center analysis reported that ABC, CBS and NBC devoted 40 times more of their morning and evening TV newscast coverage this past week to Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore's alleged sexual assault accusers than to the ongoing federal trial of one of the Democrats' most powerful, visible and entrenched figures on Capitol Hill.

Four years ago, when the FBI raided the Florida home of creepy Democratic donor and eye doctor Salomon Melgen, Menendez suddenly remembered that he had failed to pay back his "hermano" $60,000 for private-jet flights to the Caribbean -- where Melgen owns a tony home in the private Casa de Campo resort.

As the party-boy buds tell it, their two decades of favor-trading were innocent, brotherly acts of affection. That little reimbursement thing for joy rides shuttling Menendez, his girlfriend, his son and his son's office manager around the world? It "fell through the cracks," the former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and lawyer explained.

Oopsie.

As government investigators discovered, the "friendship" entailed much more than backslaps and beach nights. Melgen was convicted this spring on 67 counts of massive Medicare fraud totaling $90 million. Prosecutors allege Menendez and his staff pulled strings and put pressure on public officials to back off Melgen's billing blow-up. Menendez asserts he did nothing illegal and acted not out of obligation to a high-dollar donor, but because of his sincere policy concerns about how Medicare is run.

How noble.

My favorite M&M production involves what I dubbed the 36DD visa program. This is not in dispute: Menendez and his staff pressured the State Department to expedite the foreign tourist and student visa approval processes for a bevy of buxom foreign beauties. One of them, Brazilian actress and porn pinup star Juliana Lopes Leite (a.k.a. "Girlfriend 1"), had her F-1 student visa application moved to the top of the pile in 2008 after Menendez and his staff intervened as a favor to model-lovin' Melgen.

Another, Rosiell Polanco-Suera, testified that her rejected visa application (along with her sister's) received reconsideration and instant approval after Melgen promised to "fix it" by reaching out to Menendez.

Flying the crony skies on taxpayer time. Systematically bilking sick old people. Turning America's visa programs into an international dating app for Dem donors.

Ho-hum.

Top Democrat leaders, so quick to call for the resignation of GOP candidates convicted in the court of public opinion, remain noncommittal about where they'll stand if Menendez is convicted. Liberal media partisans are deliberately ignoring the story because they are incapacitated by Trump Derangement Syndrome. Women's advocates looked the other way at Justice Department court filings on "specific, corroborated allegations that defendants Menendez and Melgen had sex with underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic."

The collective silence on Sleaze-Bob -- busy raising more than $6 million for his re-election campaign and legal defense fund -- roars louder than Melgen's private jet engines.

Turns out "The Resistance" can't and won't resist a crapweasel when Democratic Party coffers and the balance of power in Washington are at stake.

[DougMacG]

I hear plenty of like minded people calling the mainstream media liberal.  But when do we stop calling them "mainstream".

Previous post:  "A new Media Research Center analysis reported that ABC, CBS and NBC devoted 40 times more of their morning and evening TV newscast coverage this past week to Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore's alleged sexual assault accusers than to the ongoing federal trial of one of the Democrats' most powerful, visible and entrenched figures on Capitol Hill."

Other studies, NYT and networks 93+% negative on Trump.  

I don't watch cable but CNN is on and in view right now in a semi-public area (an inner-city McDonalds).  All of their banners are one-sided, no attempt at balance.  The sound is off, just banners programming people.

When do we stop calling Fox conservative and the others mainstream, using the language of the Left?  Conservative is a synonym for non-partisan, common sense, only partisan when people attack common sense and the American Creed.  Isn't CNN consistently more on-message partisan-Left than Fox is to the right with their never-Trumpers and Chris Wallace running their signature show?  NYT is no more neutral than Breitbart and no more accurate than PowerlineBlog.  ABC, NBC, CBS could be directed right out of the DNC, and at times have been caught, cf debate questions.  

This is an area where Trump has been successful, and vice versa, his success comes in a big part from calling them out.  But Trump alone is not nearly enough.  We know whi we are and then take them seriously again next time they publish something.

What more can people do?  I don't know but to start with, think like a liberal.  Our side should be writing letters of complaint to companies (the airport commission for example) that put that drivel out there like they are just playing something unbiased as a public service.  If the banners are written for or by the DNC, then half the public should be offended and say so.

Trump is also on the right track name calling them, fake news.  Sarah Palin called them lamestream media, but we need to go further.  Rate them, rank them and label them, and keep it up to date so they have some incentive to improve and so people pointing this out have evidence to point to.  I'm not going to track their hosts, guests and banners 24/7, but I would like to be able to point to a reputable organization that does.

They stole and now own our language.  Socialism should equate with oppression and widespread poverty, economic failure, and these outlets should be labeled socialists to the extent the support that.  CNN and NYT should be labeled as opponents of the administration and the networks labeled propogandists, not news organizations.  In our town the startribune is called the 'red' star', used to be the' star and sickle'.  Some on the right refer to SeeBS, Meet the depressed and deface the nation.  A start but not reaching anyone beyond preaching to the choir. Likewise for Breitbart and Sparta, they aren't about to replace the existing networks and newspaper sites.  The Blaze is putting a product out there...

Who is calling out Harvard, Nobel and the UN every time they are mentioned.  And who is building better institutions to replace them?  (No one.)

What else can we do?

We are 44 internet pages into documenting media abuse of truth and balance.  Now ought to be the time to start doing something about it.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/11/21/new-york-times-columnist-collected-cash-from-zionist-group-he-now-calls-disgrace/
   

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.dailywire.com/news/24015/james-okeefe-tried-sting-wapo-fake-moore-sexual-ben-shapiro?utm_source=shapironewsletter-ae&utm_medium=email&utm_content=112817-news&utm_campaign=modelnames

[DougMacG]

Everyone here already knows that but this thread continues to document it.

http://thefederalist.com/2017/11/28/cant-trust-factcheckers-part-infinity/

This Is Why We Can’t Trust Factcheckers, Part Infinity
It's another op-ed column masquerading as a fact check.
NOVEMBER 28, 2017 By David Harsanyi

During a speech at the Tax Foundation last week, Vice President Mike Pence dropped a meaningless but innocuous political talking point about the U.S. economy. “There are more Americans working today than ever before in American history,” he reportedly said.
----------------------
There all kinds of context issues one could point to minimize the importance of that fact.  All of a f'ing sudden, the Washington Post is concerned about Workforce Participation Rate, and to show the falloff they post and chart only figures prior to Trump Pence taking office.  

"the numbers are technically correct" they admit, so they give him 3 out of 4 Pinocchios.

He made a perfectly true statement and they called it a three alarm lie.  Where were they the last 8 years?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/11/28/pences-claim-that-more-americans-are-working-today-than-ever-before-in-american-history/?utm_term=.5049f4e44d8c
[Don't click on this drivel.]

[ccp]

https://cnnsoc185.wordpress.com/vision-statement/

Anytime Trump stands up to them they scream and holler who he is attacking their first amendment right.  No he is not.  He is not sending in tanks into to Atlanta to shut them down or brown shirts to tear up their presses etc.

Trump has a right to call them on their real mission : to destroy him in any way they can. 

(while promoting leftist dogma)

[DougMacG]

My view:  Good for O'Keefe for going after the originator of the story against Roy Moore, and give credit where due, good for the Washington Post in this case for smelling a rat and putting truth ahead of agenda.

O'Keefe doesn't try very hard to fool his targets.  He tries to leave all kinds of obvious clues for them to overlook so that the viewer will easily judge that they should have known.  He is a risk-taker and this one didn't pan out.

[Crafty_Dog]

Exactly.

[G M]

Judicial Watch and O'Keefe's team are two of the most important groups fighting for freedom in this era of American history.

[ccp]

Just ask this confirmed liar, Mike Hayden...  everyone can say what ever they want - EXCEPT Trump - he should NOT be allowed to speak his mind:

https://pjmedia.com/trending/former-nsa-chief-michael-hayden-steps-attack-trump/

This guy spent 40 yrs for what?  to go to a propaganda outlet like CNN whose mission is to destroy a duly elected President.

 

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/28/magazine/how-far-will-sean-hannity-go.html?emc=edit_ta_20171128&nl=top-stories&nlid=49641193&ref=cta&_r=0

Major article.

[DougMacG]

Waiting for the results, which was the biggest story in 'professional journalism', North Korea now able to reach Washington DC with nuclear warhead missiles or Matt Lauer out?