Friday, November 9, 2018

Why We Know The Media Lies

The media lies to push its agenda. We know this. How do we know? Some thoughts.

Let's start with something basic. The media tells its stories very selectively shading the truth, hiding facts and distorting the picture. For example, Muslims shootup a bar screaming about Allah and the media goes out of their way to wonder what the motive could possibly be. They don't even mention that these guys are Muslims until the last possible second. Conversely, a white guy does it because he's crazy and the media zeroes in on their racism narrative. You can't trust people who distort the telling of facts like that.

Last night's football game had a great example. Eric Reid, one of the two big kneelers (and one of the only ones left in the league) took a cheap shot at Ben Roethlisberger. As QB Roethlisberger was sliding, Reid dove about as low as humanly possible and tried to place his elbow and shoulder into Roethlisberger's helmet. His aim was off, but he still connected, snapping the QB's head back. He was rightly ejected from the game. A leftist reporter, who normally screams about cheap shots and how the NFL doesn't protect QB's heads enough, wrote about this in a way which totally downplayed it. He wrote, "Reid tried to go over Roethlisberger but glanced his helmet with his shoulder." This is basically a lie. Reid aimed right for him, he didn't try to go over him. Reid also went late, long after Ben started sliding -- something not mentioned by the sports reporter. And it wasn't a glance, it was a solid hit that snapped Ben's head back, another fact omitted. Why distort like this? Because the reporter's made Reid into a hero for kneeling. Said differently, because he wants to protect Reid, he wrote a story that paints a completely false picture.

How can you trust a media that does this routinely?

Let's consider another example. Trump called the caravan an invasion. The media scoffed. This is just one little group of people they said condescendingly. Then a second and third and fourth caravan followed. They barely covered those and none of them admitted that this looks more and more like a mass migration than just "one little group of people." A week in, one of them even spilled the beans by writing, "these caravans happen all the time. This one is only a big deal because Trump chose to make it news." IN other words, while accusing Trump of scaremongering by saying this was mass migration, they failed to report that they knew this was mass migration. And while they claimed this was only one little caravan, they knew it was part of a never-ending train of caravans.

Today, we have more. Trump said that this group was not just mothers and kids from Honduras. He said it was full of people from all kinds of countries. "Paranoid!" screamed the media. "Why, I've seen(looked) for no evidence that those people exist!" Well, today, the AP has a glowing article about how it's not just Latins coming through Mexico anymore. Nope. It's Arabs, blacks from Africa and Asians too. Isn't that great?! It's easier to come in that way than the legal way. In other words, while calling Trump a liar, they knew he was right and they were lying.

Again, how can you trust these people after that?

NBC withheld evidence that one of Kavanaugh's accusers had recanted her tale and accused Michael Avenatti of lying. They routinely withhold claims of scandal against liberals until after elections. They "fact check" away bad facts against liberals as they report them, but keep reporting known false "facts" against conservatives. Yahoo will run with debunked anti-conservative stories up to three days later.

Again, how can you trust these people?

Don't forget the absolutely uncritical manner in which they report false claims like this supposed vast number of black men killed by cops. Name them. They repeat this lie that women make less than men, which isn't true for most women and is reversed for young women. Why? Because they want these groups upset. Now they are posting videos of idiots saying racist things. How is that news It isn't unless you want to create a narrative... and with bodycams on cops killing the "I am victim" argument, they need a new narrative.

And let's not forget that surveys show that media types tend to be liberal in the 90% range. They donate to Democrats in the 95% range. And many of them are from the revolving door between Democratic campaigns and the media. That kind of profile would be considered hopelessly biased in any other field, yet we're supposed to believe they can be fair? Hardly.

The media cannot be trusted. This is why.

9 comments:

tryanmax said...

Here's yet another example. Just yesterday, multiple outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and BuzzFeed all issued articles claiming that Trump had fallen silent on the migrant caravan with the insinuation that it was all to generate election buzz. Yet on the same day, Trump issued new regulations to the asylum process, the very action he promised to take in response to the migrants. And if that isn't enough, many of the same outlets are reporting that the new policies were announced today, which is verifiably false.

On a related note, I've noticed that a lot of reports now say that Trump or some other official has made a statement "without evidence." The implication is that no evidence exists, but as with the case of several of the items in your article today, evidence does exist. What the reporters are instead saying is that Trump or whoever did not include citations with his statement. This is obnoxious for two reasons. One, generally people only include citations in their speech in highly formal situations. Two, normally if a high ranking official says something, they ARE the source.

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, I noticed the "fallen silent" claim. Interestingly, in the articles where I saw it, they said it in a very conspiratorial manner, but never told you what that was supposed to me. It was just supposed to sound ominous.

I didn't see the "without evidence" thing, but that doesn't surprise me at all. Set up a fake standard that no one has ever been held to and then ignore it when the Democrats speak. It's the same way Trump's words are attacks or offensive or over the top, whereas similar words by Democrats are described as "responses" or "counters."

Anthony said...

Don't shoot the messenger. Trump lies constantly about things large and small. If he wants to push a narrative or start a discussion he says what he needs to to get the reaction he wants.

Trump supporters tend to speak out of both sides of their mouths on the subject. They simultaneously celebrate Trump's tendency to determine and shape debate with lies and inflammatory statements (Ha, ha, it was a lie, but it worked and no one cares!) and at the same time act affronted when Trump's words or motives are questioned (How dare you question the word of the President!).

Here's Fox News pointing out what Trump is saying now contradicts what he said to them last month.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-tweets-defense-of-whitaker-appointment-from-paris

President Trump continued Friday to defend his choice of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general following the resignation of Jeff Sessions earlier in the week.
In a series of late-night tweets from Paris, Trump seemed to continue statements he made in Washington earlier in the day in defense of Whitaker, who served as Sessions' chief of staff until his boss resigned Wednesday at the request of the president.

Just before leaving for Paris, where he will take part in events commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, Trump said he “didn’t know” Whitaker but the former U.S. attorney from Iowa was “highly thought of."
His remarks contradicted comments he made on Fox News last month when he said Whitaker was a "great guy" and "I mean, I know Matt Whitaker."

END QUOTE

AndrewPrice said...

You'll all be happy to know that according to Time, the blue wave finally arrived now that more elections have been called and the Democrats finally beat the average turnover. LOL!

At the same time, the AP ran an article yesterday that claimed that no one had ever won more seats than the Democrats did in this election. That's bizarrely false.

tryanmax said...

Anthony, just because a news outlet characterizes two tangentially related statements as “contradictory” doesn’t make the characterization true. Trump regularly says he “doesn’t know” people he works with or are prominent public figures. Obviously, he means something other than pure ignorance of them. I’ve also never seen any figure who is so routinely quoted in two word phrases. If your BS detector isn’t set off by that, it’s broken.

Anthony said...

Tryanmax,

The problem isn't Trump claiming he doesn't know one of his subordinates (that would be reasonable) it is that Trump stated he knew Whitaker and he was a great guy one month, then stated he didn't know him the next month.

tryanmax said...

Anthony, that the president said he knew someone one day and on a subsequent day said he didn't know him is a clear, contextual clue to reasonable people that he must in the second case mean something besides total ignorance of that person. Either that, or the press is covering for Trump's senility by passing it off as compulsive lying.

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony, The media is selling you "corporate speak" as some form of genuine truth and then trying to turn that into lies when it gets undone. Every CEO says, "Gee, Bob ('uh, that's Ted sir,') Ted... Ted is one of the finest men I know and he will run the X division like a champion." In the real world, no one really takes that statement to mean that the CEO knows Ted. He only knows what his executive team tells him about this guy.

The media has been doing this all along. They take pleasantries, courtesies, corporate speak, jokes, and dicta and pretend that this was some sort of oath by Trump and then scream bloody murder when it turns out it really isn't a nice day or someone doesn't look nice in that hat or Trump doesn't remember them from a party twenty years ago, etc. He's a liar!! No, the media is.

This is a trick they've been doing for years. They also play the game of treating Republican hyperbole seriously and whining about how dangerous or stupid this makes the GOP while dismissing Democratic hyperbole as just hyperbole.

Anthony said...

Tryanmax and Andrew,

Its worth keeping in mind that Whitaker was the chief of staff of Sessions so of course Trump and Whitaker sometimes came in contact with each other. Nobody expected absolute ignorance of Whitaker.

A question about Whitaker was posed to Trump by Fox News in the aftermath of a report by the Washington Post that Trump was planning on firing Sessions and replacing him with Whitaker. Trump didn't reply but stated he knew Whitaker well and he was a great guy.

Down the line once the move was announced, suddenly he decided he didn't know Whitaker. I can see why in response to the mild controversy Trump decided ignorance was the best defense, but the first claim makes a lot more sense than the second.

If its a lie CEOs or whatever tell all the time fine, but Trump knew he was speaking on a firing that would generate a mild controversy (Trump clearly hates Session's guts for recusing himself from the Russia probe so the firing was inevitable) so it would have made sense for Trump to pick one position and stick with it.

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