Table of Contents:
Media Comment: Consumer, Beware: Yisrael Medad, Eli Pollak, Jerusalem Post, Dec. 18, 2019
The Inspector General’s Report on 2016 FBI Spying Reveals a Scandal of Historic Magnitude: Not Only for the FBI but Also the U.S. Media: Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept, Dec. 12 2019
The Real Bias in Cable News Isn’t What You Think: Paul Brandus, MarketWatch, Dec 17, 2019
What Ails the U.S. Press?: Holman W. Jenkins Jr., WSJ, Aug. 2, 2019
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Media Comment: Consumer, Beware
Yisrael Medad and Eli Pollak
Jerusalem Post, Dec. 18, 2019
The Wall Street Journal expressed surprise at its colleagues in the press recently. Dealing with Rep. Adam Schiff – who obtained data from private telecom companies without any judicial order, seemingly abusing his power – the newspaper’s editorial bemoaned that he was not being criticized by the media. Schiff, in an interview, baldly declared “the blowback has only come from the far Right.” On that admission that he was benefiting from a biased media, the paper’s December 8 editorial read: “The same media that howled when the Bush administration gathered metadata to hunt for terrorists is silent when Democrats gather and release it against a conservative journalist and Republicans. Keep this double standard in mind when you next hear media lectures about violating democratic and institutional ‘norms.’
This criticism can also be found in Great Britain. Writing in The Telegraph, Andrew Newman railed against the reality that “the Left continues in control of all of the commanding heights of our political culture,” pleading with newly-reelected Prime Minister Boris Johnson to “fight the battle for British political culture, a struggle…ducked since the fall of Margaret Thatcher… Why is every BBC show so painfully politically correct?… Why does the Civil Service only ever leak in a pro-Remain way?…”
Sadly, this same criticism is valid here in Israel.
Back on December 13, 2014, Benjamin Netanyahu and Amnon (Noni) Mozes conducted a telephone conversation. According to the transcript documents submitted to court, Netanyahu, threatened by Mozes that his Yediot Aharonotmedia conglomerate would work against him, said, “I will not remain apathetic. If it is your mission this or that way to bring about my fall, to the defeat of the Likud… what do you think I will do? Are you leaving me any choice? I’ll need to open up with all the instruments at my disposal… I will not fight back?”
Whatever the outcome of the court proceedings involved in Case 2000, anyone reading this transcript must realize that Yediot Aharonot is not an objective bystander, simply reporting on what it sees, hears or what was surreptitiously passed on in the form of leaked documents or recordings. The “take-and-give” arrangement, whereby a reporter is provided with information and is then expected to find ways to support the supplier, is well-known and its existence has long been admitted.
There is, however, a concern that has sharpened the issue of media bias. The unprofessionalism of journalism nowadays is compounded by the political rigidity of its practitioners. As Tim Black noted in “Spiked,” following the British election, there is an “odd behavior of the mainstream media.” The “basics of journalism – sourcing and verifying stories – have been eclipsed by something else: a thirst for immediate sensation; a hunger for manufactured confrontation; and – most important and unforgivable of all – a staggering credulity. A willingness, that is, to believe something has been said or has happened because it confirms journalists’ prejudices, because it fits their narrative.”
Black continues and bemoans that “members of media establishment have abrogated to themselves the mantle of respectable, truth-seeking journalism,” although fake news “has come from the heart of the media establishment.” Worse, they “have forgotten the role of the journalist. They are no longer reporting and analyzing the news. They are making it. And, all too frequently, they are actually making it up.” And if they aren’t, as Alan Rusbridger wrote in last Saturday’s The Guardian, “you’ll be amazed how readily even the best journalists will repeat unattributable fictions”. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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The Inspector General’s Report on 2016 FBI Spying Reveals a Scandal of Historic Magnitude: Not Only for the FBI but also the U.S. Media
Glenn Greenwald
The Intercept, Dec. 12 2019
JUST AS WAS TRUE when the Mueller investigation closed without a single American being charged with criminally conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election, Wednesday’s issuance of the long-waited report from the Department of Justice’s Inspector General reveals that years of major claims and narratives from the U.S. media were utter frauds.
Before evaluating the media component of this scandal, the FBI’s gross abuse of its power – its serial deceit – is so grave and manifest that it requires little effort to demonstrate it. In sum, the IG Report documents multiple instances in which the FBI – in order to convince a FISA court to allow it to spy on former Trump campaign operative Carter Page during the 2016 election – manipulated documents, concealed crucial exonerating evidence, and touted what it knew were unreliable if not outright false claims.
If you don’t consider FBI lying, concealment of evidence, and manipulation of documents in order to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign to be a major scandal, what is? But none of this is aberrational: the FBI still has its headquarters in a building named after J. Edgar Hoover – who constantly blackmailed elected officials with dossiers and tried to blackmail Martin Luther King into killing himself – because that’s what these security state agencies are. They are out-of-control, virtually unlimited police state factions that lie, abuse their spying and law enforcement powers, and subvert democracy and civic and political freedoms as a matter of course.
In this case, no rational person should allow standard partisan bickering to distort or hide this severe FBI corruption. The IG Report leaves no doubt about it. It’s brimming with proof of FBI subterfuge and deceit, all in service of persuading a FISA court of something that was not true: that U.S. citizen and former Trump campaign official Carter Page was an agent of the Russian government and therefore needed to have his communications surveilled.
Just a few excerpts from the report should suffice to end any debate for rational persons about how damning it is. The focus of the first part of the IG Report was on the warrants obtained by the DOJ, at the behest of the FBI, to spy on Carter Page on the grounds that there was probable cause to believe he was an agent of the Russian government. That Page was a Kremlin agent was a widely disseminated media claim – typically asserted as fact even though it had no evidence. As a result of this media narrative, the Mueller investigation examined these widespread accusations yet concluded that “the investigation did not establish that Page coordinated with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.” … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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The Real Bias in Cable News Isn’t What You Think
Paul Brandus
MarketWatch, Dec 17, 2019
People’s heads explode when they find out that — many years ago — I worked as a television producer at both MSNBC and Fox News. “So what are you?” they’ll invariably ask, meaning am I a far-left, free-stuff-for-everyone loon or a far-right, lying Russian-puppet nut job?
It’s got to be one or the other, you know. At least that’s what folks seem to think, based on questions I’ve gotten for years.
Left-wing loons and right-wing nuts. This is the way Americans are conditioned to think these days. There’s little room for nuance anymore; the last two decades have seen an accelerated erosion of the political middle, with folks identifying wholly with one tribe or another — and shunning those on the other side. Things are getting angrier and nastier, it seems, by the day.
You do know, of course, that we’re paying a price for this. Even as we criticize Washington politicians for their inability to tackle big problems — “compromise” is a dirty word — our own unwillingness to reach out to the other side is fueling everything from workplace stress to broken friendships. One study has claimed that “one in 10 couples (married or unmarried) ended their relationships over political disagreements, with millennials parting ways at a particularly high rate of 22%.”
Many things are accelerating our national divide. Twitter TWTR, +1.10% and Facebook FB, +1.76% are leading culprits, fueling the tribalism that allows us to congregate with only one side — while mocking, belittling and dehumanizing the other.
But Twitter and Facebook are also what I call subsidiary platforms, meaning much of what you find there migrated from elsewhere, notably cable news. Clips from shows rocket around social media, amplifying the views — right or left — of those posting them. Consumers of media today generally aren’t looking to learn from or engage with others. They’re looking for validation of what they want to believe, and the typically anti-Trump MSNBC and the pro-Trump Foxprovide it.
This amplification gives the cable news channels greater influence than they deserve. Why do I say this? Because hardly anyone actually watches these channels to begin with.
Take Tuesday, Dec. 3. It wasn’t exactly a slow news day. The House Judiciary Committee — tasked with drawing up articles of impeachment against President Trump — was gearing up for dramatic testimony from four legal scholars. The president himself, meanwhile, was in London for two days of diplomacy with fellow leaders from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and some socializing with members of the British royal family.
As usual, the three major cable news networks covered it all heavily, with armies of journalists on Capitol Hill, in London and elsewhere trying to dig up whatever scraps of information they could.
But guess what? Hardly anyone watched. In the 4 p.m. hour, Eastern time, that day, for example, the combined audience for Fox New’s Neil Cavuto, CNN’s Jake Tapper and MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace was 4.41 million. In the 9 p.m. hour, Sean Hannity on Fox, Chris Cuomo on CNN and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow pulled in a combined 7.8 million.
Which means that out of a U.S. population of around 328 million, only 1.3% to 2.4% of Americans were tuned in, respectively. While 98% to 99% had better things to do. It’s only the president of the United States being impeached, right? It has only happened twice before! No big deal! … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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What Ails the U.S. Press?
Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
WSJ, Aug. 2, 2019
A timeworn TV commentator and professor of politics, in the moments before Robert Mueller’s testimony began last week on MSNBC, told the audience that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election was an “act of war” by a “sworn enemy of the United States.”
Notice how each word is the sheerest nonsense. There is no forum in which countries “swear” their enemyhood. Congress has not declared war on Russia. Our $27 billion in annual trade with Russia does not implicate thousands of Americans in trading with the enemy. If Russia was behind the hacking of Democratic emails, this is a crime, not an act of war, and has been treated as such by the special counsel. And heaven help us if Facebook ads are an act of war. The U.S. conducts, and has for decades, espionage, disinformation, propaganda and other kinds of influence campaigns in numerous countries around the world. Thankfully we do not consider ourselves at war with them.
Don’t get me wrong. The Russian actions during the election, and especially their flagrancy, were an insult to U.S. power, and likely offered as such. I doubt the Kremlin is much pleased with the result, but a response is still required to deter such actions in the future. But what can it mean when grey-haired commentators are employed to speak childishly of these matters to the public?
Or take a sentence in the New Yorker magazine, known for its care with writing. A staff writer positively disdains any interest in who promoted the Steele dossier or why. “There are questions worth exploring about the Steele dossier, having to do with, say, the transparency of campaign spending. But they are not the questions congressional Republicans are asking,” she sneers.
This evasion is so trite as to have a name: the red-herring fallacy, or pretending to refute an argument by changing the subject. That such a sentence passed muster with an editor is an embarrassment (and no favor to the writer). At least be the truth teller you presumably got into journalism to be, and say you don’t wish to know any truths that might tend to incriminate anyone other than Donald Trump.
Ditto the several cable hosts who shrilly promoted the theory that President Trump was an actual traitor and now, with equal shrillness, insist he’s a traitor for not echoing their partisan exaggerations about Russian meddling. In any other time, this dodge would not be enough to keep them in their jobs.
The U.S. is not in a position to get in a moral snit about such meddling, but we are certainly in a position to exact a price for it, and should. At the same time, let us stop lying to ourselves: 99.99% of the consequential effect of Russia’s low-budget actions arose from the panting eagerness of U.S. partisans to weaponize those actions against their domestic opponents. Indeed, if we were to parse the meanings of the word “collusion,” it would not reflect well on Rep. Adam Schiff, who objectively has been invaluable to any supposed Russian desire to confound and embitter U.S. politics (though my real guess is that Russia wants nothing so much as sanctions lifted, and has only shot its foot off). … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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For Further Reference:
Overwhelming Majority Say Social Media Companies Have Too Much Influence: Poll: The Hill, Dec. 13, 2019 — An overwhelming majority of voters say that social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have too much influence over how people consume their news, according to a nationwide survey released on Friday.
CBC Branded Itself Liberal This Election : Graeme Gordon, The Post Millennial., Oct. 2019 — Several months ago I argued with Quillette editor and National Post contributor Jonathan Kay on Twitter about the inherent bias the CBC has for the “natural governing” Liberal Party of Canada.
The Decline of Print News Is Hurting Us All: Adam Guillette, Washington Examiner, Dec. 11, 2019 — For years, one of the most widely read sections of any newspaper was the obituaries. But judging by a recent Pew Research Center study, we might soon be reading the obituary for print journalism as a whole.
Fake News and Nuclear Weapons Don’t Play Well Together in the South China Sea: James Conca, Forbes, Dec. 17, 2019 — Towards the end of last month, a story began flooding the internet about a nuclear detonation in the South China Sea, that China purportedly had exploded one of their new tactical nukes.
