Corporate Media Narratives Corrupt Democracy

At this site I have offered more than 270 incidents where the corporate media pumps out narratives that are false or lack evidence or where important stories are being actively suppressed. I use the tag "Narratives in Media" to label these articles.

For instance, how can you explain that more then ten million people pour across the U.S. southern border in coordinated fashion, yet our major media outlets don't even find this interesting? Even when this pouring in of unvetted people is combined with government efforts to hand these people the right to vote in the upcoming elections?

I'm very suspicious about what is going on with undocumented people pouring over the border and attempts to give these people the right to vote, even in municipal elections.  But wouldn't it be nice if our "news" outlets showed some sense of curiosity? I can think of dozens of questions they could ask about this situation. For instance, they could trace the flow of money enabling this. They could skewer Biden's claims that his hands were tied even though he was the one who threw open the borders.  Instead, we have nonchalance and see-no-evil. That silence is our corporate media doing what it considers to be its job, to re-elect Joe Biden. To them, everything else is reverse-engineering.

I no longer use the phrase "mainstream media" to refer to the primary culprits of this concocted news: NYT, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and WaPo. Instead,  following in the footsteps of Glenn Greenwald and Comedian Dave Smith (in an excellent all-round discussion), I use the term "corporate news," although the big corporations that control these outlets are inextricably entangled with the federal government and its security state (FBI, CIA and NGO cutouts funded by these agencies, such as the Atlantic Council and USAID). The "news" these corporations offer is no longer believed by many Americans. Check out these findings:

The news media is the only industry mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. Without trustworthy news, we don't have informed citizens, the type that can vote meaningfully.

"Whenever the people are well informed, they may be trusted with their own government." Thomas Jefferson

"Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost." Thomas Jefferson

"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy.” James Madison

Yet the above findings, especially the AP poll from 2024, show that the great majority of us are extremely, very or somewhat that we are being misled by our "news outlets" on the issue of election coverage and these concerns are buttressed by my own articles on media narratives.

I'll end with this graphic by KanekoaTheGreat, setting out dozens of falsehoods pumped out by the corporate media over the past few years. I don't agree with everything on this list, but I think the list shows that the corporate media repeatedly pumps out false stories. It shows that the corporate media lacks credibility on important issues. THIS is the track record of our corporate media and there is no reason to think that it will be any better going forward.

Continue ReadingCorporate Media Narratives Corrupt Democracy

New York Times Finally Admits COVID Was Probably a Lab Leak

The NYT has finally come around. It's been a long wait. Way back in May of 2021, NYT Science reporter, Apoorva Mandavilli lectured us that it was "racist" to be concerned that scientists concocted COVID in a lab.

Fast forward to June 3, 2024: A guest essay in the NYT argues that the pandemic "Probably stared in a Lab." All in five easy steps. Well illustrated, including this graphic:

Today, John Leak writes:

I woke up this morning to the news that—after four years of printing lies—the New York Times has finally published an Opinion piece acknowledges the evidence that SARS-CoV-2 did not originate in nature, but in a lab.

Why would there be a three year moratorium on discussing what is arguably the most important story of this century? I'm back to the same questions I keep asking myself: Who is controlling the information that we are allowed to read and hear, especially in corporate media and social media? What is their long range plan? Given that we are purportedly in a democracy, why is there almost no public deliberation and debate on key issues, but rather top-down ham-handed edicts? Why have so many of the pronouncements from our public health "experts" been so incredibly wrong? Such as the mask problem pointed out here:

We have a big problem in the U.S.. It is seemingly insurmountable. I'm not yet despondent, but heading there too often. I have repeatedly come to the conclusion that being being curious, distilling the facts with care, and sharing my ideas might make a difference. That can only happen, I believe, in a culture that is not locked down with military-grade censorship. That's where are already are, I fear. Arguments are not being won on the merits, but because someone, eventually, decides that it is no longer "bad" to say things that made sense all along. Or perhaps, the NYT noticed that the stench of its censorship of real stories was becoming grotesquely embarrassing, so it became time to hit the limited hangout button on lab leak. Limited Hangout:

[A] limited hangout is "spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting—sometimes even volunteering—some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further."

We who do not have any significant power/money don't have the main tool for winning arguments. As Rob Henderson pointed out (paraphrased by Claire Lehmann: "people who are high in status don't actually have to point out where an argument is wrong, just that an argument (or speaker) is low in status."

It's at times like these that, strangely, George Orwell brings me some consolation:

A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial...when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society...can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable.

[From The Prevention of Literature]

Continue ReadingNew York Times Finally Admits COVID Was Probably a Lab Leak

Meanwhile, at the COVID FOIA-Free Zone

Our public health leaders would never try to hide information from us, would they. They would never try to mislead us, would they?

If you'd like to know more about these revelations, you will not find any of these issues covered by the NYT, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC or NPR. I checked each of these websites at 11pm CT on May 22, 2024. As always, when the corporate news outlets intentionally ignore important stories (presumably for political reasons---to reelect Joe Biden), I am tagging this article was this tag: "Narratives in Media." If you follow this link, you'll find more than 200 of these articles at DI in the past 4 years.

Continue ReadingMeanwhile, at the COVID FOIA-Free Zone

More Undeniable Evidence of a Media Narrative

Nellie Bowles discusses the BLM riots of 2020 with Bari Weiss of Honestly:

"More than explicit lies about what happened in 2020, howw the mainstream media contralled the narrative was by not covering it. That was the most important thing. It was to ignore it."

Continue ReadingMore Undeniable Evidence of a Media Narrative