Tag: mainstream media

White House urges news orgs to “ramp up scrutiny” of Biden impeachment efforts

The White House on Wednesday emailed the leaders of several major news organizations, including Axios, arguing the media needs to “ramp up its scrutiny” of House Republicans’ efforts to impeach President Biden.

Why it matters: The White House argues that the media’s reporting about incremental updates on the impeachment inquiry process over the substance of the inquiry “is woefully inadequate when it comes to something as historically grave as impeachment.”

Catch up quick: The letter follows an announcement from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday in which he declared he would direct House committees to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

  • The move is a reversal of McCarthy’s previous remarks that a probe could only be launched with a House vote.

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GREENWALD EXPOSES “FRAUDULENT” WAPO DISINFORMATION STUDY, DAVID FRUM, AND ADL PROPAGANDA TO SILENCE DISSENT

Journalist Glenn Greenwald has once again dissected a load of establishment propaganda disguised as legitimate reporting – this time shredding a new, and fraudulent, “disinformation study“ from the Washington Post. And of course, Greenwald has receipts.

The study, which was sponsored by the European Union ‘with an Omidyar-funded group’ accuses Twitter (X) of facilitating “pro-Russia propaganda” by failing to censor more.

“The EU-led study insisted that Elon Musk’s new Twitter policies, and those of other Big Tech platforms, help spread Russian propaganda –– by which they mean that Musk’s reduction of political censorship on the site, and the “failure” of Big Tech generally to censor upon command, is “dangerous,”” according to Greenwald.

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BBC’s disinformation correspondent and chief fact-checker Marianna Spring is accused of lying on her CV by falsely claiming to have worked with a Beeb journalist when applying for a job in Moscow

The BBC‘s disinformation correspondent is facing claims that she lied about her experience on her CV.

Marianna Spring, 27, shot to prominence with her reporting on the way social media has been used to peddle false information.

But she is now facing the embarrassing allegation that she gave misleading information herself –  one claim of working with a respected BBC correspondent – to try to secure work.

According to a report, about five years ago Ms Spring was trying to get work as a freelancer in Moscow for US-based news site Coda Story.

An article in The New European said when she applied to the website’s editor-in-chief Natalia Antelava in 2018, she said she had worked alongside BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford on covering the ‘perception of Russia’ during the 2018 football World Cup.

Her CV reportedly bragged: ‘June 2018: Reported on International News during the World Cup, specifically the perception of Russia, with BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford.’

According to The New European, Ms Antelava, a former BBC journalist herself, is said to have rebuked Ms Spring after checking out the claim.

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US Intel Official: Media Misleading Americans About Ukraine’s Battlefield Success

In an interview with renowned reporter Seymour Hersh, a US intelligence official scolded the media for misleading the American public about Ukraine’s battlefield failures during the Spring counteroffensive. The unnamed official additionally told Hersh he believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the assassination of PMC Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin to deescalate tensions with NATO.

Responding to reports in recent weeks that Ukrainian forces were gaining momentum and recapturing territory, the official remarked, “Where are the reporters getting this stuff?” he asked. “There are stories talking about drunk Russian commanders while the Ukrainians are penetrating the three lines of Russian defense and will be able to work back to Mariupol.”

He continued, “The goal of Russia’s first line of defense was not to stop the Ukrainian offense, but to slow it down so if there was a Ukrainian advance, Russian commanders could bring in reserves to fortify the line.” The official added, “There is no evidence that Ukrainian forces have gotten past the first line. The American press is doing anything but honest reporting on the failure thus far of the offense.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a similarly optimistic message during his trip to Kyiv on Wednesday. “In the ongoing counteroffensive, progress has accelerated in the past few weeks. This new assistance will help sustain it and build further momentum,” he said at a press conference.

The official says that message is being delivered from military intelligence to the White House, while the CIA has drawn other conclusions. “This kind of reporting from the military intelligence community is going to the White House. There are other views,” he said, referring to the CIA. The official explained those views do not reach President Joe Biden.

For over three months, Kyiv has ordered its forces to advance on entrench Russian defensive lines in southern Ukraine. Russian minefields caused Ukraine to lose a significant portion of its Western-trained soldiers and equipment in the opening weeks of the offensive. The massive push by Ukraine resulted in nearly no territorial gains.

Still, Washington has pushed Kyiv to continue the counteroffensive. The White House acknowledges that for Ukraine to have a possibility of success, Kyiv will have to be willing to sustain high casualties.

The official told Hersh no matter how committed Kyiv is to the war effort, President Zelensky’s goals are unattainable.  “Zelensky will never get his land back,” he said.

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My editor trashed my inquiry into child sexual abuse. Now I know why

One morning, a fortnight ago, I checked the BBC headlines to find my old editor, Peter Wilby, peering out. He’d been exposed as a paedophile and convicted of possessing child sexual abuse images. I still feel sick at the discovery.

It would be disturbing enough to discover anyone you knew had done something so terrible – he was convicted of possessing images of children being raped since the 1990s. But Wilby wasn’t anyone. He was a pillar of the media establishment, an editor of the Independent on Sunday and the New Statesman, and a Guardian columnist.

Journalists who had worked with Wilby were appalled at his crimes, while others raged at his “hypocrisy”, but what shocked me was the creeping realisation that he had used his position as an editor and columnist to create what the writer Beatrix Campbell has called a “hostile environment” for victims of abuse.

It dawned on me that he had applied that “hostile environment” to me at the outset of my career when I was a freelance reporter at the Independent on Sunday, and he was its news editor.

In April 1991, I learned of mental and physical abuse at Ty Mawr children’s home in Gwent, south Wales, where some residents had attempted suicide. The claims emerged in the wake of abuse claims at other children’s homes – the “Pindown” scandal in Staffordshire where staff used violent restraint on children, and sexual abuse by social worker Frank Beck at homes in Leicestershire. I thought Wilby would be excited at the prospect of a scoop, but he couldn’t have been less interested. I took it to the daily Independent, which put it on the front page and made a campaign of it.

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Tucker Carlson claims Barack Obama enjoyed smoking CRACK and having gay sex – but that nobody reported it ahead of 2008 election

Tucker Carlson has claimed Barack Obama was smoking crack and having sex with men – but the media failed to report it ahead of the 2008 presidential election.

The former Fox News host repeated the accusation of Larry Sinclair who alleged that Obama bought and smoked cocaine before they had sex in 1999. 

The allegation, which emerged while then-Senator Obama was gearing up for the presidential election, was roundly condemned as an attempted political hatchet-job.

But Carlson claimed Wednesday that it was ‘really clear’ that Obama had been having a gay affair. He claimed the media didn’t run the story because the Obama campaign team threatened to refuse access to the Democratic candidate.

Carlson, 54, speaking on the popular Adam Carolla Show, said: ‘In 2008, it became really clear that Barack Obama had been having sex with men and smoking crack.’

DailyMail.com has contacted Obama’s representatives for comment. 

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Associated Press Coverage of Courts, Climate Bankrolled by Dozens of Left-Wing Foundations

The Associated Press, the country’s top wire service, is now bankrolled in part by millions of dollars from left-wing foundations, including one founded by “1619 Project” author Nikole Hannah-Jones.

The news organization last year announced a series of “partnerships” to subsidize reporters covering climate change, race, and democracy. A review of the donor roster shows that the vast majority fund left-wing political causes, while none are supporters of conservative initiatives.

The Ida B. Wells Society, founded by “1619 Project” lightning rod Hannah-Jones, has teamed up with filmmaker Steven Spielberg’s Hearthland Foundation, for example, to foster “more inclusive storytelling” at the Associated Press.

In some ways, it was a natural partnership: The AP’s global investigations editor, Ron Nixon, serves on the Ida B. Wells Society’s board of directors. In others, it may prove more problematic, given that Hannah-Jones’s own reporting has been disputed by historians, who have argued—among other things—that her account of the motivations of the American revolutionaries is factually inaccurate.

The funding, much of it from these sorts of overly political actors, will make it more challenging for the Associated Press to swat away accusations of political bias. In one high-profile example, critics blasted the organization for revising its style guide to instruct reporters to avoid the use of terms like “the French,” which the AP indicated was “dehumanizing.”

AllSides, a group that tracks media bias across the industry, last year changed its rating for the AP from “center” to “leans left,” citing what it said was an increase in “word choice bias” and “bias by omission of views” in its coverage. AllSides says it closely monitors the Associated Press’s content because the AP’s content is “broad and far-reaching.”

The Associated Press is also taking nonprofit money to fund coverage of race and climate. The organization’s “democracy journalism initiative,” a division whose reporters cover “the intersection of race and voting,” is bankrolled by nonprofits such as the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. That organization also funds Stacey Abrams’s New Georgia Project and the left-wing activist group Take Back the Court, which advocates for expanding the Supreme Court.

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A Dozen Media Outlets that Fell for Fake News on Mar-a-Lago

Several media outlets, both mainstream and left-wing, fell for the fake news Friday that former President Donald Trump had sold or transferred ownership of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to his son, Donald Trump Jr.

The story originated in a mistaken report on the Zillow real estate website. But it was “to good to check” for many websites:

Breitbart News reported exclusively that the story was fake before Zillow confirmed the information was wrong.

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It Isn’t ‘Divisive Rhetoric’ That Kills People

A gunman carrying a rifle emblazoned with a swastika killed three people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, on Saturday before taking his own life.

The shooter, 21-year-old Ryan Christopher Palmete, was white. All of his victims—52-year-old Angela Michelle Carr, 19-year-old Anolt Joseph “AJ” Laguerre Jr., and 29-year-old Jerrald Gallion—were black. Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters has said that the murder spree was racially motivated and Palmete specifically targeted black people. The sheriff also noted that the guns Palmete was carrying were legally purchased.

As is so often the case with crimes like these, people are casting about for someone other than one racist psychopath—or “deranged scumbag,” as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put it—to blame. Some have settled on “divisive rhetoric” as the culprit.

“When we have this kind of divisive rhetoric, this is exactly what happens,” journalism professor and Jacksonville councilmember Rahman Johnson told MSNBC’s Symone Sanders-Townsend. He mentioned Florida’s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings, African-American studies programs in schools, and transgender people.

“The division has to stop, the hate has to stop, the rhetoric has to stop,” Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan said.

An op-ed in the Florida Times-Union blamed the city’s reaction to antisemitic banners and light displays, saying the response wasn’t “forceful enough.” Those “public demonstrations look like terrible harbingers of what was to come,” wrote columnist Nate Monroe.

Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon blamed attacks on “wokeness,” which she called “a dog whistle. That wokeness that they want to die is Black people, and it was evident yesterday by what happened,” Nixon said.

Needless to say, plenty of people hear the same rhetoric Palmete may have heard about diversity trainings, wokeness, and so on but don’t go on to commit atrocities. And openly bigoted speech, as represented by those antisemitic banners, is much less common now than at most points in U.S. history past.

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BBC Publishes Pedo Report, Then EDITS to Remove Pride, Drag History.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has been caught repeatedly doctoring a report about a man convicted for attempting to have sex with a 14-year-old boy, scrubbing it of references to the fact the suspect is a Pride organizer and drag queen.

Sixty-one-year-old Andrew Way of Clwyd Wen in Wrexham, Wales, was described as an “ex-drag queen” in the original post from the publicly-funded broadcaster. The National Pulse confirmed, however, that when readers clicked through to the article, the headline changed from ‘Ex-drag queen caught in paedophile hunters’ sting operation’ to ‘Man caught in paedophile hunters’ sting operation’.

The text of the article also no longer contained any reference to Way being a drag queen, although it did confirm the pedophile “had also been organising the first-ever gay Pride event for Welshpool, Powys.” Hours later, The National Pulse observed that this, too, had been “stealth-edited” out of the article, with no editor’s notes informing readers of the changes.

The BBC press office has been asked who ordered the article to be doctored to remove these details, and why, but had issued no response as of the time of publication.

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