This might be a worthwhile mention in relation to the recent MSM thread(s).
In recent years when the MSM has gone rogue and got surly toward Democrats, they got their noses swatted. Today, they either believe their own propaganda, or they are just worried about what powerful Democrats might do to them, their jobs, or maybe even their families. Take the Steele Dossier, for example. If this had been a phony dossier surfacing against Obama during a campaign, he would have threatened or intimidated the MSM into silence. How do we know? Because he did it before. He also (nod nod wink wink) spied on allies with cell phone wiretapping. Did this betrayal get a lot of press? Nope (I wonder why). Had Trump done the same thing, there would have been an uproar from the MSM not seen since Watergate (the turning point of the MSM). I posted several times on this board where award-winning, left-leaning Ted Koppel denounced The New York Times and The Washington Post as being one-sided mouthpieces for the Democrat Party (he should have added CNN and all the legacy media).
Still, we see Leftists racing to the MSM for "facts" about political events, and they parrot exactly what they read as though it is gospel. One poster here even considers NYT articles to be "evidence" of any given truth! No consideration of source or content, no balance, just blind acceptance.
I mentioned how RT (an admitted propaganda outlet for the Russian government) is a legitimate source for information, and the Leftist MSM huggers here went into a rage. They barely stopped short of accusing me of being a Russian mole (typical Leftist tactic, to mislabel opponents of being "racist" or traitorous to shame them into silence). I only became aware of RT when the BBC began blacking out news stories on Tommy Robinson - even going so far as blacking out a protest in London that contained hundreds - if not thousands - of protesters, right in front of White Hall! When I mentioned Robinson to Starlight he had to go look him up because he hadn't heard of him before. Successful censorship, I'd say. Granted, RT didn't run the story out of journalistic integrity, their goal is always to paint the west in a bad light and hype up Russia. But when a bad dog bites a criminal, the bad dog performs a service. This is a nuance that the brainwashed have difficulty conceiving.
The MSM is untrustworthy. Often very untrustworthy. It has to be checked and double checked all the time. And the legacy media is slowly becoming obsolete anyway since news can be gathered from many other sources, and vetted through those sources. Unless it gets some guts and starts being objective and showing it is not afraid of Leftist statists, it will continue its slide into oblivion.
An example of intimidation, from 2018 https://apnews.com/article/ffc60235c...47e0da6ff19f95
In recent years when the MSM has gone rogue and got surly toward Democrats, they got their noses swatted. Today, they either believe their own propaganda, or they are just worried about what powerful Democrats might do to them, their jobs, or maybe even their families. Take the Steele Dossier, for example. If this had been a phony dossier surfacing against Obama during a campaign, he would have threatened or intimidated the MSM into silence. How do we know? Because he did it before. He also (nod nod wink wink) spied on allies with cell phone wiretapping. Did this betrayal get a lot of press? Nope (I wonder why). Had Trump done the same thing, there would have been an uproar from the MSM not seen since Watergate (the turning point of the MSM). I posted several times on this board where award-winning, left-leaning Ted Koppel denounced The New York Times and The Washington Post as being one-sided mouthpieces for the Democrat Party (he should have added CNN and all the legacy media).
Still, we see Leftists racing to the MSM for "facts" about political events, and they parrot exactly what they read as though it is gospel. One poster here even considers NYT articles to be "evidence" of any given truth! No consideration of source or content, no balance, just blind acceptance.
I mentioned how RT (an admitted propaganda outlet for the Russian government) is a legitimate source for information, and the Leftist MSM huggers here went into a rage. They barely stopped short of accusing me of being a Russian mole (typical Leftist tactic, to mislabel opponents of being "racist" or traitorous to shame them into silence). I only became aware of RT when the BBC began blacking out news stories on Tommy Robinson - even going so far as blacking out a protest in London that contained hundreds - if not thousands - of protesters, right in front of White Hall! When I mentioned Robinson to Starlight he had to go look him up because he hadn't heard of him before. Successful censorship, I'd say. Granted, RT didn't run the story out of journalistic integrity, their goal is always to paint the west in a bad light and hype up Russia. But when a bad dog bites a criminal, the bad dog performs a service. This is a nuance that the brainwashed have difficulty conceiving.
The MSM is untrustworthy. Often very untrustworthy. It has to be checked and double checked all the time. And the legacy media is slowly becoming obsolete anyway since news can be gathered from many other sources, and vetted through those sources. Unless it gets some guts and starts being objective and showing it is not afraid of Leftist statists, it will continue its slide into oblivion.
An example of intimidation, from 2018 https://apnews.com/article/ffc60235c...47e0da6ff19f95
AP FACT CHECK: Obama doesn’t always tell the straight story
Trump may use extraordinary rhetoric to undermine trust in the press, but Obama arguably went farther — using extraordinary actions to block the flow of information to the public.
The Obama administration used the 1917 Espionage Act with unprecedented vigor, prosecuting more people under that law for leaking sensitive information to the public than all previous administrations combined. Obama’s Justice Department dug into confidential communications between news organizations and their sources as part of that effort.
In 2013 the Obama administration obtained the records of 20 Associated Press office phone lines and reporters’ home and cell phones, seizing them without notice, as part of an investigation into the disclosure of information about a foiled al-Qaida terrorist plot.
AP was not the target of the investigation. But it called the seizure a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into its news-gathering activities, betraying information about its operations “that the government has no conceivable right to know.”
Obama’s Justice Department also secretly dogged Fox News journalist James Rosen, getting his phone records, tracking his arrivals and departures at the State Department through his security-badge use, obtaining a search warrant to see his personal emails and naming him as a possible criminal conspirator in the investigation of a news leak.
Trump may use extraordinary rhetoric to undermine trust in the press, but Obama arguably went farther — using extraordinary actions to block the flow of information to the public.
The Obama administration used the 1917 Espionage Act with unprecedented vigor, prosecuting more people under that law for leaking sensitive information to the public than all previous administrations combined. Obama’s Justice Department dug into confidential communications between news organizations and their sources as part of that effort.
In 2013 the Obama administration obtained the records of 20 Associated Press office phone lines and reporters’ home and cell phones, seizing them without notice, as part of an investigation into the disclosure of information about a foiled al-Qaida terrorist plot.
AP was not the target of the investigation. But it called the seizure a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into its news-gathering activities, betraying information about its operations “that the government has no conceivable right to know.”
Obama’s Justice Department also secretly dogged Fox News journalist James Rosen, getting his phone records, tracking his arrivals and departures at the State Department through his security-badge use, obtaining a search warrant to see his personal emails and naming him as a possible criminal conspirator in the investigation of a news leak.
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