Monday, December 11, 2017

A conspiracy of lies


Glenn Greenwald, famous for breaking the news about Edward Snowden, has published a devastating critique of the US news media in general.  He as good as accuses them of deliberate conspiracy and subterfuge.  Here's an excerpt.

Friday was one of the most embarrassing days for the U.S. media in quite a long time. The humiliation orgy was kicked off by CNN, with MSNBC and CBS close behind, with countless pundits, commentators and operatives joining the party throughout the day. By the end of the day, it was clear that several of the nation’s largest and most influential news outlets had spread an explosive but completely false news story to millions of people, while refusing to provide any explanation of how it happened.

. . .

Think about what this means. It means that at least two — and possibly more — sources, which these media outlets all assessed as credible in terms of having access to sensitive information, all fed the same false information to multiple news outlets at the same time. For multiple reasons, the probability is very high that these sources were Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee (or their high-level staff members), which is the committee that obtained access to Trump Jr.’s emails, although it’s certainly possible that it’s someone else. We won’t know until these news outlets deign to report this crucial information to the public: which “multiple sources” acted jointly to disseminate incredibly inflammatory, false information to the nation’s largest news outlets?

. . .

Thus far, these media corporations are doing the opposite of what journalists ought to do: rather than informing the public about what happened and providing minimal transparency and accountability for themselves and the high-level officials who caused this to happen, they are hiding behind meaningless, obfuscating statements crafted by PR executives and lawyers.

How can journalists and news outlets so flamboyantly act offended when they’re attacked as being “Fake News” when this is the conduct behind which they hide when they get caught disseminating incredibly consequential false stories?

. . .

... what one should expect with journalistic “mistakes” is that they sometimes go in one direction, and other times go in the other direction. That’s exactly what has not happened here. Virtually every false story published goes only in one direction: to be as inflammatory and damaging as possible on the Trump/Russia story and about Russia particularly. At some point, once “mistakes” all start going in the same direction, toward advancing the same agenda, they cease looking like mistakes.

No matter your views on those political controversies, no matter how much you hate Trump or regard Russia as a grave villain and threat to our cherished democracy and freedoms, it has to be acknowledged that when the U.S. media is spewing constant false news about all of this, that, too, is a grave threat to our democracy and cherished freedom.

There's more at the link.

It's hard to argue with Mr. Greenwald's conclusions.  I think we have to accept that the US news media in general are now nothing more than a propaganda arm for political extremism.  That's not just the Democratic Party, either.  It's every progressive, left-wing, liberal cause du jour.  Anything or anyone straying from the path of political correctness is to be attacked and/or silenced - and selective reporting is as bad as censorship, in that it silences voices who think differently.

We are now in an era of deliberate, corporate-sponsored censorship of the news.  If that doesn't scare you, you don't deserve to live in a democracy.

Peter

10 comments:

Stu Garfath. Australia. said...

It scares me. Greatly. For too many reasons I think I know, and far, far more that I don't. Thing is, EXACTLY the same is going on here in Australia. The press is embedded, no, more than that, it is a cellular part of the political party it reports on. There is no truth in the Australian press anymore, it cannot even report the accurate rising of the sun.

Farm.Dad said...

" If that doesn't scare you, you don't deserve to live in a democracy."
Point of fact Peter ... You and I don't live in one nor would I want to .

StarTripper said...

The other interesting thing about a false story coming out from several sources at once is it could be part of a sting operation to find the leakers.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/12/09/the-new-fbi-agency-everyone-forgot-did-adam-schiff-just-get-caught-in-an-elaborate-counterintelligence-sting/

Bruce said...

For a very long time getting into politics was the way to power for liberals. If you wanted to change the world, you went to Congress. See Hillary Clinton - she went to Congress as a staffer back in the 70's. Today, if you want power, if you want to change the world, you have to get on TV, so you go to journalism school and go to work in the media. That's caused a shift in power for the liberals. It used to be that Congress (and to a lesser extent when they had it, the Executive branch) was the center of power for the Democrat party, with the media as the willing accomplices and supporters. Today, the media is the center of power for the Democrat party, with the politicians as willing accomplices.

Bibliotheca Servare said...

What you said, Farm.Dad. I'll pick a republic over a mob-ruled "democracy" every time. Still agree with Mr. Grant's point, though. Whether it's corporate (that is, voluntary) or state-sponsored, deliberate censoring and manipulation of the news is a very bad thing in a republic, or a democracy.

Bob M said...

You ask:
"How can journalists and news outlets so flamboyantly act offended when they’re attacked as being “Fake News”....."

Easy. Read Vox day's books, "SJW's always Lie", and "SJW's always double down".

Those books pretty much describe the type of enemy America is acing today.

Margaret Ball said...

Oh, it scares me plenty. Whenever I wonder how the media can lie and lie and not collapse, I'm reminded of a Big Lie that didn't fail until a sufficient number of divisions defeated it, and.... Hey! Those liars were Nazis! Can I now screech that the lying media are Just Like Nazis and Worse Than Hitler? Please pretty please?

Tom in NC said...

scares me as well - it is a VERY slippery slope wen the press starts choosing sides. Thank goodness there are so many alternate channels these days - definitely up to the individual to read as much as they can and figure out what might be the real story... sad that there are way too many that just eat up what the MSM says and take it on face value without any critical thought. But there is a great dearth of critical thought in this country at this point.

McChuck said...

In breaking news, water is wet.

The news has been lying, hiding, and pushing the desired narrative for decades. Walter Cronkite lost the Vietnam war for us. Every news item they publish is slanted towards helping the ruling party. Every happening that runs counter to the narrative is file 86'd or slanted and spun to tell the opposite of the truth.

The only question remaining is - who has the whipping hand? Who organizes all of this? Congressmen and broadcasters all repeating the same talking points at the same time indicates some guiding hand - whose is it? One of my friends believes that the news has the whipping hand. I think they are both the tools of some force that moves behind the scenes - the inner party, if you will.

Post Alley Crackpot said...

"I get my news from rumours and small children, they're more reliable."
-- from the 1980s ABC (US) television show "Sledge Hammer"

:-)