“Nah there’s no mainstream media bias”

Smoking Gun: The LA Times Shows How The Next Election Should Be “Stolen” And Calls It Responsible Journalism

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Proving that Alexa is right, the LA Times recruited Tom Rosenstiel, a former reporter and current journalism professor ,to author a candid but frightening essay that demonstrates exactly how deep the unethical cesspool of American journalism is today. The article is “How not to cover Donald Trump’s bizarre 2024 campaign for president,”and it broadcasts its bias and intellectual dishonesty at every turn, including the headline: Trump’s campaign is bizarre only because Democrats have taken the unprecedented and dangerous step of trying to stop a political adversary by using the criminal justice system as a partisan weapon.

The column states outright that it is the obligation of good journalists to cover the Trump campaign and candidacy in such a way that it fails. “It’s a dereliction of the press’ duty to ignore powerful dissemblers and liars in public life,” the professor writes. “We have an obligation to explain what’s false and offer clear and persuasive evidence of the truth. We have to help the public understand.”

If that last sentence doesn’t cause the date “1984” to start flashing in your brain, it should. These people really believe that their “understanding” is the right understanding. They are the perceptive ones, they are the arbiters of all disputes, disagreements and controversies. The arrogance is chilling, particularly because, as Ethics Alarms has pointed out repeatedly, journalists are not especially smart, wise, erudite or creative people. Some are, of course, just as one of my smartest and most ethical friends had driven a delivery van for 30 years. But the idea that reporters and journalists have the critical thinking skills, the breadth of knowledge and the depth of experience to tell the public “what’s false” would be hilarious if it didn’t do so much damage to the proper functioning of democracy.

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Rep Jamaal Bowman False Alarm Update: His Statement [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Rep. Bowman has just issued a statement regarding his pulling a fire alarm switch to delay yesterday’s vote in the House on the stop-gap funding bill:

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A “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Addendum To The Democratic Porn-For-Pay Virginia House Candidate Story

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Several news media sources have now reported that the Associated Press was informed about Susanna Gibson and her husband selling sexual perversions-on-demand via videos on the public porn site Chaturbate. A candidate for a state legislature seeking compensation for letting an audience see her urinate, perhaps on said husband (just to pick one possible videoed activity) is obviously both newsworthy and of legitimate interest to voters (despite the absurd line of defense now taken by Gibson, her defenders and her party), but the AP’s editors deliberately refused to report on it. Instead, the AP alerted Gibson that the secret of the videos was out, so she could take them down, which she did. This was on September 5.

The outlet then waited until September 12, after the scandal had been reported by others, including the Washington Post, to report it as news. Nice.

Observations:

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The NYT Provides A Preview Of Its 2024 Campaign Toadying Strategy, Part I: Gaslight! [Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

This is nice of them.

Today’s Sunday Times “Review” section, the punditry and analysis collection that once provided diverse political views and included unexpected perspective on modern life (but who cares about diversity and inclusion these days, right?) has two head-explodingly dishonest and diabolically-biased pieces that demonstrate how the paper will do its utmost to boost the Democrats back into the White House for another four years despite their epic incompetence and defiance of Constitutional government during the first three.

The first is epic gaslighting by Times editors and alleged conservative (diversity!) Ross Douthat. Like all conservative columnists that the Times subjects to its Stockholm Syndrome process, Douthat isn’t one anymore, just as the magazine he once edited, The Atlantic, has become a reliable Democratic propaganda mouthpiece (like the Times). He’s religious, believes in the importance of organized religion and opposes abortion, so he makes an effective double agent for the Gray Lady. He has contributed a subversive pro-Biden column with the hilarious headline, “Why is Joe Biden So Unpopular?” It’s a mystery! What could it be?

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On The Washington Post, Its Readers, Its “Fact Checker,” And Spinning For Joe Biden

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

“If you can’t hide it, decorate it!” the maxim goes. Thus it is that someone in the ethics-free “resistance”/ Democrat/mainstream media alliance (“The Axis of Unethical Conduct” we call it in in these parts) decided that President Biden’s problem with the truth—he ignores, distorts, and denies it regularly—must be dealt with, since part of the strategy to defeat Donald Trump is to emphasize his “falsehoods” and “lies.” So a directive went out to the Washington Post’s “Factchecker,” Glenn Kessler: “Hey, Glenn, do one of your cool columns, the ones with the Pinnochio-head ratings system, about Joe’s fabulism, but make sure you’re careful which whoppers you mention, and make sure you don’t call them ‘lies.’ Trump lies. Joe…well, you know, he just does what he does, but it’s no big deal, in fact it’s kind of endearing.” And whoever it was—heck, it might have been Dr. Jill, Chuck Schumer or Merrick Garland!—added, “And besides, it will be good for you, too! It will prove that you’re objective, fair and non-partisan!”

The Post dutifully agreed, because it is not objective, fair, or non-partisan. Neither is Kessler, whom I have tried mightily over the years to regard as a man who tries to do his job ethically, but because bis biases make him stupid, can’t quite manage it. Ethics Alarms officially recants that sympathetic assessment. Yesterday’s Post feature by Kessler headlined “Biden loves to retell certain stories. Some aren’t credible” clinches it. Kessler is a disgusting hack with no shame or integrity, and the Washington Post is a full-time agent of the Democratic Party and an enemy of democracy.

As for its readers…well, I’ll get to them.

“President Biden, like many politicians, likes to tell stories — stories that attempt to connect his life story with his audiences and make up an essential part of his persona,” Kessler begins. He uses a “everybody does it” approach right away, mitigating Biden’s serial lies and sliding over the fact that lies from the president of the United States are not in the same category as lies by “everyone.” “The Fact Checker” also defines Biden’s lies out of existence by labeling them “stories.” Stories are entertaining! Stories are fun! Stories aren’t lies. See, when Donald Trump said that he saw Muslims in the U.S. celebrating after the 9-11 bombings—it was on TV someplace—that wasn’t a story, that was a lie. When he described how he vehemently opposed the Iraq invasion from the very beginning (in fact, he initially said he agreed with it), that was a lie too. But when Joe says that he never, ever, ever discussed his slime-ball son Hunter’s business dealings with him that’s just a story. When Joe says that U.S. citizens weren’t allowed to own cannons in the 18th Century (which he does almost every time he talks about gun control), that’s just a story too, a charming, completely made-up story, like George Washington and the cherry tree. Stating that he attended a “historically black college” while addressing an African American audience? A harmless story! Saying that Beau was killed in Iraq? A comforting story from a grieving father. Understand?

Yeah, I understand, all too well.

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“Gotcha!” Of “Gotcha’s!” The Washington Post Admits That It “Stands By” False Reporting!

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Good to know. Thanks, WaPo!

In one of the Jonathan Turley essays discussed here, the increasingly red pilled GW law prof appropriately scored the Washington Post’s partisan hack of hacks, Philip Bump, whose consistently unethical reporting jaunts would be a blight on responsible journalism if responsible journalism was around any more to be blighted. A burst of exorbitant loyalty that the Post will rue moved the paper to rise to Bump’s defense with the ill-advised message to Turley you see above.

I bet Turley was laughing out loud as he loosened his fingers to type a follow-up article for his blog. The Post had handed him one of the great “gotcha‘s!” in “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” history. By saying that it “stood behind” the reporting of their partisan stooge, the Post had endorsed now indisputable examples of biased, partisan, incompetent, irresponsible and dishonest reporting. Turley could now use the full range of his legal talents to prepare a crushing brief to show, not only the depth of Bump’s corruption, but that of the Post’s as well!

And use it them he did.

Washington Post Stands by Philip Bump’s Claims on Lafayette Park, the Hunter Biden Laptop, and Other Controversial Claims is Turley’s gleeful headline. It deserved an exclamation point. The professor reviews Bump’s despicable work on the Lafayette Park kerfuffle, The Hunter Biden Laptop cover-up, the FBI’s Spying on the Trump Campaign, and the Russian Collusion hoax.

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Ethics Quote Of The Week: Lawyer John Eastman On The Georgia Trump Indictments

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

“I am here today to surrender to an indictment that should never have been brought.  It represents a crossing of the Rubicon for our country, implicating the fundamental First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances.  As troubling, it targets attorneys for their zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients, something attorneys are ethically bound to provide and which was attempted here by “formally challeng[ing] the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means.”  – An opportunity never afforded them in the Fulton County Superior Court. Each Defendant in this indictment, no less than any other American citizen, is entitled to rely upon the advice of counsel and the benefit of past legal precedent in challenging what former Vice President Pence described as, “serious allegations of voting irregularities and numerous instances of officials setting aside state election law” in the 2020 election.  The attempt to criminalize our rights to such redress with this indictment will have – and is already having – profound consequences for our system of justice. My legal team and I will vigorously contest every count of the indictment in which I am named, and also every count in which others are named, for which my knowledge of the relevant facts, law, and constitutional provisions may prove helpful.  I am confident that, when the law is faithfully applied in this proceeding, all of my co-defendants and I will be fully vindicated.”

John Eastman, respected conservative legal scholar, lawyer, law professor and former Dean of Chapman University Law School, as he surrendered last week to authorities on charges in the Georgia case alleging an illegal plot to overturn the Trump’s 2020 election loss.

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“Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” The Times’ Dishonest And Biased “Fact Check” On “Trump’s Election Lies”

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

If I never had occasion to write another ethics post about Donald Trump again, I would be thrilled. Unfortunately, he won’t shut up or disappear, and the Axis of Unethical Conduct (the “resistance,” the Democratic Party and the increasingly outrageous news media), recently joined by the justice system, won’t stop their misconduct.

Today the New York Times again disgraced themselves and their now shattered reputation for accuracy and fairness beyond what even I have come to expect. Signaling that Trump cannot expect anything approaching objective coverage and analysis of his various trials, the Times today offers a “fact check” headlined, “Fact-Checking the Breadth of Trump’s Election Lies: The former president faces multiple charges related to his lies about the 2020 election. Here’s a look at some of his most repeated falsehoods.”

I decided to factcheck the fact check, suspecting what I would find but in the end stunned by how openly the Times failed to deliver on what it promised. It’s astoundingly deceitful, and aimed at readers who just want to see Trump punished because they hate his guts. I won’t fisk the whole thing, but here’s more than enough to show you what the Times has become:

  • “…In public, he made more than 800 inaccurate claims about the election from the time the polls began closing on Nov. 3, 2020, to the end of his presidency, according to a database compiled by The Washington Post.”

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And Speaking Of Mainstream Media Bias, Spinning For Democrats And Misleading The Public, This NYT Report Is A Classic

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

When I read this astoundingly mendacious story in the Times, the first thing that I was reminded of was the memorable moment in “Plain Trains and Automobiles” when John Candy confidently tells a dubious state trooper that his burned out, roofless wreck of a car is “safe to drive.” (This goes right into the Ethics Alarms Clip archive.)

President Biden has repeatedly insisted that he has no knowledge of his son Hunter’s various sleazy business schemes, and that Joe never discussed Hunter’s money-making activities with him. Yet yesterday, in his nearly five hours of closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee, a former business partner of Hunter’s, Devon Archer, revealed that President Biden met with and spoke to his son Hunter’s international business associates on about 20 occasions as Hunter sought consulting deals (translation: lucrative influence and access peddling arrangements).

Hilariously, Archer claimed that the Joe Biden was not party to any of his son’s business deals. You see, Hunter Biden was just trying to sell the idea that he could provide access to his powerful father—by providing access to his powerful father. He was claiming that he could influence his father by showing that he could persuade him to pick up the phone, drop by and shake hands. Yet, reports the Times, Democrats on the panel insisted that it wasn’t what it was, by definition.

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Nate Silver Tells The Truth About Media Bias: Ethics Hero

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

The only surprising aspect of Nate Silver’s latest substack essay is that he actually wrote it and had the courage to put it on the web. He is honest about mainstream media bias, and until he got kicked off his own creation, the 538 blog, Silver was a willing accomplice in this rot in the foundation of our democracy, making a lot of money in the process. Now—finally—he’s using his substantial critical thinking and research skills to expose the bad guys (his former pals before they rejected him : yes, I suspect there’s a measure of vengeance in this)who continue to successfully warp public knowledge and the process of an informed democracy by convincing sufficient number of ovine citizens that the concept of progressive media bias is a right-wing conspiracy theory. The focus of his traitorous analysis is how Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has helped address the effects of the media’s partisan bias.

In “Twitter, Elon and the Indigo Blob,” Silver becomes one of the very few progressives of note to admit what has been going on under their cultural assault. Some others include Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, and Bari Weiss, but Silver is more scientific and detached than any of them, and as a result, his analysis is more persuasive and, I hope, more disruptive to the blue wall of silence the progressive Borg has erected around a throbbing, obvious, disgusting truth.

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