Philip K. Dick on reality…
Tag: fake news
ABC News Takes the Prize — for Dishonest Journalism
Given all we know now, a program informed by basic journalistic ethics should have exposed the mix of partisan politics and Trump derangement syndrome that led many in the highest reaches of media and government to countenance Steele’s absurd claims. What we need is a postmortem. Instead, we get a resurrection.
The first 50 minutes of the 68-minute program are a love letter to this former MI6 agent turned gun for hire. As ominous music plays in the background, it portrays Steele as a suave and tireless truth seeker – we even get a James Bond clip to make the point. Following a treacly account of his beloved first wife, who died young, a parade of associates assure us that Steele was the best of the best while spying in Russia for the British government and then as a private intelligence contractor after he left the service in 2009.
One of those clients was the FBI. With blazing dishonesty, ABC News suggests his work was pivotal in exposing Russia’s corrupt scheme to host the soccer World Cup in 2018. In fact, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz reported in 2019 that “Steele did not have any role in the [FIFA] investigation itself, he did not provide court testimony, and his information did not appear in any indictments, search warrants, or other court filings.”
Having falsely established Steele’s bona fides, George Stephanopoulos allows him to repeat his anti-Trump smears while merely noting here and there that not everyone agrees with his view.
McAuliffe buys ‘fake news’ ads in effort to sway voters, Fox News investigation finds
Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe has spent nearly $100,000 advertising “fake news” websites on Facebook during the Virginia gubernatorial campaign, Fox News can reveal.
The Democrat’s advertisements, which have been viewed up to 3.5 million times so far, are hidden on a Facebook page with a similar name to a local news website. The ads link to third-party websites that ostensibly publish local news, but exist to promote Democratic candidates. The websites have been widely described as disinformation and “partisan propaganda.”
The revelation comes less than a week before election day, and as the candidates fight for every last vote, with polls showing McAuliffe and rival Republican Glenn Youngkin locked in a tight battle.
Failing New York Times Caught Publishing More Fake News
When the New York Times audio documentary “Caliphate” won the Peabody Award, Times executive editor Dean Baquet took a victory lap, saying: “‘Caliphate’ was one of the best works of journalism of the year, created by a team of fearless journalists who shed new light on something as complex as ISIS and terrorism.” There was just one problem: “Caliphate” was largely based on the recollections of Shehroze Chaudhry, who admitted in Canadian court Friday that he made up the stories he told the Times’ “fearless journalists” about having been an Islamic State executioner. Rather than being “one of the best works of journalism,” “Caliphate” is actually the newest in a long string of object lessons proving that the New York Times is not a reliable news source. The newspaper is really a far-Left propaganda organ that cannot be trusted even when it is not retailing Democratic party agitprop.
In exchange for his admission, prosecutors dropped charges of a terrorism hoax against Chaudhry, apparently accepting the assertion of the fake terrorist’s lawyer, Nader R. Hasan, who said the stories Chaudhry told that fooled the Times were “mistakes borne out of immaturity — not sinister intent and certainly not criminal intent.”
Yes, of course. He likely became a fake terrorist because he knew that the Times, and particularly its star counterterror “journalist,” Rukmini Callimachi, would eat up the stories he would tell and publish them uncritically. After all, it wasn’t as if he was pretending to have been someone the Times really hates and fears, such as a right-wing Trump supporter. Nonetheless, Chaudhry’s lies caused a furor. According to the Times, “the release of that series in 2018, and other reports based on Mr. Chaudhry’s tales, created a political firestorm in Canada’s Parliament among opposition parties that repeatedly attacked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government for seeming to allow a terrorist killer to freely roam the streets of suburban Toronto.”
New York Times reporter lied about covid “surge” at schools to push more plandemic paranoia
A writer at The New York Times named Apoorva Mandavilli was caught lying about a “surge” in Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) “cases” at schools in order to scare more people into getting “vaccinated.”
Mandavilli’s piece contained many of the usual talking points about how the “need” for people to get injected is “urgent” because “[c]hildren now account for more than one in five new cases.” The problem, of course, is that Mandavilli pulled this figure right out of her back end.
There is no evidence to suggest that children are getting sick from the so-called “delta variant” – or that the delta variant even exists, for that matter. But leave it to the Times to publish falsehoods on behalf of China Joe, who now says that 98 percent of America needs to be “fully vaccinated” before things can get “back to normal.”
Fort Meade training exercise prompts national media to report fake ‘mass shooting’
An apparent training exercise at Fort Meade in Maryland prompted a number of national outlets to report that multiple people had been shot at the facility Thursday morning.
CNN, along with at least one AFP reporter and The Sun, reported on the incident.
The AFP and The Sun have since updated that the incident was an exercise.
New York Times Labels Jill Biden a ‘Doctor’ but Not Rand Paul, Who Is Actually a Doctor
New York Times labeled first lady Jill Biden a “doctor” on Sunday while not giving ophthalmologist Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) the same courtesy.
Paul is a medically licensed ophthalmologist. Jill Biden only possesses a doctor of education (EdD) degree, not a medical degree. But that does not seem to matter to the Times, which published Sunday that “Dr. Biden” is “an English and writing professor who made history”:
Dr. Biden, an English and writing professor who made history as the only first lady to keep her career while in the White House, has traveled to 32 states, many of them conservative, to promote school reopenings, infrastructure funding, community colleges and support for military families. She has also traveled to states where low numbers of eligible people have received the coronavirus vaccine (emphasis added).
On August 11, the Times did not give Sen. Paul the “Dr.” title in an article entitled “YouTube suspends Rand Paul for a week over a video disputing the effectiveness of masks”:
In the video, Mr. Paul says: “Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work. They don’t prevent infection.” Later in the video, he adds, “Trying to shape human behavior isn’t the same as following the actual science, which tells us that cloth masks don’t work” (emphasis added).
The Left’s Stubborn Refusal To Listen To The Other Side Is Anti-Intellectualism
Many mainstream outlets recently ran a fake news story about hospitals in rural Oklahoma being overrun by people overdosing on Ivermectin. The hospitals were indeed crowded, but there was no evidence, beyond the twisted testimony of one doctor, suggesting it was because of ignorant bumpkins ingesting horse dewormer.
Commenting on this story in The Federalist, Rachel Bovard points out how these journalistic mistakes consistently fall in one direction — against conservatives —and how the correction so many days or weeks later is buried behind other headlines. Also, as Bovard notes, it is clear that corporate media are “using their platform[s] as an advocacy tool for their ideological goals.” Even if the instance in question isn’t factually true, it is “morally right,” as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez notoriously said.
So what’s the narrative in this case? That conservatives are dumb and oppose science. They would rather take a drug intended for horses or cleaning aquariums than the vaccines developed by America’s greatest pharmaceutical experts.
But why perpetuate this narrative? What’s the goal? Even if it might be true (it isn’t), how does it benefit anyone to call half the country a bunch of morons? Will this really change their ways and help them become more progressive (as it’s satirically depicted in the show “South Park,” where the residents are shamed into building a Whole Foods in their small town), or will it simply push so many Americans away from public discourse? Do the people who push these narratives even care one way or the other how people respond?
Obviously, there’s tribalism at work in which one group vilifies and ridicules the rival to dominate them. There’s a great deal of satisfaction in “owning” or “dunking on” the other side. It makes for good entertainment and it creates a sense of belonging. Life may be bad, but it could be worse: you could be one of the idiots in Oklahoma overdosing on Ivermectin.
However, underneath this tribalism, there seems to be some genuine insecurity. In most cases, bullies resort to this kind of name-calling, scapegoating, and false narratives to make up for something lacking in themselves. After all, if they were confident in their ideas and in their ability to carry out those ideas, they would simply speak the truth and not feel the need to mock their rivals.
About That ‘Man Died After Being Turned Away from 43 ICUs’ Over COVID Story
This is the latest round of fake news concerning COVID, huh? I’ve been told our hospitals are about to collapse. It hasn’t happened. In fact, this piece of fear porn has been manufactured before. It centers on Intensive care units, which are almost always near capacity, even prior to the pandemic. If they’re not, the hospital loses money.
Enter National Public Radio that peddled a story that wasn’t true at face value. The narrative was that the ICUs are so packed with COVID patients that it resulted in his death. He reportedly visited 43 and was turned away. It wasn’t COVID that killed him; it was a heart ailment. Yet, midway through the story, you can see where things go off the hinges. It’s classic misinformation (via NPR) [emphasis mine]:
Ray DeMonia, 73, was born and raised in Cullman, Ala., but he died on Sept. 1, some 200 miles away in an intensive care unit in Meridian, Miss.
Last month, DeMonia, who spent 40 years in the antiques and auctions business, suffered a cardiac emergency. But it was because hospitals are full due to the coronavirus — and not his heart — that he was forced to spend his last days so far from home, according to his family.
“Due to COVID 19, CRMC emergency staff contacted 43 hospitals in 3 states in search of a Cardiac ICU bed and finally located one in Meridian, MS.,” the last paragraph of DeMonia’s obituary reads, referring to the Cullman Regional Medical Center.
“In honor of Ray, please get vaccinated if you have not, in an effort to free up resources for non COVID related emergencies … ,” the obituary reads. “He would not want any other family to go through what his did.”
NPR was unable to reach the DeMonia family. A spokesperson for Cullman Regional Medical Center, who declined to give specifics of Ray DeMonia’s case, citing privacy concerns, confirmed to NPR that he was transferred from the hospital but said the reason was that he required “a higher level of specialized care not available” there.
The usual suspects…
Hellbound and Down 
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