The Modern “News” Cycle

When you hear the phrase "the new cycle," it makes you think about something that's pretty simple. Curious Reporters) find something interesting and report on it. Later, if something changes about that thing, it seems interesting. They were reported on those changes. It's based in curiosity and a desire to keep the rest of us updated about interesting things in the world. But is that how the new cycle actually works? Sharyl Atkisson describes a surreal, modern version of the news cycle:

Here's one problem.

"News" has turned into the following:

The NYT and others:

1. Misreports/are grossly wrong in the moment.

2. Much later, they bring up the rear and admit the things long after most everybody else already knew.

3. Then, people treat the admission as if the thing many knew all along is now, suddenly, true. And only really valid now that the media has belatedly agreed.

4. Nobody reforms or demotes the reporters or outlets who got things so wrong to begin with. This is the pattern with Covid, Covid vaccines, and Fauci, of course, but also many other topics.

Reacting to Jimmie Dore's recent comment:

Still can’t believe that The New York Times ADMITTED & PRINTED that the "conspiracy theorists" were right about COVID and that Fauci and the "experts" LIED to the public.

What’s even more disturbing is how many people I know in Hollywood who are completely ignoring all this & don’t have the decency to APOLOGIZE to the people they viciously slandered & attacked for being skeptical of BiG Pharma & government during COVID.

I can forgive the people who acted like monsters & we’re wrong about Covid, but they’ll NEVER forgive me for being right about Covid.

Both of these remind me of Matt Taibbi's term "bomb holing."  Here's how he describes it:

This technique of using the next bombshell story to push the last one down a memory-hole — call it Bombholing

Continue ReadingThe Modern “News” Cycle

Hide the Photos of the Maimed and the Dead, so the War Looks Sterile, Glorious and Successful.

They hide the dead to help the "fight for freedom." Most corporate news organizations have been cheerleaders for the wars waged by the party in power.  They curate the experience for you to spare you the trouble of thinking.  Think of Afghanistan. And see here.  Raw photography would end almost every war, so that's why you are not permitted to see the photos, especially photos of up-close suffering, maiming of civilians and death, in the corporate media. Not in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Iran or anywhere else that the US fights for "freedom." Robert Fisk, Robert Fisk (1946–2020) was a highly regarded British journalist and author:

I always remember when Madeleine Albright announced that Israel was under siege. For a brief moment, I asked myself, if there were Palestinian tanks in Haifa. How do we reach a stage where we so distort reality that we actually have a lethal effect on the conflict itself? The worst example of this, I'm sorry to say, is television, the way in which, unless an Iraqi is obliging enough in a war to die romantically beside the road in silhouette with all his arms still attached, you do not see the dead for viewers of television, not in the Arab world, I might add that in the West we do not see the dead, and thus our leaders, all of whom at the moment have ZERO experience of real war--the journalists do, but not our leaders in the West--they are able to present, to the public, war as a bloodless sand pit. War as something primarily to do with victory and defeat rather than death, which is exactly what is about on a large scale. War represents the total failure of the human spirit.

And I had a perfect example of this in 2003 I was in Baghdad. I was trying to get down to Basra. I got halfway, and then I was so frightened I could hardly write. And were so many bombs dropping from my own Air Force, among others, that I turned back to Baghdad. But Al Jazeera were in Basra, and they got back the same day to Baghdad with their video film, and I sat with them in their little tent. You probably realized that in a war, many of the big agencies pool their material, especially the television companies. So it was being sent through the satellite to Reuters in London, whose job was to edit the film. So of course, this was film of a civilian hospital. There were some soldiers brought in wounded and dead, but most of the pictures were of dead and wounded, women and children. They had been killed and wounded by British artillery fire in Basra. The British were besieging Basra while the Americans took the highway to claim Baghdad. And what was particularly revealing was, as they showed the film, I listened to the remarks coming back from London. You know, there were terrible scenes. It was one of a child holding its intestines and a woman with part of her hand missing. And there were screams and cries and lots of blood on the film. And the voice from London said, "You know, we can't really show this. You can't show this to people at tea time." And by this moment, I had my notebook out for The Independent, my newspaper. THIS was going to be tonight's story. So [Al Jazeera] said, "Please, please. Please, we risked our life for this. Just let us put out a little bit more of the film. Maybe you can use it." And of course, there were more pictures of blood and wounded children and dead children. And then the voice came back and said, "This is obscene. We can't put obscene pictures like this on Western television." They pleaded again by now, of course. My pen was skidding over the pages. These were great quotes, because this is what was wrong. And then the voice came back for the third and final time. "We can't show these pictures because we must respect the dead." Now you get the point. We didn't respect them when they were alive. We didn't respect them when we blew them to bits. But when they're dead, by God, we have to respect them.

Continue ReadingHide the Photos of the Maimed and the Dead, so the War Looks Sterile, Glorious and Successful.

US Corporate Media’s indifference to Netanyahu’s Support of Hamas

Again, things aren't what they were reported to be by the US corporate media. This video clip is from the 2024 documentary The Bibi Files (directed by Alexis Bloom, produced by Alex Gibney), which uses leaked Israeli police interrogation footage from 2016–2018. I asked Grok to double-check the translations of the letter to Qatar and the verbal statements of Netanyahu. Here's the important point: According to major U.S. corporate media outlets (such as The New York Times, CNN, NPR, and others), Israel's policy of approving and facilitating Qatari cash transfers to Gaza (under Hamas control) was not prominently explained to the American public in the immediate aftermath of the October 7, 2023 attacks. Instead, the focus was overwhelmingly on the Hamas attacks themselves, the scale of the violence, Israel's response, and initial hostage negotiations. AM.png" alt="" width="474" height="560" />

Netanyahu's statement (in the video) translated: AM.png" alt="" width="474" height="560" />

Netanyahu (in Hebrew, with English subtitles/narration in the documentary):“This is confidential and can’t be leaked, okay? We have neighbors here, sworn enemies. I’m constantly passing them messages. I confuse them, mislead them, lie to them, and then hit them over their heads.

Continue ReadingUS Corporate Media’s indifference to Netanyahu’s Support of Hamas

Julian Assange Discusses a Significant Cause of War

In this 2011 statement, Julian Assange discussed a significant cause of war:

One of the hopeful things that I've discovered is that nearly every war that has started in the past 50 years has been a result of media lies.

The media could have stopped it, if they had searched deep enough, if they hadn't reprinted government propaganda, they could have stopped it. But what does that mean?

Well, that means, basically, populations don't like wars, and populations have to be fooled into wars. Populations don't willingly and with open eyes, go into a war. So if we have a good media environment, then we'll also have a peaceful environment. But our number one enemy is ignorance, and I believe that is the number one enemy that everyone is not understanding of what is actually going on in the world. It's only when you start to understand that you can make effective decisions and effective plans.

Now question is, who is promoting ignorance? Well, those organizations to try to keep them secret, and those organizations which distort true information to make it false, or misrepresentative. In this latter category, it is bad media. It really is my opinion that the media in general are so bad, we have to question whether the world wouldn't be better off without them all together. There's some very, very fine journalists and we work with many of them. And some fine media organizations. The vast majority are awful and are so distortive to how the world actually is, the result is we see wars, and we see corrupt governments continue on.

Continue ReadingJulian Assange Discusses a Significant Cause of War

More on the Nord Stream Pipeline

Mike Benz: "Now even Blob Media is admitting Ukraine commandos blew up the Nord Stream pipeline, the CIA knew it and even coordinated with them in advance, then the Biden State Department lied to your fuckin face and told you Russia did it."

Here's the background.  Here and here:

Continue ReadingMore on the Nord Stream Pipeline