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Tag Archives: mainstream media
John Oliver on Government Surveillance
John Oliver on Government Surveillance
Getting the News from Comedy Shows …
The self-censoring US mainstream media are usually not a very good source of impartial (read: non-government approved) information. We completely disagree with Noam Chomsky’s leftist political views, which in our opinion are astoundingly naïve for someone of his intellectual stature, but we do believe he has always made quite valid points about how “consent is manufactured” in the US (and elsewhere for that matter). Governments are lying routinely, and in theory, the press should challenge them on that. It just seems to happen only very rarely.
The hysterical pro-war propaganda disseminated in the mainstream media prior to the Iraq war will forever stand as one of the low points in this respect. Most of it was based on bald-faced lies, something that should have been glaringly obvious to anyone calling himself a journalist at the time. And yet, not one of the major mainstream media organizations even made an attempt to challenge the government’s lies and propaganda – instead they did everything to reinforce them. This was reportedly done to preserve “access” to all those named and unnamed government officials feeding the press with what can only very loosely be termed “information”. One wonders what such access is worth if all the audience ever gets out of it is the amplification of government propaganda.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why U.S. Reporters Are Always Pro-War
Why U.S. Reporters Are Always Pro-War
5 Reasons that Both Mainstream Media – and Gatekeeper “Alternative” Websites – Are Pro-War
There are five reasons that the mainstream media and the largest alternative media websites are always pro-war.
1. Self-Censorship by Journalists
Initially, there is tremendous self-censorship by journalists.
A survey by the Pew Research Center and the Columbia Journalism Review in 2000 found:
Self-censorship is commonplace in the news media today …. About one-quarter of the local and national journalists say they have purposely avoided newsworthy stories, while nearly as many acknowledge they have softened the tone of stories to benefit the interests of their news organizations. Fully four-in-ten (41%) admit they have engaged in either or both of these practices.
Similarly, a 2003 survey reveals that 35% of reporters and news executives themselves admitted that journalists avoid newsworthy stories if “the story would be embarrassing or damaging to the financial interests of a news organization’s owners or parent company.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
NBC’s Brian Williams is Forced to Admit His Tale of Being on a Downed Helicopter in Iraq Was Pure Fantasy
NBC’s Brian Williams is Forced to Admit His Tale of Being on a Downed Helicopter in Iraq Was Pure Fantasy
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams admitted Wednesday he was not aboard a helicopter hit and forced down by RPG fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a false claim that has been repeated by the network for years.
The admission came after crew members on the 159th Aviation Regiment’s Chinook that was hit by two rockets and small arms fire told Stars and Stripes that the NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire. Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter after the other three had made an emergency landing, the crew members said.
– From Stars and Stripes article: NBC’s Brian Williams Recants Iraq Story After Soldiers Protest
Just in case you still harbor any doubt that mainstream media is nothing but a pathetic amalgamation of useless liars and propagandists…
Enter NBC’s star reporter Brian Williams. A man apparently so vain and attention starved that he actually invented a war story from 2003 to make himself look tougher. Then he continued to tell the false narrative until U.S. soldiers called him out on it.
What an complete and total embarrassment.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
There Are Far Fewer Terror Attacks Now Than In the 1970s
There Are Far Fewer Terror Attacks Now Than In the 1970s
Putting the Terror Threat In Perspective
The terror threat is greatly exaggerated. After all, the type of counter-terror experts who frequently appear on the mainstream news are motivated to hype the terror threat, because it drums up business for them.
The same is true for government employees. As former FBI assistant director Thomas Fuentes put itlast week:
If you’re submitting budget proposals for a law enforcement agency, for an intelligence agency, you’re not going to submit the proposal that “We won the war on terror and everything’s great,” cuz the first thing that’s gonna happen is your budget’s gonna be cut in half.
You know, it’s my opposite of Jesse Jackson’s “Keep Hope Alive”—it’s “Keep Fear Alive.” Keep it alive.
Fearmongering also serves political goals. For example, FBI agents and CIA intelligence officials, a top constitutional and military law expert, Time magazine, the Washington Post and others have all said that U.S. government officials “were trying to create an atmosphere of fear in which the American people would give them more power”. Indeed, the former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridgeadmitted that he was pressured to raise terror alerts to help Bush win reelection. Former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski – also a top foreign policy advisor to President Obama – told the Senate that the war on terror is a “a mythical historical narrative”.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
This is How the U.S. Government Convinces a Newspaper to Kill a Story
This is How the U.S. Government Convinces a Newspaper to Kill a Story
Under President George W. Bush, the White House urged reporters to withhold accounts about many of the most contentious aspects in the war on terrorism: the existence of a secret prison in Thailand, the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation and detention program, warrantless wiretapping and government monitoring of financial transactions.
The Obama administration has persuaded reporters to delay publishing the existence of a drone base in Saudi Arabia, the name of a country in which a drone strike against an American citizen was being considered, the fact that a diplomat arrested in Pakistan was a C.I.A. officer and that an American businessman was working for the agency when he disappeared in Iran.
– From the New York Times article: Condoleezza Rice Testifies on Urging The Times to Not Run Article
The timidness with which mainstream media in the U.S. approaches news has been well documented. In fact, the inability of traditional media to do a reasonable job of holding powerful interests accountable has been one of the primary drivers behind the ascendency of alternative news. Despite this reality, one thing we know less about is specifically how the power structure goes about suppressing news it doesn’t want reaching the plebs. Until now.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Nine Questions About the Paris Attacks
Nine Questions About the Paris Attacks
Mainstream media are busily promoting a familiar narrative for last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris. As usual this narrative demonizes Islam, calls for a reduction in civil rights, and bolsters existing military aggressions. However, a growing number of serious questions have arisen about the attacks. Until such questions are answered, citizens must consider that these events might be another pretext for an ongoing political agenda.
The Paris attacks are reported to have occurred in two parts. The first was the January 7th shooting of twelve people in and around the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a tabloid that often published offensive cartoons including some about the Prophet Mohammad. The second attack occurred the next day and was said to be the work of Amedy Coulibaly, a 32-year old Senegalese Frenchman who began shooting police officers at the scene of an accident and then took hostages in a Kosher grocery.
Some parts of the story have already proven to be inaccurate. For example, FOX News and NBC falsely reported that two of the suspects were in custody, based on information from “two consistently reliable U.S. counterterrorism officials.” One 18-year old widely reported to be a suspect turned himself in (145 miles away) and was released 50 hours later due to insurmountable contradictions.
Questions that remain unanswered include the following.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Suspicions are growing that the French shootings are a false flag operation
Suspicions are growing that the French shootings are a false flag operation
I do not know these sites or their credibility. I do know the mainstream media, and it has no credibility.
http://sgtreport.com/2015/01/paris-siege-false-flag-analyzing-the-cop-shooting-footag
Considering the number of real journalists on war fronts, not cartoonists in Paris, killed by Washington funded and organized ISIS, including filmed beheadings, the uproar over the cartoonists’ deaths has the appearance of orchestration. Whether or not it is a false flag operation, the shootings are being used for a wider purpose or purposes.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
20-Year CBS News Veteran, Sharyl Attkisson, Details Massive Censorship and Propaganda in Mainstream Media | Liberty Blitzkrieg
Journalists should be dark, funny, mean people. It’s appropriate for their antagonistic, adversarial role.
– Matt Taibbi, in this New York Magazine article
Reporters on the ground aren’t necessarily ideological, Attkisson says, but the major network news decisions get made by a handful of New York execs who read the same papers and think the same thoughts.
Often they dream up stories beforehand and turn the reporters into “casting agents,” told “we need to find someone who will say . . .” that a given policy is good or bad. “We’re asked to create a reality that fits their New York image of what they believe,” she writes.
– From the excellent New York Post article: Ex-CBS reporter’s book reveals how liberal media protects Obama
Earlier this week, I published a piece titled, Former CBS Reporter Accuses Government of Secretly Planting Classified Docs on Her Computer, which I thought was incredible in its own right, yet the information in that post seems almost trite compared to the flood of information Attkisson has revealed to the New York Post’s Kyle Smith.
The following excerpts from the piece will confirm all of your worst suspicions about mainstream media:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
10 Things About The U.S. News Media That They Do Not Want You To Know
10 Things About The U.S. News Media That They Do Not Want You To Know.
Do you trust the news media? Do you believe that the information that they are giving you is true and accurate? If you answered yes to either of those questions, that places you in a steadily shrinking minority. Yes, on average Americans watch approximately 153 hours of television a month, but for their news they are increasingly turning to alternative sources of information such as this website. Big news channels such as CNN, MSNBC and Fox News are losing hordes of viewers, and they are desperately searching for answers. Things have gotten so bad at CNN that they have been forced to lay off hundreds of workers. The mainstream media is slowly dying, but they will never admit it. They are still convinced that they can find some way to turn this around and regain the trust of the American people. But it simply is not going to happen. The following are 10 things about the U.S. news media that they do not want you to know…
#1 The level of trust in the U.S. news media is at an all-time low.
According to a Gallup survey that was conducted last month, only 40 percent of all Americans have a “great deal/fair amount” of confidence in the mass media. That ties the lowest level that Gallup has ever recorded.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
