“Nah there’s no mainstream media bias”

Curmie’s Conjectures— Punk’s Guide to Ethics, Part I: The Problem

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

by Curmie

[I am particularly grateful for this installment of Curmie’s Conjectures because it assuages my guilt a bit. As longtime readers here know, I occasionally promise posts that never show up, or do, but so long after the promise that it’s embarrassing. Years ago, I promised a post defining and examining all journalistic tricks that I classify as “fake news,” and I use the term broadly to include misleading headlines, burying the lede, omitting key information that undermines the writer’s agenda, poisoning the well and other techniques. I started the thing, got frustrated and overwhelmed, and never finished it. Here Curmie doesn’t exactly present what I intended, but he touches on much of it, and as an extra bonus, he wrote it more elegantly than I would have (as usual). JM.]

I doubt that this blog has ever before turned to punk rock for ethics advice, but Boomtown Rats composer/frontman (and Live Aid impresario) Bob Geldof had it right in a song that’s probably more relevant today than it was 40+ years ago: “Don’t Believe What You Read.”  Well, not uncritically, at least.  At our host’s suggestion, I’m about to enter the fraught territory of trying to decide if a story published by an obviously biased media outlet might, this time, just be accurate. 

It’s difficult of late to find a news source that only leans in one direction or the other, rather than proselytizing for the cause.  The news networks and major newspapers have carved out their market shares based on feeding their viewers and readers what they want to be fed.  Whether the advent of Fox News was a trigger or a reaction is up to individual interpretation, but there’s absolutely no doubt that we’re now in an era in which news as reported is determined largely by editorial positioning, rather than the other way around.

It’s inevitable that, to steal a line from another of my favorite musicians, Paul Simon, “a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.”  Fighting our own biases is not made easier by the knowledge that learning from experience and confirmation bias are opposite sides of the same coin.  If a story appears only on Fox News and the Drudge Report, or only on AlterNet and MSNBC, there’s an excellent chance that the indignation is feigned and the actual events are something of a nothing-burger.

But “usually” is not “always.”  As a society, we’re well aware of the tale of the boy who cried wolf and the miraculous last-second basket from well past half-court.  We nod and smile at the suggestion that stopped clocks are right twice a day. 

There are a few variations on the theme of biased journalism.  The first, editorializing in a news story, is generally the easiest to spot and the easiest to counteract.  If there are words like “communist,” “Nazi,” or “un-American” to describe a US politician, or phrases like “unborn children” or “reproductive freedom,” you’re reading an editorial, whether the article identifies itself as such or not.  There’s nothing wrong with editorializing; it’s what I do here and on my own blog, after all.  But I also try to not to suggest that what I write is completely objective.

Another variation on the theme, and a personal pet peeve, is what I call a Schrödinger sentence, because it is simultaneously true and not true.  For example, I’ve seen a whole lot of conservative commentary on this blog that “progressives want X.”  (“X” in this context, of course, has nothing to do with what Elon Musk renamed Twitter.)  True, there are enough progressives who advocate for X to make the noun plural, but I’m a progressive, and I’m a big fan of not-X.  The implication—or, rather, one possible implication—of the sentence is that in order to be a progressive, one must want X.  That is no more true than suggesting that all conservatives believe in Jewish space lasers.  And I really resent being told what I believe.

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Once Again, The Single “Fact-Checking” Source That I Once Thought Was Fair And Trustworthy Shows Its Partisan Bias

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

I can start this post with part of the opening section of a post from July, 2022:

For decades now, I had held on to the hopeful fiction that at least one factchecking organization, the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s FactCheck.Org, at least could be relied upon to make a good faith effort to do its job objectively. Oh, it has always had a left-leaning bias, make no mistake about that. Many years ago I was at a conference where the keynote speaker was the head of FactCheck.Org. She proudly proclaimed the organization’s “absolute objectivity and non-partisanship.” When it came to time for audience questions, I couldn’t restrain myself: by pure coincidence, I happened to have in my briefcase a recent “factcheck” by the group that outright misstated a fact to minimize negative characterizations of Bill Clinton. I read the relevant passage to the speaker, and asked, “How can you honestly describe that passage as anything other than partisan and biased?” Her response was, as I recall, “Huminahuminahumina...”

But still, I am a sap. I so wanted to believe that there was an exception to my conviction that factcheckers are all Democrat propagandists. And now FactCheck has engaged in an instance of flagrant (and inept) propaganda under the guise of factchecking…

Now fast-forward to the post-Hamas massacre progressive crisis. FactCheck.Org posted a factcheck titles, “Cruz Distorts Facts on Biden Support for Israel.” Writer Eugene Kiely concluded that there is “little support” for Senator Ted Cruz’s claim in a Fox News interview that “literally from within minutes of when this horrific attack began on Oct. 7, the Biden White House has been telling Israel, do not retaliate, cease-fire, stop, do not kill the terrorists.”

Heck, anyone who reads Ethics Alarms could have debunked the debunker. I wrote here,

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Oh NO! A Powerful Member Of Congress Who Hasn’t Become Rich Somehow! What’s Wrong With This Guy?

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

CNN’s not-so-subtle partisan innuendo is displayed in the title: “He’s second in line to the presidency. Financially, he’s just getting by.” Obviously, Speaker Mike Johnson must be incompetent or profligate, or have a drug or gambling problem, or something. After all, as CNN vaguely tells us, his Democratic predecessor as Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has “done very well.” I’ll say: her wealth is estimated at about 180 million dollars. CNN doesn’t try to explain how she has done so well, but it is widely believed that it involves insider trading.

Since becoming Speaker, Mike Johnson has been attacked by Democrats for his vile habit of believing in the Bible and its teachings. Add to that the fact that he apparently isn’t smart enough to turn what is supposed to be selfless public service into a personal fortune like his colleagues have, and it’s easy to see why the Axis of Unethical Conduct is telling the pubic that he can’t be trusted.

I have a clarification for them: a member of Congress who isn’t getting rich from the job is more trustworthy, not less.

Today’s Unethical NYT Headline: “Democrats, No Longer Squeamish on Abortion, Lean Into Searing Personal Ads”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

What an infuriating, despicable headline, though the story is equally bad. If abortion supporters—yes, it’s the Democratic Party exploiting the issue—weren’t “squeamish” about what they so indignantly and self-righteously support they wouldn’t have spent the past 70 years trying to figure out ways to avoid directly admitting what they are advocating. “Baby? What baby?”

The argument for abortion, that is, terminating a developing unique human life distinct from that of its mother before it can grow to be born and go on to experience life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, has been, and still is, deliberately clouded by misleadng rhetoric about “choice” and “reproductive care,” the current dodge. Wait, how is that other human life in the equation assisted with his or her “reproduction”? Is it “care” to have that life’s own chances of reproducing taken away from it?

And what choice does the victim of an abortion have?

If Democrats weren’t “squeamish” about having to deal with those questions, they wouldn’t be trying (and, tragically, thanks to the abysmal level of attention, critical thought and ethical competence of the average American, largely succeeding) to avoid them.

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Today’s “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Updates: The Lewiston Shooting And “Arghh! Biden Has A Primary Challenger!”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

bias

The fact that so many loyal Democrats and smug progressives will still look you in the eye and say that mainstream media bias is a right-wing conspiracy theory speaks eloquently of the corruption of American politics, individual integrity and democracy. Two depressing examples:

1. The missing mass shootings.

Kevin Downey reviews the large number of mass shootings since the Lewiston massacre, and points out that even though one would assume that a) they are all newsworthy and b) that the anti-gun journalism establishment would want such tragedies to be known, only the Maine shooting ticked off the right boxes to advance the agreed-upon MSM narrative without undermining some part of it. In addition to the high body count, the Lewiston massacre featured a white male shooter using a semi-automatic weapon (that they could call “an assault weapon”). And he apparently liked some conservative social media posts, meaning that the shooting was really Donald Trump’s fault.

Maine authorities were also warned about Robert R. Card II in plenty of time to stop him if they had followed established policies but didn’t. Oh, never mind: as with the Uvalde shooting and others, it’s the guns, the victims and the shooter that matter, not the fact that existing laws and competent law enforcement should have been sufficient to prevent the disaster.

Since the Lewiston shooting (October 25) there were ten more mass shootings, leaving 14 dead and 65 wounded. Two took place in Chicago (of course) and left 19 people shot.In one shooting involving a handgun, 15 victims were hit by gunfire. That there weren’t more deaths is moral luck. The mostly ignored shootings involved shooters “of color,” drug gatherings, parties substantially attended by non-whites, and weapons that couldn’t plausibly be called “weapons of war.”

Downey also cited the amusing idiocy of, again, Joy Behar on “The View,” produced by ABC News, showing abject gun ignorance ( I missed it–sock drawer…). She said (and no one on the set had the wit, integrity or knowledge to contradict her),”If you shoot with an AR-15, let’s say you shoot a deer, you can’t eat it because you basically demolish the animal.” She “doesn’t know the difference between an AR-15 and a bazooka,” writes Downey. That’s fair.

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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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