Axis media note: CNN’s alert to my phone just now regarding the Maduro operation: “Maduro and his wife dragged from their bedroom…”
Awww.
See how mean that President Trump is? He dragged that poor couple from their bed!
CNN should be shamed out of existence.
In a post yesterday, I wrote, in the final note on the ethical implications of this week’s election results,
“None of this would have unfolded in quite the same way, I am certain, without a corrupt journalism sector that has totally abdicated the duty of its profession in favor of partisan propaganda. I am more convinced than ever that the Republic will not function efficiently or engender responsible citizenship until there is news media commitment to fair, objective, responsible, unbiased and honest communication to the public of what it needs to know to make intelligent decisions about their governance. There has been some progress toward that end this year, but not nearly enough.”
Well, evoking William Barrett Travis when Santa Anna demanded the surrender of the Alamo, the New York Times “answered with a cannon shot.”
“The Times’s Profit Jumps With 460,000 More Subscribers” the headline today reads. “The Times now has 12.33 million total subscribers to all of its products. It has said it is aiming for 15 million by the end of 2027.” The article (gift link!), which you can read yourself if you have the stomach for it, has lots of other good news for the Times bottom line,
Bari Weiss, founder of the Free Press, has sold the four-year-old independent and emphatically non-woke news site to CBS’s parent company Paramount for a reported $150 million. She was also appointed as the new editor-in-chief of CBS News.
Weiss left the New York Times with a damning letter of resignation after not being able to tolerate the paper’s flagrant Democratic and progressive bias. This morning CNN said that she “claimed” it was biased, just as Uri Berliner “claimed” that NPR is biased and Christopher Columbus “claimed” the world wasn’t flat. The New York Times and NPR (AND CBS, AND ABC, AND NBC…) are screamingly and undeniably biased to the extent that they can’t be said to be practicing trustworthy journalism at all.
Reportedly the CBS staff is freaking out over Weiss’s “10 core journalistic values” for the network news division. That the CBS culture is steeped in “advocacy journalism,” aka propaganda distribution, is proven by the fact that they are objecting to what was once accepted and standard journalistic values:
1.Journalism that reports on the world as it actually is.
2. Journalism that is fair, fearless, and factual.
3. Journalism that respects our audience enough to tell the truth plainly — wherever it leads.
4. Journalism that makes sense of a noisy, confusing world.
5. Journalism that explains things clearly, without pretension or jargon.
6. Journalism that holds both American political parties to equal scrutiny.
7. Journalism that embraces a wide spectrum of views and voices so that the audience can contend with the best arguments on all sides of a debate.
8. Journalism that rushes toward the most interesting and important stories, regardless of their unpopularity.
9. Journalism that uses all of the tools of the digital era.
10. Journalism that understands that the best way to serve America is to endeavor to present the public with the facts, first and foremost.
The Horror.
This, of course, comes with the “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” label.
The Post headline truly is despicable. Despite the entire world clamoring for an end, however temporary, to the Gaza war and the abject failure of the U.N. or anyone else to achieve the release of the Israeli hostages, the Post spins the looming success of President Trump’s diplomatic efforts as merely another example of his narcissistic quest for personal acclaim. This is Big Lie of the Resistance #8: Big Lie #8: “Trump Only Cares About Himself, Not the Country.“
It is one of the most persistent of the Big Lies that emerged during his first term: two friends repeated it just yesterday. The smear is a great default excuse to refuse ever giving this President credit for anything, even achievements that are impressive, important and remarkable. It is an especially ethically obtuse smear: motives don’t make an action ethical, the conduct does, and the right thing done for the wrong reasons is still the right thing. In this case, the motive used to minimize Trump’s diplomatic triumph is a weak one, for I can’t imagine why Trump would want a Nobel Peace Prize, so thoroughly has that honor been debased by the flagrant politicizing of the award process.
[Aside: Of the 10 Big Lies I compiled through 2023, only #1 (“Trump is just a reality TV star”) and #9 (“Trump’s Mishandling Of The Pandemic Killed People”) have largely been retired from the Axis of Unethical Conduct and the Trump Deranged mob list of justifications for reviling the President of the United States.]
—-Veteran bloggress Ann Althouse, an occasionally red-pilled liberal Democrat, expressing disgust in a pots yesterday with the state of American journalism after reviewing the (as usual) biased and partisan coverage of the Trump Administration, this time in reporting on Sec. of War Hegseth’s meeting yesterday with the Pentagon’s generals and admirals.
I was going to write about that meeting and President Trump’s characteristic stream-of consciousness speech that followed it, then saw Althouse’s piece this morning naming what she felt were the worst headlines about the “Hegsethathon.”
Ann has expressed annoyance with biased coverage of Trump and his administrations before, but I think this is the first time she condemned the entire Axis media, to which I say, 1) “Good!” and 2) “What took her so long?” American journalists have overwhelmingly been avoiding ethical journalism since at least 2008, and my blog, unlike hers, blew the whistle, loudly, beginning in 2010. I suppose, as a liberal, Democrat law professor living and working in the bubble of Madison, Wisconsin who voted for Obama, Hillary and Biden, she can be forgiven for being blinded by confirmation bias and denial. Her commentariate has become far more conservative than she is (or was) in the interim. Ann should have become “sick of seeing such shit” long ago.
Hegseth’s meeting was attacked by the mainstream media from the second that it was announced. Why? A leader seeking cultural and organizational change should gather his or her commanders to ensure they understand their mission, goals and objectives. Much of the criticism was over the meeting demanding live, in person attendance. This objection demonstrates generational ignorance. A live meeting with everyone present and sitting together is and always will be the most powerful way to build group bonds and common purpose. I know this as a live theater director and a public speaker, and also as someone who knows the visceral differences from watching a baseball game or a movie in a crowd and seeing them alone or with one or two companions on a TV screen. We have a whole Zoom-warped generation who can’t grasp that, and their institutions and organizations will suffer as a result, probably forever.
Wikipedia tells us that Brandy Zadrozny “is an American investigative journalist and reporter with NBC News and MSNBC who specializes in radicalization, extremism and disinformation on the Internet.” Interesting! But apparently since she works for “MS,” she uses that supposed expertise to lie directly to the public in order to advance the Axis media’s propaganda. Zadrozny also, as evidenced by that head-exploding clip above, feels free to abuse her credentials and authority to literally deny reality that she, her fellow travelers, her employers and her whole profession find inconvenient.
Western Lensman (whoever he, she or it is) could not be more accurate, however. The lying by the Left, here and generally, knows no bounds. President Biden was sharp as a tack! If MSNBC doesn’t fire and permanently blackball this lying hack from ever practicing “journalism” again—and you know it won’t—we have a tacit admission regarding what their real purpose is: deception, confusion and distortion of reality for political gain. And it isn’t only MSNBC.
Heavens to Betsy: this woman’s specialty is the internet, and she doesn’t know about Bluesky, the Twitter/X alternative where cowardly progressives go to revel in their fantasies? Wait—she has an account on it: https://web-cdn.bsky.app/profile/brandyzadrozny.bsky.social! And still Brandy hasn’t noticed everyone around her cheering for Kirk’s death?
This is worse than mere lying. This is gaslighting, abuse of credentials (Brandy is a Pratt Institute grad), abuse of trust, abuse of journalism ethics, ack! ack! araghhyhayyrewqaunngemg!!!!!
(I just hurled myself to the floor like John Belushi used to do on Saturday Night Live.)
And poor Jimmy Kimmel sits at home, wondering what he said that was so bad….
If you can read the crap the Times’ Peter Baker threw at us in “In an Era of Deep Polarization, Unity Is Not Trump’s Mission” without getting the dry heaves and being tempted to destroy you computer screen with a hammer, you have a piece missing. Its subhead: “President Trump does not subscribe to the traditional notion of being president for all Americans.” KABOOM. Head exploded, brains on walls and ceiling. How date Baker write that? How dare the Times print it? This is simultaneous smoking gun evidence of Trump Derangement, incurable bias, and denial of reality. The gift link is here. Have a bucket nearby. Here’s the gift link. I don’t think the opportunity to read such malign, intellectually dishonest junk is truly a “gift.”
To state the obvious, Baker has the utter gall to make his fatuous assertion following a sort-of President who did this…
And why is it acceptable now?
A completely made-up “scandal” began when The Guardian reported on “Canoe-Gate.” “JD Vance’s team had water level of the river raised for family’s boating trip,” the outlet claimed. Though the same article said that “one source with knowledge of the matter who communicated with the Guardian anonymously alleged that the outflow request for the Caesar Creek Lake was not just to support the vice-president’s Secret Service detail, but also to create ‘ideal kayaking conditions” and that “The Guardian could not independently confirm this specific claim,” the story was reported anyway. Got that? An unnamed source claimed that Vance had ordered that a river’s water level be raised to create better kayak conditions, the news organization couldn’t substantiate the claim, yet they printed it as fact.
Then the usual suspects jumped into the fray. The New Republic’s headline was “JD Vance Abused Power to Raise River Levels for Family Kayaking Trip.” Huffington Post declared: “JD Vance Had A River’s Water Level Raised For His Family Vacation.” The Daily Beast: “JD Vance Ordered a River’s Water Level Raised for His Family Boat Trip.” Stephen Colbert called the story an “insane spoiled baby emperor move.” (What an asshole he is. But I digress.)
There was no truth to the story whatsoever. Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi explained that the they conducted a routine trip to the Ohio area ahead of the Veep’s planned trip and one of their vessels actually ran aground. The Secret Service the increase: “It’s very normal, it’s very routine.” He said that the decision was made without input or involvement from the Vice President’s office.
Never mind, though. Vance is Donald Trump’s #2, so whatever damning stories and rumors people make up about him must be true, and must be broadcast to the world as fact. None of the news outlets noted above have retracted or taken down the false story. Of course they haven’t.
I’ll answer my own question: no, there have never been a President and Vice President who have been slandered, libeled, slimed and unfairly denigrated like Trump and Vance. By any objective measure, the first seven months of the second Trump administration has been spectacularly productive on an impressive number of fronts, yet the President’s popularity is still in negative numbers. The barrage of deliberately misleading negative propaganda is why. It hurts the government, it hurts society, it scars democracy. “Enemy of the people.” Trump coined that phrase in relation to the news media, and he was never more accurate. Journalists screamed, “How dare he!,” but Trump nailed their corrupt profession as deftly as Ronald Reagan did when he called the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire.” That’s what we have as our “journalism” now: a malign, unethical, dastardly institution determined to mislead rather than inform.
______________
Pointer: Res Ipsa Loquitur
Hardly an upset, but wow, what an asshole. But then, you knew that, didn’t you?
Acosta was riffing on a “No Kings” Day episode of “The Contrarian” podcast hosted by fellow-Stage 5 Trump Derangement sufferer Jennifer Rubin, and attacked President Trump for having ICE enforce our immigration laws. Then he made the bizarre argument that the President is a hypocrite because two of his three wives were immigrants. They weren’t illegal immigrants, mind you, but progressive Democrats like Acosta pretend that they don’t understand the distinction.
“Where are the ICE raids at the Trump properties? Could somebody call ICE on the Trump golf course in Virginia? You’re telling me there’s nobody in there that is undocumented or has some kind of squirreliness going on with their paperwork?” he asked. “Give me a break. How many immigrants has he married? He’s got one [that would be first wife Ivana, who died in 2022] buried at his golf course in New Jersey! Isn’t she buried by the first hole or the second tee or something like that?” he asked. Rubin’s guest April Ryan, another unethical reporter, cackled along with Rubin at Acosta’s wit. “Immigrants always doing the jobs that Americans don’t want to do!” he joked.
This guy was CNN’s primary reporter on the first Trump administration. His bias was palpable, and Acosta is now revealing what kind of vicious hate-monger CNN allowed to distort the news in pursuit of his–and its— own partisan agenda.
Someone can try to amuse like-minded resistance fanatics with absurd anti-Trump bile, and one can be a tough journalist speaking “truth to power.” But a reporter who indulges in the first has no credibility trying be the latter. What are the chances that Acosta’s disqualifying contempt for Donald trump wasn’t common knowledge at CNN while he was posing as a journalist? My guess? None.
Commenting on his outburst, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “Jim Acosta is a disgraceful human being.” Why yes, Karoline, I believe you are correct.
ABC News suspended senior national correspondent Terry Moran for, shall we say, a revealing but undiplomatic post on Twitter/X that gratuitously attacked both President Trump and top aide Stephen Millers as “world-class hater[s].” Nice!
Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!
“Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater,” Moran wrote. “You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate.” Moran continued, “Trump is a world-class hater. But his hatred only a means to an end, and that end [is] his own glorification. That’s his spiritual nourishment.”
If you say so Terry. Amazingly, Moran apparently saw nothing unprofessional about his outburst, which he subsequently deleted. Talk about living in a bubble!
An ABC News spokesperson said in a statement shortly thereafter that Moran had been suspended, pointing to the post as the impetus for the disciplinary action.
“ABC News stands for objectivity and impartiality in its news coverage”—Excuse me, but HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA–<breath>HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!—“and does not condone subjective personal attacks on others,” ABC said in a statement. “The post does not reflect the views of ABC News and violated our standards — as a result, Terry Moran has been suspended pending further evaluation.”
Ethics Alarms 