{"id":7427,"date":"2018-08-16T17:53:45","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T00:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/?p=7427"},"modified":"2018-08-16T17:53:45","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T00:53:45","slug":"using-fake-news-to-criticize-the-label-of-fake-news-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/?p=7427","title":{"rendered":"Using Fake News to Criticize the Label of \u201cFake News Media\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s the day, 8\/16\/18, for the big pushback by newspaper editorialists<\/a> led by the Boston Globe<\/em><\/a> against U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s so-called label of them as \u201cthe enemy of the people.\u201d Of all things to use in their conclusion, they chose a line from George Orwell\u2019s \u201c1984\u201d book, followed by an utterly misplaced line about how lies are antithetical to an informed citizenry (click image to enlarge).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Oh really? Isn\u2019t failing to tell<\/em> the whole truth<\/em><\/strong> while engaging in alleged \u2018journalism\u2019 even more antithetical?<\/p>\n

The line about what\u2019s \u201cantithetical to an informed citizenry<\/em>\u201d is beyond ironic. In the old days, journalists gathered all the facts<\/em><\/strong>, laid them out in a concise manner, and the public became more informed as a result, which in turn prompted influential leaders to take action. Reporters did their complete jobs, in other words. But in what has to be one of the bigger unforced errors ever made by a major news outlet official, New York Times<\/em> executive editor Dean Baquet recently confessed<\/a>:<\/p>\n

… a journalist has to have, at his heart or her heart, a desire to make society better.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, sir. The utter wrongheadedness of that notion can be illustrated this way: effective hospital care makes society better. A doctor within that hospital who does his job to the best extent possible<\/em><\/strong> enables that goal to be achieved. A hospital is a detriment to society when its doctors routinely misdiagnose medical conditions which causes patients to die or spread untreated diseases wider.<\/p>\n

Objective, unbiased journalists aren\u2019t the enemy of the people<\/a>, of course. The notion that President Trump meant exactly that is a false premise. Biased, propaganda-pushing \u2018journalists\u2019 are an existential threat to the well-being of the country because they contribute to the citizenry being uninformed<\/em><\/strong> and needlessly enraged about issues that would normally only prompt tepid reactions.<\/p>\n

Take the global warming issue, for example. We\u2019re told it is a settled science that\u2019s needlessly bogged down by inaction due to industry-corrupted skeptic climate scientists who are paid to lie about the certainty of it all \u2014 a talking point dutifully regurgitated by the Boston Globe<\/em> as recently as last month<\/a> (except the person they quoted didn\u2019t complete the bit about \u2018misinformation lies\u2019 like other news outlets did<\/a>).<\/p>\n

This is the same Boston Globe<\/em> which gave its former journalist Ross Gelbspan an unquestioned platform<\/a> \u2014 dutifully regurgitated by the New York Times<\/em><\/a> \u2014 to make assertions about hurricanes and other climate science conditions. Neither newspaper bothered to further inform their readers that Gelbspan had no expertise (despite accolades to the contrary<\/a>) to make these assertions; they didn’t inform readers that the reference to him on the cover of his then-year old 2004 \u201cBoiling Point\u201d book as a Pulitzer winner<\/a> was, well, tantamount to a lie<\/a>; and his ‘industry corruption’ accusation<\/a> against skeptic climate scientists has never been challenged by either news organization.<\/p>\n

This is the same New York Times<\/em> organization, as I noted in my previous blog post<\/a>, that had a particular publication devoted entirely to the global warming topic that was promoted on the PBS NewsHour news outlet, where two egregious errors were allowed to be asserted without question that would have otherwise completely undercut the entire idea of global warming as a long-accepted settled science.<\/p>\n

This is the same PBS NewsHour which has apparently excluded an entire science-based side of the global warming issue from their program for over two decades<\/a>, which otherwise completely undercuts the idea of global warming as an accepted settled science.<\/p>\n

See the pattern here? What is offered to the public by these \u2018journalism organizations\u2019 are not lies, per se, they\u2019re just not the whole truth. If these \u2018journalism organizations\u2019 could demonstrate that the only opposition to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports were fabrications concocted in the boardrooms of \u2018Big Coal & Oil\u2019 where shills were paid to pose as \u2019science experts,\u2019 then we would label this as genuine news which is above reproach. When these \u2018journalism organizations\u2019 don\u2019t even advocate for face-to-face debate with IPCC scientists that would end in public ridicule for the ‘shills,’ and when they don\u2019t even lift a finger to speculate about why narratives<\/a> from prominent accusers <\/a>don\u2019t line up right about \u2018crooked skeptics, the whole issue begins to take on the appearance of fake news promulgated by propagandist organizations that \u2014 in any other situation \u2014 would be viewed as enemies conspiring to create an uninformed citizenry.<\/p>\n

This situation isn\u2019t limited to the global warming issue. Notions abound in the media that police departments across the country are using minority men for indiscriminate target practice, and that white supremacy is on the rise, which contributed to the election of President Trump, and his administration grossly mistreats immigrants as a result of outright mean-spirited discrimination. We\u2019re further told that Hillary Clinton\u2019s use of a private email server was of no great concern, but rather that Russian influence for Trump and against her also led to his election. Plus, we\u2019re told male\/female genders is not settled science. Each issue is met with massive amounts of public rage, to the point of violence in some cases. Each issue is massively undercut with contradicting information \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026..<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026.. not that the mainstream media tells the public about that, however. We are instead reassured by today\u2019s multi-hundred editorials that the mainstream media is not to be questioned, and that they are the victims of a vengeful individual.<\/p>\n

Take another look at that Orwell quote the Boston Globe<\/em> ironically chose to hammer home at the end of their editorial:<\/p>\n

The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What\u2019s missing is what followed after that<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.<\/strong> If that is granted, all else follows<\/span>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Boston Globe<\/em> and all the others who glommed onto today\u2019s editorial want you to believe \u201cthe party\u201d is President Trump, while being oblivious to how this has every appearance of being psychological projection on their part; they are \u201cthe party\u201d in question, saying \u201ctrust us<\/strong> on our arithmetic totals, pay no attention to what we\u2019re hiding from you<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s the day, 8\/16\/18, for the big pushback by newspaper editorialists led by the Boston Globe against U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s so-called label of them as \u201cthe enemy of the people.\u201d Of all things to use in their conclusion, they … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7427"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7427"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"http:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7455,"href":"http:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7427\/revisions\/7455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}