{"id":45913,"date":"2019-05-04T08:55:42","date_gmt":"2019-05-04T13:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=45913"},"modified":"2019-05-04T08:56:25","modified_gmt":"2019-05-04T13:56:25","slug":"how-media-narratives-became-more-important-than-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=45913","title":{"rendered":"How Media Narratives Became More Important Than Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2019\/05\/02\/cameraman-700x420.jpg\" alt=\"A cameraman in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Oct. 19, 2016. (PAUL J. RICHARDS\/AFP\/Getty Images)\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A cameraman in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Oct. 19, 2016. (PAUL J. RICHARDS\/AFP\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/what-my-leaving-cbs-news-revealed-about-the-news-industry_2901934.html\">How Media Narratives Became More Important Than Facts<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Commentary<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The day that I told CBS News I wished to leave my job as investigative correspondent ahead of my contract, I didn\u2019t give a reason. I didn\u2019t see the point because the problem wasn\u2019t fixable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nor was it isolated to CBS News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My own take is that\u2014as our industry has changed in ways that have become undeniable to most\u2014I was a bit of the canary in the coal mine. By that, I mean I believe I was among the first to really pay attention to the increasingly effective operations to shape and censor news\u2014the movements to establish narratives rather than follow facts\u2014and to see the growing influence of smear operations, political interests, and corporate interests on the news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s not that I\u2019m smarter than my peers, and I\u2019m surely far less smart than many, but my particular brand of off-narrative reporting happened to draw the intense attention of the smear operators and propagandists, so I began to study it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A case in point: the smear that was promulgated when I left CBS. It was often incorrectly reported that I told CBS management I was quitting due to liberal\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-media\" target=\"_blank\">media<\/a>\u00a0bias. That false story turned out to be convenient for both political sides, and largely survives today. It simply wasn\u2019t rooted in fact. And I don\u2019t recall reporters even asking me whether it was true. Once a few articles reported that it was, others simply copied the claim and adopted it as if established fact, eventually without attribution. Now there would be no point in trying to clarify it. After all, Wikipedia says it\u2019s true. No going back from that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A cameraman in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Oct. 19, 2016. (PAUL J. RICHARDS\/AFP\/Getty Images) How Media Narratives Became More Important Than Facts Commentary The day that I told CBS News I wished to leave my job as investigative correspondent ahead of my contract, I didn\u2019t give a reason. I didn\u2019t see the point because the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[118,1426,1779,655,725,16350],"class_list":["post-45913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-cbs-news","tag-misinformation","tag-narratives","tag-propaganda","tag-sharyl-attkisson","tag-the-epoch-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45914,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45913\/revisions\/45914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}