“Nah there’s no mainstream media bias”

A MSM Reporter Who Delivered Objective, Ethical Journalism Is Openly Attacked For It

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Good!

Almost as infuriating as the unholy alliance between a totalitarianism-aspiring political party and the large majority of the news media determined to play Pravda is the persistent denial that such an alliance exists despite mountains of daily evidence. (It’s a right wing conspiracy theory, you know.) This episode, small as it might seem, shows both reporters and Democrats outing themselves.

NBC reporter Dasha Burns commented on the air that Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman appeared to have trouble understanding their conversation prior to their interview, because his closed caption device allowing him to read questions in text while she was asking them wasn’t on yet.

This kind of information used to be known as “reporting,” back when journalists saw their jobs as informing the public about objective facts they needed to know. But Fetterman, who is still recovering from the effects of a major stroke that would have prompted an ethical candidate to withdraw from a Senate race is going to great lengths to avoid letting the public know how serious his comprehension and communications problems are. Naturally, his party, desperate to hold on to control of the Senate, wants to keep Pennsylvania voters in the dark as well. Also naturally, the mainstream progressive media, of which NBC is a card-carrying member, is expected to assist in this deception, and certainly not undermine it with that old-fashioned “reporting” stuff.

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The Times Asks: “Is There a Future for Late-Night Talk Shows?” Ethics Alarms Asks: “Is There A Future For News Media That Has Been Made This Stupid By Bias?”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The New York Times John Koblin and Benjamin Mullin apply all of their skill and experience to examine the apparent phenomenon of late night talk shows facing massive changes, and perhaps even extinction. “[A]s streaming has ascended, and network TV audiences and advertising revenue has dwindled, worries that late-night shows could be the latest genre affected by sweeping change are hitting virtually every corner of the entertainment world,” they write.

What’s going on here? Well, these career-long TV analysts conclude,  viewers no longer have a “deep bond” to single late night hosts. Ratings have been sinking because of streaming, and so many alternative options for late night viewing. The cost to produce some late-night shows”is no longer feasible in an era of sinking ratings.”Late-night shows have also struggled to make the transition to streaming video, another consideration weighing on executives,” we are told, in part because “the topical opening monologue, a staple of the genre, has virtually no shelf life in streaming libraries.” Current  late-night network hosts “don’t seem to want a lifetime appointment” unlike their predecessors like Johnny Carson, jay Leno and Letterman. “I think the Carson playbook of 40 years talking to celebrities is probably a thing of the past,” a former late night producer told the Times.

Is that it? I guess so: this long examination of factors and trens couldn’t find any other reason for the genre’s decline.

Funny…the reason I haven’t watched a late night talk show in almost eight years must be unusual: these media reporters don’t detect it. Funnier still, a substantial percentage of the readers who commented on the story seem to see the main reason for the rejection of such talks shows—the same reason I have—very clearly.

A sampling: Continue reading →

Yesterday’s Biased Mainstream Media 2022 Election Panic Exhibit B: The Washington Post’s Gaslighting

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

If you were troubled by yesterday’s Exhibit A regarding the degree to which the mainstream media is “all-in” to try to somehow convince potential voters that everything is really hunky-dory so they should vote Democrat next month, Exhibit B will really unsettled your grits. That would be this analysis by Washington Post political reporter Phillip Bump, a “numbers” guy who is only robbed of the title of Most Shamelessly Partisan WaPo Columnist because Dana Milbank is still at large. (Trump-Deranged Jennifer Rubin has become such a hack that she doesn’t qualify as a columnist any more.)

Bump’s contrived thesis is that there is no big crime problem that can be laid at the feet of Democrats and the Biden Administration; it’s all the concoction of Fox News and right wing conspiracy theorists. His excuse for this exercise in gaslighting was a Fox News segment in which political analyst Gianno Caldwell asked Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y) about rising crime rates. Caldwell’s brother was shot dead in Chicago in June, so I guess one could perhaps argue that he has a distorted view of matters, and that the the whole rising crime thingy is his imagination. But it isn’t, which is perhaps the reason Nadler refused to answer the question.

Americans’ concern about rising crime are at their highest levels since 2016, and no wonder.

Though the number of homicides and some violent crimes dropped slightly in the first half of 2022 compared to 2021, violence in major American cities still remains dramatically higher than it was before the pandemic.

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“Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Sunday Continues With An Unethical Quote Of The Week From Media Matters President Angelo Carusone

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

“[Fox News] had a profound distorting effect on the news media, on our society. And if you look at what Musk says about social media, we are in the same moment, just updated 30 years later…[He] sees Twitter, and the policies that he wants to put in place and the way that he wants to use the platform, as a way to balance out those other social networks.”

—-Angelo Carusone, president of the pro-progressive media bias organization Media Matters, comparing Elon Musk’s pending acquisition of Twitter to when Fox News broke the liberal monopoly on network news more than two decades ago

Give Angelo credit: he’s right, even if he can’t distinguish a good development from a bad one. But then, that’s Media Matters for you, nearly completely ethics-free. (I generally ignore MM because it is so clearly dishonest and untrustworthy, but it does have a odoriferous Ethics Alarms dossier, here.)

These periodic themes on Ethics Alarms aren’t planned, but wowie zowie, have a lot of examples of the news media’s leftist bias been flying by today!

Caruso’s quote is signature significance for the arrogance and totalitarian instincts of such people. I seldom watch Fox News because it so often is pitched to idiots incapable of critical thought, and its star pundits like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity are perpetually intellectually dishonest. Nonetheless, Fox News’ appearance on the scene was arguably the most important and essential development in American journalism before journalists decided not to practice journalism any more and almost completely stomp on the principles enshrined in the profession’s ethics codes.

How many news stories that the mainstream media tried to bury or distort would we have never been informed fully about (or informed about at all) without one network that existed, indeed with its own biases, to balance out the Borg-like perspective of the vast majority of its competitors?

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Today’s Biased Mainstream Media 2022 Election Panic Exhibit A: The New York Times Flags A Conspiracy Theory [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I was going to post about this one days ago, got distracted, and then was reminded about again when I saw today’s Exhibit B (coming along soon).

As Ethics Alarms has been chronicling (incompletely to be sure), the mainstream media is as panicked as its client, the Democratic Party, about the likelihood that the multilateral disasters created by administration policies as well as the performance of progressive governors and big city mayors will lead to an epic rejection in the November mid-term elections. I expect the mainstream media, deep in the throes of a “Bias Makes You Stupid” attack, to cross even more journalism ethics lines than it has been and further undermines what’s left of its credibility as the big day approaches.

The major themes in this desperation assault on reality and public awareness seem to be…

  • …the Supreme Court letting legislatures decide how to regulate abortion is an attack on democracy.
  • …the Republicans tried to take over the government in 2021 with the Capitol riot, so the Democrats must be allowed to continue eliminating and punishing dissent in the name of freedom.
  • …Donald Trump and anyone who supports him is a Nazi, as President Biden clearly explained during his cool Adolf Hitler impression
  • …”It isn’t what it is” explains and excuses anti-white racial discrimination in public policy; the illegal immigration wave; inflation; the increase in crime, soaring gas prices, public treasury hand-outs to those who haven’t paid their college loans while the suckers who met their financial obligations are just patsies; the frightening politicizing of the Justice Department as a Leftist state policing tool; the sexualizing of  public school education and everything else that seems to be spinning out of control,and
  • ….all opposition efforts to criticize or condemn any or all of the above is “a conspiracy theory” or a “Big Lie”

Exhibit A is an example of the latter, and a pretty amusing one, if one can find the total rot of American journalism funny. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Week: Ann Althouse

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

(I know this is like shooting fish in a barrel, but…)

“I wish the NYT would play it dead straight.’

—Blogging contrarian Ann Althouse, complaining about the Times story and its headline, “Ginni Thomas Denies Discussing Election Subversion Efforts With Her Husband.”

The retired law professor writes,

Election Subversion Efforts” is quite a phrase. You could discuss a lot of things and still deny that any of it was “subversion.”… If you believe the election was already subverted, then in pushing for more procedural paths, you’re trying to un-subvert it. If you think the announced results are invalid, you’re trying to get to the true results, not “invalidate the results.” It’s very hard to wade through these loaded terms. 

We have discussed this sinister media spin ever since the November 2020. Questioning the election results and taking related action when Republicans win is simply politics as usual and seeking integrity in the democratic system. Doing so when Democrats win is “election subversion.” The Times is, as it does most of the time now, using its influence to try to bolster Democratic party campaign themes and talking points.

It’s time like these when I miss self-banned New York Times apologist “A Friend,” who could be counted on to mount a contrived defense when his favorite paper was flagged for ethics fouls like this. Continue reading →

Ethics Round-Up, 9/16/2022: Enjoying Seeing Open Borders Hypocrites Squirm Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I would have an easier time ruling that the latest conservative trolling tavtic of sending illegal immigrants to ostentatiously woke “sanctuary cities” (and islands) is unethical if the residents and politicians in those locales could just keep their mouths shut and show some integrity and consistency. But they just can’t do it. Not only do they have no shame, they have no shame about having no shame. How, for example, can the Martha’s Vineyard hypocrites who sport that obnoxious, virtue signalling sign on their front lawn continue to go through life without hiding their heads under a bag?

It took less than 24 hours for the rich enclave of progressives, where poor Alan Dershowitz find himself a pariah for criticizing Democratic efforts to criminalize politics, to ship the 50 imports from Florida to this charming military base:

A sign like that in Martha’s Vineyard is like a “Welcome Sharks!” sign in Amity. Conservatives are gloating, and they have every reason to gloat. And mock. And point. Honestly, how can these people—this whole political party—bear to look at itself in the mirror?

1. But wait! There’s more! Speaking of not having the sense to shut up, I give you Hillary Clinton, who told “Morning Joe” that sending illegals to Martha’s Vineyard was “literally human trafficking.” Pausing to mock and point, Prof. Turley explained why this is “legal nonsense,” reminding readers that Hillary is a lawyer:

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Further Notes And Observations On President Biden’s “Soul Of The Nation” Speech

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

No, this doesn’t rate “ethics train wreck” status. The horrible episode was already hooked up to two ongoing ethics train wrecks: the extinction level  2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck, and its subordinate Biden Presidency Ethics Train Wreck. Moreover, Biden’s speech has some very positive aspects to it which are becoming immediately apparent. Those who praise it are outing themselves as hopelessly, cripplingly biased, ethically short-circuited and ready to embrace totalitarianism. Journalists who rationalize it are proving the critics of their rotted profession correct. This is all useful information, if depressing.

The speech also exposed the desperation and complete corruption of the Democratic Party for anyone to see who isn’t in an ethics coma. The smoking gun: the fact that Biden and Democrats began denying that Biden said what he said less than a day after he said it, and said it in a carefully (if stupidly) prepared and choreographed production framed as a major Presidential address. This exchange…

Fox News’ Peter Doocy: “Do you consider all Trump supporters to be a threat to the country?”

Biden: “I don’t consider any Trump supporter a threat to the country.”

…was not only a Jumbo, as Ethics Alarms declared last night, but as Professor Jacobson points out, one that makes the vocal knee-jerk supporters of the speech look like the unprincipled toadies they are. He writes, “I bet you thought there was nothing so pathetic as Joe “Wartime President” Biden’s hateful, lunatic, insane, demeaning, and otherwise civil-warish speech last night….Biden was categorical – “MAGA Republicans are a threat.” Immediately, the usual media and Never-Trump sychophants jumped on board with high praise of this eliminationist rhetoric. Guess what? Joe “Where Am I?” Biden just threw them all under the bus by walking back his comments. No, of course he didn’t mean to say that all MAGA-voters were a threat to the nation….” Continue reading →

A “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Classic From NYT Refugee Bari Weiss [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Bari Weiss is one of the disgusted former journalists for progressive/ Democratic propaganda organizations who found the remaining sparks of integrity and belief in democracy within made continuing complicity impossible. A former opinion editor at the New York Times who resigned in July 2020 after she challenged the paper’s hypocrisy, Weiss (whose Ethics Alarms dossier is here) horrified Republican U.S. Senator Tim Scott (S.C.) during her recent podcast,”Honestly with Bari Weiss.”

I’m here to horrify you, too.

Weiss explained to the Senator what went on in the newsroom behind the scenes regarding Scott’s op-ed about a police reform bill he was working on, the Justice Act, in response to the death of George Floyd. Democratic support for the bill ultimately failed, and Scott authored a proposed op-ed piece for the Times explaining how the negotiations collapsed. Weiss told Scott,

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Gallup Finds “Media Confidence Ratings at Record Lows”…Well, Good!

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Why “good”? It’s obviously not good that the trustworthiness of journalism has declined so precipitously. What is good, since the news media has proven itself to be so biased, irresponsible, dishonest and untrustworthy, is that the public is waking up and no longer trusts it. That minimizes the damage. It does not solve, however, the existential danger to our democracy of having a propaganda system instead of objective and reliable reporting.

Sure, this is a poll, and polls themselves are biased and unreliable. Gallup and Pew, however, are the most reliable of the pollsters, and this one at least seems right. 11% trust in TV news is essentially no trust at all: that number represents the moron component that shows up in every poll. (The 16% trust level in newspapers is irrationally high.) Continue reading →