“Just what does a reporter have to do to get fired from ABC News? So far, it doesn’t look like spreading false and malicious rumors on air in order to tie an innocent and legitimate political movement to a massacre meets the criteria.”

Another tragedy, another media revelation. Ed describes the situation at Hot Air.

After many such episodes, which collectors are starting to list and organize, you’d think the idea that reporters should report rather than speculate and extrapolate might sink in.

The comparison and contrast is to Fox News and the assault on that organization for bias and lying and such things. In one case, there are many explicit and important examples such as this latest example. In the other, there are vague allegations that boil down to, more than anything, just a difference of opinion. (cf Fox News Banned From Canada – Law Forbids Lying On Broadcast News)

Freedom of the press just means that it is up to the people to determine what is reporting and what is propaganda. Some seem to think that that effort might be too much for the common man. That underscores the difference in ideologies at play in modern culture.

“Rather than investigate the New Black Panthers or the other criminals making death threats, teams of FBI agents and local investigators have been ordered by Eric Holder’s Justice Department to go around Florida asking about whether anyone has heard George Zimmerman make racist comments. You can’t make this stuff up.”

There are those who have decided he’s guilty even to the point of haggling about whether Zimmerman’s wounds were sufficiently severe as to support his being beaten. New Zimmerman Evidence Removes Any Doubt describes why Arnold Trebach things “George Zimmerman: victim of a liberal racist lynch mob.”

There is a comparison and contrast here but you seldom hear much about the other incidents. Those are the gangs that attack often white victims. In the Zimmerman case, it was made to fit a racist profile – the racism being, as usual, on the part of the left and blacks – even though it turns out that Zimmerman isn’t really ‘white’ despite the name.

A tragedy occured. It is being compounded by a much greater tragedy. The lynch mobs and witch trials still exist and still wreak havoc on civil government.

As the skepticism, or perhaps cynicism, grows concerning the major media, attention becomes focused on just what behaviors are behind it. Olshaker provides an example claiming that the Washington Post Tougher on Romney than Hezb’allah Killer of 241 Marines
.

“It’s no accident the Post unveiled the “bully” narrative when they did. The earlier storyline — that Romney is a weak candidate, fails to connect with voters, and is universally disliked — became difficult to sustain any longer when the man nobody liked won the most votes. Another strategy taking shape, not long ago considered unthinkable, is revealed in a recent Post column asking whether Romney’s religion is “fair game.” The question itself hints that there is something objectionable in Mormonism that reasonable people might find to be a reason not to vote for Romney. Prepare for further, increasingly desperate attacks, as Romney continues to receive more negative coverage than mass-murdering terrorists.”

People are taking note of how things like Bush’s DUI or the claim that Walker had an illegitimate child just happen to show up in papers a day or two before elections; the pattern of adjectives often seen in headlines with comparison and contrast between political affiliation; and the focus of news stories. Olshaker’s story illustrates this with careful observation.

Hoven describes several ‘fact checking’ efforts that are Fun & Games with Mainstream Media Numbers

“Frankly, I’m glad someone is looking into this. I don’t want to be one of that 0.01%. But I’m also relieved to see that the wrongful conviction rate is so low. (But I would be concerned that trying to blindly reduce that rate would increase the rate of wrongful acquittals. As an engineer, I know errors will be made. Our choice is mostly what type of error: letting bad guys go free, or putting good guys in prison.)”
…
“Like the previous story, what is actually good news is treated as bad news. The real news is that workplace fatalities are trending down (just as they were prior to OSHA’s existence — see chart below), to the point where the things that kill people at work are the same things that kill them when not at work: vehicles and violence.”

Wrongful convictions, occupational hazards, budgets, … all are subject to distortions that feed an ideology. One has to be careful, especially when reading MSM fact checking stories.

Volokh: “More People Die from Guns Than Car Accidents in Michigan” – So states a Detroit Free Press op-ed headline. Here’s an excerpt from the op-ed itself:

The Reno Gazette Journal had a similar headline about Nevada.

“But wait: The number of accidental gun deaths in Michigan in 2009 (the most recent year reported in WISQARS) was … 12, compared to 962 accidental motor-vehicle-related deaths. 99% of the gun deaths in Michigan that year consisted of suicides (575) and homicides (495).”
…
“This also helps explain, I think, why gun rights supporters are so worried about “health and safety” proposals. Precisely because such proposals are so unlikely to have much of an effect, the gun rights supporters naturally assume that the backers of the proposals aren’t really after modest car-like “regulat[ions] … for health and safety,” but are actually trying to bring about much more aggressive sorts of gun restrictions.”

The underlying issue is one of intellectual integrity. In this case, the dishonesty comes in the form of the abuse of statistical measures.

“There is no equivalent of Media Matters on the conservative side, a well-funded organization devoted to silencing political opponents through secondary advertiser boycotts. George Soros donated $1 million in 2010 for the anti-Fox News campaign, the same year Media Matters hired Carusone for the various “Stop” campaigns.”

William Jacobson details how Media Matters astroturfed the Limbaugh secondary boycott. It is a case study in the tactics of total war in the ideological realm.

As noted, it is yet another example of just how off base the ‘both sides do it’ excuse really is.

“I’m not interested in Limbaugh’s comments or whether or not they are “appropriate.” When you enter the political kitchen, as Fluke did, you should be ready to get scorched. As always, more interesting is the reaction to the comments. And that reaction once again reveals the monstrous hypocrisy of progressives. The folks who proclaim their sensitivity, nuanced thinking, therapeutic concern for the tender sensibilities of others, and open-mindedness have always been the most vicious, bigoted, narrow-minded, crude, dogmatic, conformist people on the planet.”

Bruce Thorton describes The Real Point of the Left’s Uproar over Limbaugh.It may be a bit more though,

The Limbaugh ruckus is closely tied in with the introduction of contraception during a Republican debate by the moderator. That was related to attempts to demonize the opposition to the controversial health care legislation. That particular chapter of that strategy was followed by bringing in a known activist who chose a school to attend using their health insurance policy so she could contest it. That has been followed by the assault on those who took note of the absurdity of the Congressional testimony. A part of that assault is, in this case, on Limbaugh’s advertisers. In other words, the destruction of an opposing voice is in the cross hairs. Day by Day has one on that noting that one former advertiser still supports Ed Schultz who has used similar language without the substance.

Limbaugh’s fans may not be willing to take the assault sitting down.

See also The Fluke Gambit Pays Off For Dems

Where have we seen this soap opera before? That’s an important question, because this is the Big Play of the scapegoating left. It’s pure, standard Alinsky, and they do it over and over again.

That’s why it is important for normal, decent Americans to learn how it works. Once you recognize it you’ll see it done over and over again. Conservatives who can’t predict the radical left are losers. As in football, we have to study the playbook of the opposition. It’s the first step toward beating them. They are more ruthless and coordinated than conservatives are. We are smarter but less coordinated.

Another good explanation of the tactics and strategy Rally for Rush by Jeffery Lord

Right on cue, the blacklisting crowd came out of their Stalinist caves. Having driven Lou Dobbs from CNN, cut off Beck’s windpipe at Fox, severed Pat Buchanan from MSNBC, thus emboldened they have now set their sights on Rush.

At the Telegraph: The Rush Limbaugh ‘slutgate’ scandal is about government gone wild, not sex

Back in the 1970s, the American Left decided that it couldn’t achieve socialism through the ballot box. Instead, it pursued a “rights” agenda through the courts that would redefine economic equality as a right that it was the government’s constitutional duty to guarantee. Initially, the focus was on jobs but over time it broadened out and came to include the right to have sex without any consequences.

will the people be manipulated or will they see the shenanigans? Look what happened in the just concluded election in Russia … and worry.

You may have seen some of the recent headlines about a report that proclaimed apocalypse nearly averted or some such hyperbole. The Fukushima Question at Slate provides a good example of critical reading that the headline writers seem to have avoided.

With an eye to the first anniversary of the tsunami that killed 20,000 people and caused a partial meltdown at the Fukushima power plant in Japan, a recently formed nongovernmental organization called Rebuild Japan released a report earlier this week on the nuclear incident to alarming media coverage. … To say that Japan “barely avoided” what another top official called a “demonic chain reaction” of plant meltdowns and the evacuation of Tokyo is to make an extraordinary claim … The same day the New York Times published its story, PBS broadcast a Frontline documentary about the Fukushima meltdown that invites a somewhat different interpretation
…
The Rebuild Japan report seems, on its face, to have been produced by a highly credible team of “30 university professors, lawyers and journalists.” But even a seemingly legitimate study deserves a skeptical eye … It should have been a red flag that Rebuild Japan gave its report to journalists a full week before releasing it to the public, which prevented outside experts from evaluating its claims. Another hint that the report merited a contrary opinion was the fact that it excluded any account from Tepco executives, who refused to be interviewed by Rebuild Japan investigators.

There is another example going on right now about a constructed controversy. That is on the idea of mandating insurance coverage for lifestyle choices being paraded as either freedom for women from interference in their health decisions or as an assault on women’s health. The arguments don’t make sense and the allegations about a major talk show host are about as dishonest as they get.

Joshua Green at Bloomberg has an interesting illustration of propaganda in Why Solyndra Won’t Go Away. The first clue is the partisanship

“Today marks the one-year anniversary of the ongoing congressional investigation of Solyndra, the failed solar company that received a $535 million federal stimulus loan. To Republicans, the Solyndra episode is an egregious example of White House perfidy and cronyism”

next up is the minimizing

“despite all the hysteria, Solyndra’s failure was fairly routine — costly and unfortunate, sure, a political nightmare, yes, but hardly scandalous.”

then the exaggeration and hyperbole against the straw man

“Republican investigators have pursued it with a vengeance, hoping to turn up the proverbial smoking gun that confirms their darkest suspicions … One reason the investigation persists is that it’s a handy pretext for demanding documents, and who knows what could turn up?”

Then there’s the ‘everyone does it’ thing

“it was one of 28 companies that received loan guarantees under an Energy Department program, and the possibility that some of those companies might fail was anticipated by the program’s authors: they budgeted $2.5 billion to cover any failures.”

None of this fits with the conclusion

“The real problem Solyndra illustrates is that the political world has a much harder time accepting failure than the business world. In light of this reality, the question that ought to be examined is whether it makes sense for the government to subsidize private businesses.”

Finally is the whole issue turned on its head

“But in Congress, there’s no penalty for throwing good money after bad.”

Green spends the whole post going after Congress investigating the administration for “throwing good money after bad” and then he reverses the sides in order to protect his favorite. The reason the investigation continues is just that of the ideological differences about “the question that ought to be examined.” The Republicans in Congress were elected on the platform that it does not “makes sense for the government to subsidize private businesses”, especially when that money flow happens to be predominately supported by ideological rather than business reasons and just happens to favor selected campaign donors. That is why they look to find fault, to see if there is something legally wrong to accompany what they feel is morally wrong. There is sufficient evidence, sufficient odor, and sufficient opposition of the questionable sort Green illustrates to keep such an ongoing investigation in an honest regime.

If you read Green’s post without much thought, it seems reasonable. That is why such propaganda in the media is insidious.

One of the real howlers in this excerpt is what I call the “reverse Lake Woebegone Effect,” namely, that Pittsburgh’s air is among “the worst in the nation.” Turns out the American Lung Association’s annual report on air pollution—a shoddy report I’ve repeatedly called “a smoldering stogie of misinformation”—always has local versions of a press release that say each metropolitan area suffers from “some of the worst air pollution” in the nation. I did a Nexis search for the phrase “smog” and “some of the worst” a few years ago, and discovered the phrase in press coverage in dozens of American cities. Of course, if everyone has about the same level (which is true for just about every place except the region that actually does have the highest air pollution levels—California), then no one has air that is notably “worse” than everybody else. But it’s always good for the harum-scarum narrative that environmentalists and regulators can’t do without.

The Journal story is entirely typical of media malpractice for its complete absence of data. Reporters ought to ask—but never do—what the underlying trend is, and how ambient conditions measure up against Clean Air Act standards.

Instead, it is up to the critical and reasoning reader like Steven Hayward at Powerline to note how The Journal Blows a Story.

If you actually look at the measures, you’ll find that environmental cleanliness has improved over the last several decades on many fronts. That should be the real story but it doesn’t fit the line that the most vocal ideologues want to peddle.

I wonder what would happen if the media treated the Republicans and Libertarians as well as they treated Democrats for one year?
…
How about just one year in which the right was treated with kid gloves the way the left is now as an experiment to see what would happen? Given all the negativity in the press against the right, it’s amazing they do as well as they do.

Dr. Smith has a dream. There is a difference and she wonders what would happen if roles were reversed.

In many ways this is like the question about why the persecution of Christians in the mid-east doesn’t seem to get much notice.

Much as you might wonder why Time magazine chose a group symbolized by a guy defecating on a police car as their highlight of the year, Time is not alone. Peter Glover cites a litany of Lies, Damned Lies & Enviro-Fraud that show the same value system at play.

“The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”. The late science writer Michael Crichton certainly put his finger on the spirit of our age.

Whether it is the BBC artificially creating nature in a nature documentary or selling airtime slots to climate crusading organisations in breach of its guidelines, Time and the BBC are not alone.

Last year, Josh Fox’s Gasland movie was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Documentary category as an expose of ‘fracking’ in shale gas. However, many suggested it be moved to the Best Fiction category when it was revealed that, factually, Gasland’s amounted to fracking nonsense as process has been used safely in mining for 60 years; that the 1 percent of fracking fluid that is not water is well regulated; and, oh yes, that methane in faucet water is a fairly common, entirely harmless, phenomenon.

Environmental issues are not the only ones being promoted and supported in deceptive ways. Chrichton’s warning was indeed appropriate.

Haven’t heard much about Solyndra lately? How about the Black Panther voting place guards? Or maybe the MG Global bankruptcy? Ed notes a Witness: Corzine knew that customer funds flew and how that particular bombshell gets notice.

If confirmed, will this change the media coverage of Corzine and the MF Global scandal? Two of the three broadcast networks have avoided even mentioning that the former New Jersey governor and US Senator is a Democrat, and no one else is bothering to mention that Corzine was one of Obama’s biggest bundlers in this cycle, as well as Obama’s liaison to Wall Street for ginning up big bucks for the re-election campaign. I seem to recall the media getting into a lather over Ken Lay’s much less concrete connections to George W. Bush after Enron’s collapse.

There are a lot of excuses for this sort of thing, a lot of rationalizations. The key message is that one needs to be very careful about what one reads and to keep in mind that the whole story may not be on the table – you sometimes need to get out to the kitchen for the ‘good stuff.’

One judge thinks this way. John Dvorak (ht Instapundit) describes the case.

The case of Crystal Cox, a self-professed “investigative blogger” from Oregon, should outrage the public. The woman was investigating targeted companies that she believed to be acting unethically and found herself at the wrong end of a lawsuit. … The judge, recent Obama appointee Marco Hernandez, asserted that as a blogger with no other credentials, she was not a journalist and was entitled to no protection.
…
Apparently, there are now new qualifications for journalists. So who decides these qualifications? Hernandez? Where did he get this from? I’ve never seen a laundry list in the U.S. that precludes bloggers. There is nothing in the Bill of Rights, to wit: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

In this instance, the concept of the “press” means any dissemination of information through a communications medium. In the past, this would be a flyer, pamphlet, or newspaper. Now, it includes TV, radio, magazines, PDF files, and blogs. Just because the media have modernized, it does not suddenly mean that the rules have changed.

What does one need to prove one is a journalist? A state license, perhaps? That leads to thinking about the purpose of such licenses, which often tend more towards restricting competition in the field than towards public safety or similar concerns. If it came to being necessary to have a license to be a journalist in order to express one’s opinion or uncover fraud and corruption, then the risks of citizen reporting would be greatly increased. That is why Dvorak is so incensed – and thinks you should be as well – about this particular exercise in judicial excess.

UPDATE: see also Government Licensing Gone Wild: Institute for Justice Fights for Tour Guides in New Orleans by Mark Perry

Scott Johnson brings up the question: who will guard the guardians themselves?. The topic is the fact checking efforts in the MSM that purport objectivity yet turn out to be misleading propaganda pieces.

James Taranto takes up a great example of the absurd fact checking project undertaken by the mainstream media in his column “Newt year in Jerusalem.” It is a project that raises the question posed by the Roman poet Juvenal in Satire VI: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” (Translation: Who will guard the guardians themselves?)

In the cover story of the new issue of the Weekly Standard Mark Hemingway does a number on the whole fact checking genre. Hemingway’s piece is “Lies, damned lies, and ‘fact checking.’” It doesn’t tell you anything you haven’t already intuited or observed, but it is must reading nevertheless.

It is one thing to have reporters take up the responsibility to ‘fact check’ those with whom they disagree ideologically. It is another when that effort becomes transparent and dishonest. “the question posed by the Roman poet Juvenal in Satire VI: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”” will be answered by readers who don’t just accept what is in print as gospel but rather apply critical thinking skills and hold those who utter nonsense accountable for what they say.

Some of the ugliest business competition ads have started appearing on KKOH radio. The issue is that Reno TV Channel 2 was dropped from the DISH Network (KTVN disappears from Dish Network menu – RGJ). It appears that KTVN wanted a 288% increase for the privilege of carrying their content to DISH subscribers. Dish didn’t go for that increase so KTVN is angry and buying advertising to bash DISH.

Broadcast TV has a considerable expense for the transmission facilities they build and use to reach out to their viewers. Rather than see satellite and cable as less expensive means to reach out to a broader audience, it appears that KTVN sees it as a cash cow. Instead of spending money to reach audiences as with over-air broadcasting, they want media conduits to pay them for the privilege.

It is one thing to pay for content such as Netflix and movies. It is another to pay for advertiser supported media such as is typical with broadcast TV.

The muddle of the model arose because of early cable TV and the rise of cable TV channels. Those channels hawked their wares to cable TV companies that needed to fill bandwidth and create offerings to attract cable customers. The licensing constraints applied to cable TV and requirements to carry local channels also made an impact. Finally, the I’net and programming on demand has further clouded the issue. Dealing with such issues has caused much screaming and yelling. Network neutrality is one example. KTVN’s attacks on DISH are another.

The RGJ section to honor companies that give headline is an example of the insidious anti-capitalism propaganda that constantly faces the public. Why is this headline such an item?

On Dec. 18, RGJ Media will publish a special “Corporate Giving” section honoring local businesses that give back to the community. The RGJ will publish, at no charge, your company name and up to 10 of your beneficiaries.

“Give back” implies a taking to be returned. What is this taking that a corporation removes from a community? Jobs and employment? Citizen convenience in obtaining goods and services they desire?

This is particularly delicious in light of the bargain being offered: free publicity coupled with an association between your business and politically correct causes.

It is the assumptions and preconceptions coupled with a tinge of ignorance that illustrates a lack of intellectual integrity.

From Wall Street to Egypt, we’re getting packaged news that bends reality to fit the liberal spectrum. That’s why alternative sources of news are so crucial to preserving our sanity – and our liberty.

Robert Knight, Washington Times, Massaging the news for the masses.

Liberal press bias has been so stark and the lying by omission so blatant that it’s time to take stock again. Here are some examples culled from the “mainstream media,” a term conditioned with quote marks because the media are seriously out of step with America’s mainstream.

There is the idea that that the Tea Party and the Occupy mobs are equivalent. The contrasts are stark. Knight lists a few. Doesn’t matter as you won’t hear about them unless you ‘alternative’ media, such as the Occupy Exposed website that has been hacked and subject to denial of service attacks and other criminal activities for posting local news clips and other reports about just how despicable the Occupy mob behavior really is.

Then there is the class warfare effort. That one gets to the zero sum game model where the rich only get that way by stealing from the poor .. or is it just pure greed and envy by those who want to riches without having to build and create to earn it?

Religious bigotry is in there, too. It is like castigating Steve Young for Mormon roots while ignoring Harry Reid. Consistency seems to be one of the first victims.

It doesn’t help when the public is faced with a delusional propaganda campaign but it is still within the responsibilities of each individual to step up and realize what is really going on.

There is more …

Ann Coulter says that if she were a liberal, “I wouldn’t acknowledge these facts, or any facts. I would close my eyes, cover my ears, demand that MSNBC fire Pat Buchanan and the FCC pull the plug on Fox, and pretend to believe that taxpayer-funded “green” projects and an ever-increasing supply of public school teachers were the only things that separated us from Armageddon.”

Thomas Sowell talks about the media and ‘bullying’ noting that the group in vogue has special advantages. “Our schools are already too lacking in the basics of education to squander even more time on propaganda for politically correct causes that are in vogue. We do not need to create special privileges in the name of equal rights.”

Patrick Michaels notes how the BEST science is not a press release in the latest example of science for propaganda rather than insight.

ars technica illustrates how people try to convince themselves that what they think is true really is. The story is Climate skeptics perform independent analysis, finally convinced Earth is getting warmer. They commit the same mistakes as other media outlets reporting similar ‘news’. The first thing to note is that the issue of the report isn’t about climate change but rather about skeptics. That is the essence of the ad hominem logical fallacy. Note at ars that they also get into the Koch Brothers, a favorite leftist villain and Anthony Watts whose blog has been a major driver of skeptical inquiry in the field. Then you can get into the reality of the story.

First up is that the Berkeley Earth group contains people skeptical of global warming, It doesn’t.

Second is that the disagreement is about climate warming. It isn’t (it is about causes of recent warming trends).

Then you get into the technical problems such as the fact that the report was based only on the same data sets used in previous climate catastrophe predictions and that these data only show warming since 1950 of a minor amount (compared to signal noise).

It should also be noted that the brouhaha is about pre-publication press releases. Publicizing ‘scientific’ papers prior to publication is highly indicative that the effort is about publicity, not scientific knowledge. The effort is to stimulate media reports, such as the one at ars technica that impugn and denigrate those who raise unpleasant questions and try to bring reality into ideological views.

Ann Coulter touches nerves and a review of her book Demonic by Ray Hartwell shows why. The book uses observations of mob behavior by “Frenchman Gustave Le Bon, in his book “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind.” And while she is seldom given to understatement, Ms. Coulter’s conclusions are supported by extensive citation of the behavior she critiques.” It is the scholarship with a sharp tongue that drives Coulter’s critics nuts – so much so that studying their behavior often provides a case study in denial.

The review notes several characteristics of mob behavior identified by Le Bon.

“the “primitive” emotions of a crowd slip easily into “infatuation for an individual.”” … “mobs also “consider as enemies all by whom [their dogmas] are not accepted.”” … “members of a mob are “perfectly capable of holding completely contradictory ideas at the same time,” because they steadfastly refuse to engage in critical analysis of the positions they espouse.” … “a mob will believe its own myths even though they “most often have only a very distant relation with the observed fact.”” …

Coulter not only uses examples from modern political behavior to illustrate these characteristics, she also uses a comparison and contrast between the American and French revolutions to underscore the differences. The Wall Street Mobs noted in the previous post provide yet another example. They aren’t too sure about exactly what they want to do so they choose a target and try to tear it down. In contrast is the TEA party which has a very clear goal in mind and seeks to build consensus and change towards their goals. There is a difference.