“So imagine, instead of embracing the Great Satan narrative, we covered Trump—warts and all—as an extraordinary American political phenomenon perhaps not seen since the populist presidency of Andrew Jackson. Do not mistake this as a call to absolve Trump of any actual wrongdoing or to go soft on the reporting. Instead it is a plea to instill some sense of balance and fairness in thecoverage. Surely, I’m not alone in believing this approach would have given readers and listeners a far more nuanced and valuable view of the American mood and Trump’s appeal and staying power—and perhaps helped to stanch the public’s corrosive loss of trust in our craft. And at any rate, if the lopsided coverage of Trump was, in fact, a strategy to destroy him, well, it’s proved a huge flop. Trump won. Much of the media was or should be embarrassed.”
The “retro proposal”? Journalists have become “blinded by their inability—or worse, unwillingness—to see past their biases. This is not journalism. It’s propagandism.” Therefore, he says, “I invite journalists to re-embrace our agnostic roots. We need to return to being the adults in the room, unabashedly reaffirm our role as the honest broker. No political party, business interest, government entity or activist group owns the truth. Everybody has a motive and an agenda, sources and leakers especially. Truth-tellers can sometimes lie and liars can sometimes tell the truth. Our job is to sort through the noise and bickering, the claims and counter-claims, the data and the chaff, to parse issues honestly without regard to whom it may offend or please or what the dominant narrative insists upon.”
I think Wells means what used to be called ethical, responsible journalism. Gee, what a concept!
Read it all, but here are a few more excerpts from an excellent essay:
“I am sure someone will do research into who the order has spared, and we will see other multiple murderers, people who killed without remorse and with extreme cruelty, vicious psychopaths who killed for the fun of it, or who murdered children, or who slaughtered their victims after rape or torture. These don’t warrant executions, Biden says on behalf of the Wonderful Woke who refuse to acknowledge that there is a point where an individual has forfeited the benefits of civilization, but the single factor of “hate” elevates murder from really, really bad to intolerable.”
No sooner had I posted than Not The Bee posted exactly what I expected; it popped up in my email, in fact. Among those the President’s mass commutation today saves from the fate they all richly deserve:
Sarah B.’s perceptive and eloquent Comment of the Day about the inquirer to the NYT’s “The Ethicist” advice column who asked whether the threat of various catastrophes ahead (as she saw them) concluded with a sentence that reminded me of this famous speech from the film “Parenthood.” I’ve been looking for an opportunity to post it. Thanks Sarah B.
It is very easy to mock and deride someone who is silly enough to believe the mainstream media and all the horror stories the left has subscribed to. I like feeling superior for not believing in this version of fantasy land. I felt superior when I was not one of the wackos who declared themselves part of the Navi in Avatar, and I’m feeling the same general happiness when recognizing that I’m not so far gone as to believe this current set of beliefs. Indeed, it is tempting to feel even more so, because so many of my contemporaries follow this insane set of beliefs.
However, I think we need to dig deeper than the mocking laughter this letter so easily inspires. What is this woman really saying? First, she is discussing a desire to have children. This is a desire that fewer and fewer women are subscribing to, usually to their and to societies eventual sadness. Therefore, this desire should be encouraged. Second, she is fearing that we are entering a time of tribulation. Before addressing this in any depth, we should consider what she is probably meaning with these two concerns. The first worry is likely that she feels that bringing a child into this world in a time of trouble means that her child may suffer. The second worry is that in bring a child into this world in a time of trouble would cause this woman to suffer.
The concern of bringing a child into a world in a less than perfect time causing the child to suffer is not a valid one for several reasons. First, the USA, under Trump or not, is better than many if not most places in the world. In addition, the world in 2024 is a better place than nearly all of human history. Less people suffer, and they suffer less than in the past. The human misery index is very low. Children are a joy to the human race, and the hope for the future. Man has always had children, even in tougher times than any we can illogically expect to come about today. The idea that the child MIGHT suffer in the perfect storm is still less likely than the child having a normal life and enjoying every moment his parents lovingly gifted him. Besides, in the best of times, a child will get illnesses and injuries. That is part of growing up. To quote Calvin, quoting his dad, “being miserable builds character.” As some say, if it were not for the heat or the hammer, the steel could not be honed. Adversity is what helps us become the best version of ourselves.
The concern of a parent suffering because they brought a child into a troubled world is ridiculous, because parents will always suffer for their children. Labor is no picnic. Sleepless nights when breastfeeding are a form of suffering. Staying up with a sick kid, or sitting by a kid’s bedside when they are in the hospital for a tonsillectomy, appendectomy, or croup is not exactly enjoyable. Holding them still so a doctor can give them stitches is incredibly painful, even before they kick you. I certainly feel greater pain than my children when they are sick and in misery and I wish I could take their suffering from them, even if it is a good suffering. Heck, it really does hurt me more than my child when I have to discipline them. And again, in the perfect utopia of a Democratic paradise, a child will still cause their parents suffering. Children will be born with special needs. Children will slip past an exhausted or distracted parent and fall into a pool or run into traffic. Accidents will happen, no matter what we do. Also, children will grow up and make poor decisions that cause parents all kinds of heartbreak. (I could mention that many democratic policies make some of those decisions more likely, but that would be of little use talking with this woman.) In short, being a parent is accepting suffering in the course of bring joy to ourselves and others.
My final thoughts on this involve a song by Garth Brooks. “Our lives are better left to chance. I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance.” Today, too many people have become convinced that no dance is worth the pain we may have to suffer, especially if we only imagine what the pain may be. I choose the dance.
As frequent readers here know, Ethics Alarms has been referring to the Axis of Unethical Conduct (an Ethics Alarms term, and a fair one) as a totalitarianism-leaning, anti-American phenomenon for years now, as I have tracked the frightening progress on the 2016 Ethics Train Wreck and all of its many offshoots. I have used made this point frequently and, I recognize, emphatically to the point that many object to those and related labels as inflammatory and biased, which they are not because my assessment is objective and accurate. I could also say, with justification, “If the show fits, wear it,” and even “If the shoe fits wear it, you assholes.”
Today I was sent promotional spam by my old hometown newspaper, the lone surviving conservative #2 paper in Boston (The Dominating Axis representative is the always Democratic Boston Globe) after the slow amalgam of four newspapers with long histories of service to the people of New England: The Boston Herald, the Boston Traveler, the Boston Record and the Boston American. That headline above was all I needed to spark a head explosion with several subsequent explosions that left bits of brain and bone on my keyboard and computer screen after I read the entire report.
Really, that Washington Post headline from yesterday is impressive. It has just 13 words, and yet there are six separate pieces of misinformation in it. Bravo!
1. and 2. Elon Musk didn’t “force” anything.
3. The Trump Presidency hasn’t started yet. If it had started, that would be a Constitutional crisis, and Milloy as well as the Washington Post are among those responsible for it, since they deliberately ignored the scandal of a diminished capacity White House resident for almost four years.
4. Uh, there was no shutdown, and only an idiot would have thought there would be.
5. A Presidency that hasn’t begun can’t collapse by definition.
6. Chaos is what the Biden Presidency is in now.
Details aside, it is also an excellent example of the fake news category I call “future news.” When what is happening doesn’t supply sufficient fodder for reports and pundits to attack Republicans and their favorite ideology’s opponents, attack those you want to hold responsible for what might happen.
It is hard to choose among Milbank, the despicable Phillip Bump, the deluded E.J. Dionne, dim bulb Ruth Marcus, old hack Eugene Robinson, boringly predictable Kathleen Parker and the certifiably bonkers Jennifer Rubin (all of whom have damning EA dossiers) as the most egregious partisan propaganda agent on this rapidly declining newspaper. Milbank would certainly be a worthy choice. Despite Jeff Bezos’s intermittent efforts to drag the once esteemed paper back from the brink, its staff is obviously so biased and lacking diversity of thought that the task seems impossible.
I keep my digital subscription to the Post because I need to check it for Ethics Alarms issues, because it’s my local paper, and mostly because it reminds me that the New York Times could be worse. But I do believe that bias has made the Post too stupid to survive: I wonder if it will last the next four years.
Why wouldn’t any sane and ethical editor tell Milbank, “Dana, I love ya, but that column makes you look like an apoplectic old fool and this paper look ridiculous. Now that you’ve gotten that out of your system, go write something that won’t cause spit-takes all over America”?
Wouldn’t you think an alleged ”’factchecking” organization would understand what a lie is? Well, the organization is Politifact, so it’s a trick question. It’s a Democratic Party/progressive propaganda outfit and facts are the last thing it cares about: that group of hacks is easily the most dishonest and unethical of all of these thing, much less trustworthy than second in line from the bottom, which might be Glenn Kessler and the Washington Post’s intermittently fair “The Factchecker” feature. And so it was that as the end of 2024 approaches, Politifact announced that this was its “Lie of the Year,”what Trump said on September 10:
“‘In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs.The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.”
“With this claim, amplified before 67 million television viewers in his debate against Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump took his anti-migrant, the U.S. border-is-out-of-control campaign agenda to a new level,” Politifact moaned.
But even if the “Their eating pets and wildlife from the parks!” story had been a deliberate lie, it obviously was neither the “Lie of the Year” in either of the two categories relevant to the choice: it wasn’t the most destructive lie, and it wasn’t the most indefensible lie. This was:Continue reading →
On May 24, 2024, while Supreme Court Justice Jackson was dreaming of playing “Medea,” The New York Timespublished an op-ed entitled, “A Federal Judge Wonders: How Could Alito Have Been So Foolish?” by Senior Judge Michael A. Ponsor of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Judge Ponsor addressed the flying of an upside-down American flag and the “Appeal to Heaven” flags outside homes owned by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, a controversy covered thoroughly on Ethics Alarms.
The ethics verdict here was that the controversy was contrived, and that the attack on Alito was politically motivated, biased, and wrong. Judge Ponsor, however, opined that “any judge with reasonable ethical instincts would have” recognized that the flag displays were improper because they could be perceived as “a banner of allegiance on partisan issues that are or could be before the court.”
Let me inject here, “Sure, by an idiot!” “The appearance of impropriety is a reason-based standard. “Hey, this SCOTUS judge’s wife flew the same flag that began the HBO John Adams series: that must mean that her husband is in the bag for President Trump!” is not a reasonable perception.
Thus does the Gov. of Minnesota and the most embarrassing major party Vice-Presidential nominee in recent history (yes, even worse than Kamala and Joe Biden) demonstrate the fealty to group identification and bias over substance, ability, and merit as the basis for success in our society.
Will somebody try to explain to Walz, who might look in the mirror if he wants to understand “how in the world” the Democratic ticket lost, that in the United Sates of America it is what people do, say, accomplish and believe that matters, not whether their occupations and labels are the “right” ones. Do include in the probably hopeless attempt that being a “country lawyer” ( Is that what Kamala Harris is?) and a high school teacher suggest no likely acumen at leading a nation. I do give Walz some credit for picking “billionaire” as his label for Trump rather than “convicted felon” or “adjudicated rapist,” the labels that his party worked so hard to slap on Trump using a politicized, unethically manipulated justice system, or the ever-popular “reality TV star.” (The appropriate description was “former President of the United States.”)
“I thought it was a real flex when the Wall Street Journal pointed out that I might have been the least wealthy person to ever run for Vice President,” Walz told MPR News. You did? Then you’re an idiot.
Suzannah Van Rooy, a server at Beuchert’s Saloon on Capitol Hill in D.C., told “The Washingtonian,” “I personally would refuse to serve any person in office who I know of as being a sex trafficker or trying to deport millions of people.” “It’s not, ‘Oh, we hate Republicans,’” she explained. “It’s that this person has moral convictions that are strongly opposed to mine, and I don’t feel comfortable serving them.” “People were a lot more motivated the first time around to do those kinds of shows of passion. This time around, there is kind of a sense of defeat and acceptance,” Van Rooy added. “But I hope that people still do stand up to this administration and tell them their thoughts on their misbehavior.” Van Rooy also felt it was appropriate to make similar comments on the restaurant’s social media accounts.
Ms. Van Rooy was promptly fired for her misbehavior. Good. In announcing her canning on its Facebook page, the restaurant said in part, “[A]s a restaurant we are simply horrified to be associated with base prejudice. None of us saw this coming….we would welcome any opportunity to clarify that Ms. Van Rooy is not a manager at our restaurant but instead a part time server and that she had no authority or permission to act as spokesperson or hijack our social media accounts. We beg you all not to condemn the group of hardworking folks who have made Beuchert’s Saloon a neighborhood mainstay for a over dozen years. We are still the same restaurant known for its warm service and friendly staff, and hope you will all visit us soon. We look forward to serving you. All of you.”
I have five really good post topics sitting on the assembly line, and I’m ticked off that I have to start with #6 this morning: the idiotic and unethical blather of my Facebook friends (and others, of course) using the cold-blooded murder of an innocent—yes, innocent—insurance executive to bitch about health care, insurance, capitalism and the United States generally.
I could have predicted, if someone had asked, which of my substantially arts-involved friends and acquaintances would take this moronic path: they are the socialists and crypto communists who actually thought Kamala Harris would be a competent President, who support the nonsense Bernie Sanders and Michael Moore barf up and who are prone to making arguments like “The U.S. is the only civilized, first world nation without national health care!” (Also “Nobody needs an assault weapon to kill a deer!,”“Hate speech isn’t protected by the First Amendment!,”“Jesus was an undocumented migrant too!” and “We have only [fill in number here] years to save the planet!”)
Yesterday, one of the most smug and insistent of these was taking satisfaction that NBC News had reported that a couple who owed $92,262 to North Carolina’s Atrium Health hospital system and had a lien on their house learned that their debt was being removed and that the hospital was cancelling the debt of many other former patients who owed a lot of money. ‘Gee, what a coinkydink!’ wink-wink was the gist of mt FBF’s remarks, or in other words, “See! It worked! Let’s keep that ball rolling!”
Ethics Alarms 