A Tsunami of Fake News Supporting the Political Left (and Right)

Andrew Sullivan offers a long litany of stories that the left-leaning legacy media got extremely wrong. So incredibly wrong that it reveals more than journalistic malpractice. It reveals a news media industry that treats its readers like children who it thinks are incapable of making good decisions based on complex real life evidence. It’s a new media that systematically makes shit up and hides stories that run counter to its narrative, its mission, which on the left side of the news media is to elect Democrats. It is the mirror image of FOX on the right. Both of these news “teams” violate many of the journalism rules of ethics promulgated by the Society of Professional Journalists. For instance,

– Take responsibility for the accuracy of their work. Verify information before releasing it. Use original sources whenever possible.
– Provide context. Take special care not to misrepresent or oversimplify in promoting, previewing or summarizing a story.
– Avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information unless traditional, open methods will not yield information vital to the public.
– Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable. Give voice to the voiceless.
– Support the open and civil exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.
– Recognize a special obligation to serve as watchdogs over public affairs and government. Seek to ensure that the public’s business is conducted in the open, and that public records are open to all.

On the Democrat news media, recently concocted stories described by Sullivan involve:
Kyle Rittenhouse:

Money quote from the defense lawyer: “It wasn’t until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on him, with your gun (and your hands down) pointed at him, that he fired? Right?” To which Grosskreutz answered: “Correct.” Here’s how the NYT first described this a year ago, on August 26: “Video footage from the scene of the shooting appears to show Mr. Rittenhouse running and then firing his gun, striking a man in the head. He then flees and is chased by bystanders before tripping, falling to the ground and shooting another man.”

Here are many examples of how the news media are intentionally (or at least recklessly) misunderstanding the rule of law and our system of justice relevant to Rittenhouse.   One of the favorite tactics of Democrat media is to mention that Rittenhouse is “white” (how is this relevant?) while failing to mention that the three people he shot are also “white” (what’s good for the goose . . . ) (See here and here). You might rightly think that the news media is revving up conflict pornography (stoking race conflict) in order to sell advertisements.

Other recent wretched excuses for journalism include:

Almost everything reported on the left about Trump and Russia, Rachel Maddow doing disgraceful reporting on this topic for years – See here and here.
Claims about the Covington Boys;
Claims that there were bounties on U.S. Soldiers;
Claims that the Lab-Leak origin of COVID was a conspiracy theory;
Claims regarding the motives of the Pulse Mass Shooting and the Atlanta spa shooter;
Claims that attacks on Asian-Americans were by “white supremacists,” when they were “disproportionately by African Americans and the mentally ill;
The claim that Officer Sicknick’s skull was savagely bashed in with a fire extinguisher by a pro-Trump mob until he died;
The claim that a laptop was not property of Hunter Biden but, rather, it was Russian disinformation;
The claim that inflation was not increasing dramatically;
The claim that vaccines would end the pandemic;
The claims that ideology stemming from critical race theory isn’t in high schools and grade schools when CRT teachings are being pushed in hundreds of schools and school districts.

[I added links to these items listed by Andrew Sullivan]. I could add a few more things to his list.  For instance, from the NYT/NPR/WP center of the news universe we heard almost nothing about extensive nightly riots and looting in the wake of George Floyd’s killing.  Rather, we were told about the “mostly peaceful protests.”  More specifically, it was as though Seattle CHAZ/CHOP and Portland Oregon didn’t exist.

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[Some additional material added here Nov 28, 2021]

What all of these examples have in common is this:  The two competing media “teams” (FOX v. Left wing media outlets MSNBC/NPR/WP/NYT/CNN) have settled on narratives that guide them every day.  They look for stories that fit their narratives.  When a fact doesn’t fit the narrative, they ignore the story or they grunt out a little turd of a story that severely downplays the facts.  Consider these two examples.  When Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people, left-leaning news outlets made sure that they mentioned he was “white” and they conspicuously and repeatedly refused to mention that the three people who shot were also “white.” Instead, they mentioned that Rittenhouse shot three protestors at the BLM rally, giving the impression that Rittenhouse shot three “black” people, which bolstered the unwarranted “white supremacist” label that they repeatedly slapped on Rittenhouse.

Compare to the horrific incident in Waukesha, where a man driving a big SUV plowed through a parade, killing six people and sending 62 “white” people to the hospital.  That driver happened to be a “black” man who apparently expressed violent racist intentions and who supported BLM.  This presents a dilemma for the left leaning media, because it threatens their narratives regarding criminal justice and “racial reckoning.” They solved it by downplaying the incident.  Today, CNN noted that Waukesha marked the one-week anniversary of the tragedy.  Note how the assailant is described to be “a car.”

Screen Shot 2021 11 28 at 5.03.59 PM

How do media outlets get away with these distortions lies and corruption?  Here’s my simplistic answer:

Brandolini’s law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, is an internet adage which emphasizes the difficulty of debunking false, facetious, or otherwise misleading information: “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it.”

Here my more detailed lament.

Andrew Sullivan’s article is titled: “When All The Media Narratives Collapse: In case after case, the US MSM just keeps getting it wrong.” As Sullivan notes, all of these false stories he listed favored Democrats.

Sullivan, sounding demoralize, concludes:

And at some point, you wonder: what narrative are they pushing now that is also bullshit? One comes to mind: the assurance that the insane amount of debt we have incurred this century is absolutely nothing to be concerned about because interest rates are super-low and borrowing more and more now is a no-brainer. But when inflation spikes and sets off a potential spiral in wages to catch up, will interest rates stay so quiescent? And if interest rates go up, how will we service the debt so easily?

I still rely on the MSM for so much. I still read the NYT first thing in the morning. I don’t want to feel as if everything I read is basically tilted through wish-fulfillment, narrative-proving, and ideology. But with this kind of record, how can I not?

We need facts and objectivity more than ever. Trump showed that. What we got in the MSM was an over-reaction, a reflexive overreach to make the news fit the broader political fight. This is humanly understandable. It is professionally unacceptable. And someone has got to stop it.

[Added Nov 15, 2021]

Here’s the “news media” getting it extremely wrong once again, a few days ago, on the Rittenhouse case, on of the ubiquitous intentional/reckless articles we are seeing from the Official Democrat News Media:

Ritten

The NYP quotes Andrew Sullivan:

Some mistakes are natural, but “when the sources of news keep getting things wrong, and all the errors lie in the exact same direction, and they are reluctant to acknowledge error, we have a problem,” warns Andrew Sullivan at his Substack. Agenda-driven reporting on the Kenosha shootings “effectively excluded the possibility that [Kyle] Rittenhouse was a naive, dangerous fool . . . who, in the end, shot assailants in self-defense,” so testimony that he did just that “came as a shock.”

Bonus Evidence: When Barack Obama visited Mount Rushmore, CNN described Obama’s visit:

“Obama arrived there late last night and got a good look around Mount Rushmore — it’s quite a sight if you haven’t seen it,” said CNN anchor Rob Marciano.

“Barack Obama is in South Dakota today. He arrived there last night. Take a look at this. He got a good glimpse of the majestic Mount Rushmore,” fellow CNN anchor Betty Nguyen said later in the same broadcast.

A few days later, CNN’s Jim Acosta described Obama’s visit to Mount Rushmore like this: “It’s a fitting campaign stop for a presidential contender looking to make history. Standing before Mount Rushmore over the weekend, Barack Obama was asked whether he sees his face joining the likes of Washington and Lincoln.”

When Donald Trump visited Mount Rushmore, CNN had this to say:

“President Trump will be at Mt. Rushmore where he’ll be standing in front of a monument of two slave owners and on land wrestled away from Native Americans told that [they are] focusing on the effort to, quote, tear down our country’s history,” reported CNN Leyla Santiago on The Lead with Jake Tapper.

[Added Nov 17 2021]

greenwald 1

Last year I would have thought that Glenn Greenwald’s rhetoric (below) was over the top, shrill, hyperbole. No longer. I’m there too after seeing the unending flow of false news–fake news–from the left.

Virtually everyone who ends up having first-hand experience with the national media realizes they’re amoral liars and smear artists with no scruples, who publish and broadcast things constantly that have no relationship to the truth. And the public knows this, too

On the national level, many news outlets that I formerly trusted no longer deserved any trust. I trust no outlet, whether it be FOX or any of the “good guys” on the political left, who have abandoned all of the principles they were ever taught in J school and now see themselves as servants of their favorite political party.

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[Added Feb 13, 2022]

I accepted Greenwald’s challenge. As of Feb 13 at 4pm Central Time, there is zero coverage of this story by any of the following: NYT, WaPo, MSNBC, CNN or NPR.

Screen Shot 2022 02 13 at 3.43.38 PM

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 25 Comments

  1. Avatar of Bill Heath
    Bill Heath November 15, 2021 Reply

    This is no surprise to anyone not living under a rock. The Kleptocrats have no interest in anything except accumulating wealth and prestige. The Biden Gang has been selling its soul since 1970; The Clinton gang is a relative newcomer. Trump was all about accumulating prestige, and the Bushes were slaves to “keep the bubble going.”

    Milton wrote Satan’s soliloquy delivered to the lesser Angel Beelzebub, in which he states “It is better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven.” In Hell, one is subordinate to no one, but in Heaven one is subordinate to God. The fundamental flaw is that Satan does not actually believe what he is saying, but can count on Beelzebub acting as though it is true because he is a Lesser Angel, thus of no importance.

    Knee jerk partisans are useful idiots supporting the Duopoly of Kleptocracy. It’s unfortunate that one cannot awaken the woke.

  2. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth November 17, 2021 Reply

    Bari Weiss:

    Here is what I thought was true about Kyle Rittenhouse during the last days of August 2020 based on mainstream media accounts: The 17-year-old was a racist vigilante. I thought he drove across state lines, to Kenosha, Wisc., with an illegally acquired semi-automatic rifle to a town to which he had no connection. I thought he went there because he knew there were Black Lives Matter protests and he wanted to start a fight. And I thought that by the end of the evening of August 25, 2020, he had done just that, killing two peaceful protestors and injuring a third.

    It turns out that account was mostly wrong.

    Unless you’re a regular reader of independent reporting — Jacob Siegel of Tablet Magazine and Jesse Singal stand out for being ahead of the pack (and pilloried, like clockwork, for not going along with the herd) — you would have been served a pack of lies about what happened during those terrible days in Kenosha. And you would have been shocked over the past two weeks as the trial unfolded in Wisconsin as every core claim was undermined by the evidence of what actually happened that night.

    This wasn’t a disinformation campaign waged by Reddit trolls or anonymous Twitter accounts. It was one pushed by the mainstream media and sitting members of Congress for the sake of an expedient political narrative—a narrative that asked people to believe, among other unrealities, that blocks of burning buildings somehow constituted peaceful protests.”

    . . .

    To admit that the press, in the main, got just about every key fact in the Rittenhouse case wrong — that he crossed state lines with a gun, that he had the gun illegally, that he had no connection to Kenosha, that he was connected to white supremacist groups — has nothing to do with whether Kyle Rittenhouse should have gone to Kenosha that day. It has nothing to do with where one stands on the question of open carry. (I am opposed). Or whether or not a teenager should be allowed to walk around with a semiautomatic rifle. (I find it baffling that this is legal.)

    No teenager should have been walking around the chaos in Kenosha with a semiautomatic rifle that night. Still, doing so does not forfeit your right to self-defense.

  3. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth November 18, 2021 Reply

    I wish I could disagree with Bari Weiss (above) and Glenn Greenwald (below). I can’t. I’ve seen the screenshots and videos of the legacy news media and I am appalled. Why has the media become unhinged? Have these big businesses fired/laid off all of the reporters with ethics, experience and institutional knowledge? Have young inexperienced reporters without scruples and training taken over, thinking that the mission of a reporter is to find evidence in favor of a pre-designated narrative, suppressing anything that opposes that narrative?

  4. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth November 18, 2021 Reply

    Matt Taibbi:

    After America invaded Iraq and failed to turn up weapons of mass destruction, the press went into CYA mode. Pundits who’d panted for war now cooked up a new narrative, that the WMD “mistake” had been caused by a combination of faulty intelligence, over-confident officials in the George W. Bush White House, and one New York Times writer named Judith Miller. Everyone else who so forcefully screwed the pooch on that story, from New Yorker editor David Remnick to New York columnist Jonathan Chait to current Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, emerged either unscathed, or draped in awards and promoted.

    Now, the Russiagate tale many of those same people hyped is falling apart, and the industry is again building battlements to protect careers from a cascade of humiliating revelations. This time, a combination of Danchenko, Buzzfeed editor Ben Smith, and perhaps a few organizations like McClatchy will be tossed out of the lifeboat. If you’re ever tempted to think there’s honor among thieves, check out this recent flurry of Russiagate finger-pointing.

    “The Russiagate Whitewash Era Begins: After the WMD mess, Judith Miller got the blame, while a long list of just-as-guilty media villains failed upward. Now, a nervous press is looking for Russiagate’s fall guys.”

    Brutal but necessary for Taibbi to add this “explanation”:

    Meanwhile, the New York Times on Monday published a guest essay by former Columbia Journalism School Dean Bill Grueskin, entitled, “How Did So Much of the Media Get the Steele Dossier So Wrong?” Grueskin, too, led off by pointing at Buzzfeed. Not mentioning that the Columbia Journalism Review once published a story called “Buzzfeed vindicated over Steele dossier,” a piece that said Todd’s decision to dismiss the dossier as “fake news” was “not his finest hour,” Grueskin piled on Buzzfeed:

    Sure, the memo provided little hard evidence or specific detail, but, BuzzFeed said, it had “circulated at the highest levels of the U.S. government” and had “acquired a kind of legendary status among journalists, lawmakers and intelligence officials.” This, along with tantalizing tidbits like “Source A confided” or “confirmed by Source E,” gave it a patina of authenticity…

    Grueskin then listed a slew of reasons press figures chased Russiagate/Steele phantoms. First, “Mr. Trump had long curried Mr. Putin’s favor.” Second, “the Russians interfered… to foment dissent and unrest.” Third, “Trump’s choice of Paul Manafort to serve as his campaign chairman reinforced the idea that he was in the thrall of Russia.” Fourth: “Many of the denials came from confirmed liars… When a well-known liar tells you that something is false, the instinct is to believe that it might well be true.” Fifth: “Some reporters simply didn’t like or trust Mr. Trump or didn’t want to appear to be on his side.”

    No big deal, just an Ivy League J-school Dean offering excuse after excuse for reporters who couldn’t bring themselves to tell the truth during the biggest scandal of the Trump years, because they “didn’t want to appear to be on his side.” He should be saying any journalist who’s too afraid of peer pressure to do his or her job should go into a new line of work.”

  6. Avatar of Bill Heath
    Bill Heath November 28, 2021 Reply

    I recall in an early “Morning Joe” episode him saying that a partisan bias in the press meant a Republican always gave away 10-15 points behind. Now he’s as anti Republican as anyone

  7. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth November 29, 2021 Reply

    I don’t claim to be an expert in virology, but this 2016 statement seems as though it should lead to a thorough public investigation. Eric Weinstein’s tweet does make me wonder whether the news media is ignoring this statement, much as it has downplayed or ignored the other items on his list.

    https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1465200664326275072

    This is *extremely* Anti-Interesting to our news media. Like the Ghislaine trial that begins this week. Or the SUV accident in the Midwest that claimed multiple lives. Which is similar to the Las Vegas Shooter. And Hunter Biden. Or Joe Biden’s decline. Or the Portland Courthouse.

  9. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth December 29, 2021 Reply

    From the National Review:

    The taboo on the lab-leak theory did eventually lift, thanks to Jim, the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin, and the work of a pair of former Times journalists. But it was a disturbing real-world example of the old joke that “journalism is about covering important stories — with a pillow, until they stop moving.”

    https://www.nationalreview.com/news/the-worst-media-misses-of-2021/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=26177243

  10. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth December 29, 2021 Reply

    Another example: The story of swimmer Lia Thomas is being suppressed by liberal media outlets. Not a word about her story by. NPR, NYT or WP. https://dangerousintersection.org/2021/12/29/liberal-media-suppresses-the-story-of-transgender-swimmer-lia-thomas/

    [Updated March 18, 2022]

    Andrew Sullivan:

    Lia Thomas’ triumphs at the NCAA swimming finals are never going to be treated as completely fair by most people. Inclusion is important and trans athletes need to be treated with dignity. But the core biological differences between men and women simply cannot be wished away, and when we’re talking about high-level competition, the unfairness is simply unmissable. Yelling TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN! will not persuade anyone, and it isn’t designed to. It would be wonderful if this were true in every respect, but it isn’t. Ask yourself: if you knew nothing else but the interview above, what would you think was going on?

    Maybe it’s worth trading off fairness for inclusion. I’m open to that idea. But activists need to understand that demanding people not believe what is in front of their ears and eyes is a mark not of a civil rights movement, but a form of authoritarianism.

  14. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth April 13, 2022 Reply

    The best way to deceive is to omit facts, to refuse to disclose information that might affect someone’s opinion.

    For the Political Left Media Team, the “race” of those who are accused of heinous crimes is only sometimes important, only when it fits the prevailing narrative. It’s too bad these “news” outlets don’t always point out when the “race” of those who kill coincides with an ideology that encourages racial hate. Just maybe, if news media always reported these issues in an even-handed way, we might come more quickly to the conclusion that it is ALWAYS a bad idea to divide each other by “race” and it is ALWAYS a bad idea to hate each other based on physical appearance.

    As Glenn Greenwald points out:

    “If you watch the YouTube videos of the named “person of interest” in the Brooklyn subway shooting, you will be astonished at the huge gap between his actual dominant ideology and political worldview and how liberal corporate media outlets are describing it. Or maybe you won’t be.” https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1514265304859385859

    One more illustration:

    Wesley Yang: “Without Googling, do you recognize and can you name these two people?”
    <br.


    Andrew Sullivan writes:

    [Frank James] generalizes about “white people” the way left-Twitter does: “These white motherfuckers, this is what they do … they kill and commit genocide against each other. What do you think they gonna do to your black ass?” He has picked up the critical race theory doctrine — peddled as fact by the NYT — that America was designed entirely to oppress nonwhites, from 1619 onward: “Why should a nigger be on this planet besides to pick tobacco or sugar plant. There is no natural reason for there to be such a thing as an American negro, African-American, there is no reason for it. Except for you to be a slave. That is your rightful place, it always will be.”

    James is in the tradition of Louis Farrakhan: “White people and black people should not have any contact with each other … Jesus and the Bible said some dumb shit … They hate your fuckin’ guts … because they know that your rightful place is as a fucking slave … You had to force them to make you an equal.” The latter sentiment is, of course, a critical CRT doctrine: that no white people were ever instrumental in ending slavery and segregation, a narrative Jon Stewart recently honed in an episode called “The Problem With White People.”

    But here’s the kicker: the NYT kept all of this from you. They excised the black nationalist background, and made it seem as if his railing against his fellow blacks proved he was not driven by 1619 ideology, and was just an equal opportunity hater. In the body of their reporting, it took two full days — after at least 21 news items comprising more than 14,000 words — to note in writing that the dude is African-American at all. Here’s the line they finally coughed up to summarize all this context:

    The videos he posted frequently devolved into outbursts of homophobia, misogyny and offensive comments about Black people, Hispanic people and white people. Mr. James, who is Black, directed much of his hatred toward Black people, whom he often blamed for the way they were treated in the United States.

    Notice how they manage to invert his actual ideology. They make him seem like a white nationalist! They first highlight his homophobia and misogyny (they are minor themes in the record), and never call him a racist.

  15. Avatar of erichvieth
    erichvieth May 20, 2022 Reply

    David French, speaking with Andrew Sullivan:

    For example, one friend wrote in response to the Buffalo shooting, “The root cause of gun violence is white supremacy. We will not be safe from gun violence until we end white supremacy. White fam, we are the ones who can end white supremacy. It is on us.” Presiding Bishop Michael Curry of the Episcopal Church released a statement decrying the racism behind the shooting. Members of my left-leaning church have asked and encouraged me to preach from the pulpit about the evils of white supremacy and white fragility, especially now in light of the Buffalo shooting.

    However, I did not hear a thing from these same people or religious bodies following the racially motivated shooting by Frank James on the NYC subway last month. Mr. James has been indicted on federal terror charges after shooting ten people. Were there no official prayers for victims and to end racial violence from religious bodies because no one ultimately died in the subway shooting? Why were there no tweets, memes, or impassioned calls to “do better” after such a horrific, calculated attack? The silence after that racially motivated shooting compared to the outcry after this month’s racially motivated shooting is noteworthy.

  18. Avatar of erichvieth
    erichvieth August 1, 2022 Reply

    Aaron Mate writes:

    On June 10th, The Guardian’s Mark Townsend published an article headlined “Russia-backed network of Syria conspiracy theorists identified.” (“Russia-backed” has since been removed).

    The article is based on what Townsend calls a “new analysis” that “reveals” a “network more than two dozen conspiracy theorists, frequently backed by a coordinated Russian campaign.” This network, Townsend claims, is “focused on the denial or distortion of facts about the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons and on attacking the findings of the world’s foremost chemical weapons watchdog,” the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). According to Townsend, I am named “as the most prolific spreader of disinformation” among the nefarious bunch.

    In hawking this purported exposé of “disinformation”, Townsend violated every basic standard of journalism. He did not contact me before publishing his allegations; fails to offer a shred of evidence for them; and does not cite a single example of my alleged “prolific” disinformation. Instead, Townsend bases his claims entirely on a think-tank report that also provides no evidence, nor even assert that I have said anything false. In the process, Townsend failed to disclose that the report’s authors — the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and the Syria Campaign — are groups funded by the US government and other belligerents in the Syria proxy war. To top it off, Townsend fabricates additional allegations that his state-funded sources do not even make.

    As a result, Townsend and the Guardian have engaged in the exact sort of conduct that they falsely impute to me and others: spreading Syria-related disinformation with coordinated support from state-funded actors. The aim of this propaganda network is transparent: defaming journalism that exposes the OPCW’s ongoing Syria cover-up scandal and the dirty war waged by Western powers on Syria.

    https://dangerousintersection.org/2021/11/15/a-tsunami-of-fake-news-supporting-the-political-left-and-right/

  20. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth October 30, 2022 Reply

    Michael Shellenberger:

    And if mainstream news journalists are so concerned that political extremism is resulting in more violence against public officials, why did they, en masse, downplay the assassination attempt against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in June? Where The New York Times has put the alleged Pelosi assassination attempt on its front page for two days in a row, it buried the story of the Kavanaugh murder plot on page A20. Three days later, none of the Sunday morning political shows, such as NBC’s “Meet the Press,” even mentioned the assassination attempt.

    Today, “Meet the Press,” focused on the Pelosi plot and framed it as overly political, making no mention whatsoever of DePape’s psychotic delusions. “The chilling and violent attack on Paul Pelosi — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband — is raising fears of more political violence,” said its host, Chuck Todd.

  23. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth December 12, 2022 Reply

    Greenwald: “Almost everything Wolf Blitzer, CNN and Adam Schiff said in this interview and “report” – less than 2 weeks before the 2020 election – are absolute lies. Nobody denies they’re false. Schiff used his status as Intel Comm Chair to peddle these lies. Watch:”

    https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1602352332079071234

  25. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth January 3, 2023 Reply

    Look who is and who is not covering the Southwest Airlines breakdown and the potential culpability of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. At Lever News, David Sirota describes this daunting problem in his article, “The Partisan Ghost In The Media Machine“:

    This media dysfunction exemplifies what I’ve previously called The Algorithm: an information ecosystem in which news outlets promote or suppress facts based on whether those facts will flatter or offend their audience’s partisan impulses.

    Stories that might shame Democrats are amplified by right-wing media, but effectively shadowbanned by legacy and left-of-center media that do not want to offend a liberal readership that loathes news that might shame the Democratic politicians they worship. This is why previous reporting months ago about Buttigieg’s refusal to do his job was similarly erased from the liberal discourse.

    It’s the same thing on the other side: Reporting that might embarrass Republicans is touted by those legacy and left-of-center media, but never mentioned by right-wing media outlets that don’t want to offend the MAGA movement….

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