Tag: mainstream media

The Media’s New Pastime: Spreading Alarm About Normal Winter Viruses

During the pandemic, journalists discovered a new occupation, one which was particularly appealing for the small effort it required. This occupation consisted of consulting any of the numerous Covid dashboards and weekly virus statistics supplied by health authorities, and pasting the numbers they found there into tiresome one-dimensional articles on which numbers happened to be going up and which numbers happened to be going down. Now that the dashboards have gone dark and nobody bothers to test anymore, our journalists have been deprived of their convenient pastime. One suspects they are not happy about this.

In Germany, all that remains to these uninspired, myopic journalists are the weekly reports compiled by the tireless influenza tabulators of the Robert Koch Institute. Before 2020, the flu sniffers laboured in obscurity, but now their weekly reports routinely generate headlines. Like the Covid headlines which preceded them, these are all about which numbers are going up and which numbers are going down. In this way, the reading public can continue to enjoy the virus anxiety to which they have grown accustomed. The Deutsche-Presse Agentur appears to drive the greater part of this reporting, and its dogged virus updates are recirculated reliably by most of the national and regional papers. It is cheap and easy content.

This week, it is RSV that is going up. ‘The RSV Wave Has Started in Germany,’ say Der Spiegel and tagesschau. ‘Respiratory tract infections: RS-Virus Wave Underway‘ declares ZDF. ‘Corona, flu, RSV: The infection situation in Bavaria,’ is the offering of Bayrischer Rundfunk; ‘Wave of infections continues to grip Saxony: Covid, influenza and RSV,’ is an equivalent piece from the Leipziger Volkszeitung. And because we are mostly asked to worry about those viruses for which there exist vaccines, the Süddeutsche Zeitung supplies its own write-up on ‘RSV Protection: These New Vaccination Options are Available‘.

Now, it is true that RSV infections are on the rise. This is because RSV is among the solstice viruses that become especially active in the darkest months of the year. So far, however, everything suggest that RSV infections are in line with long-standing historical trends. The latest RKI report shows that the “consultation incidence” for the critical age group of 0-4 year-olds – the number of kids seeing the doctor because of acute respiratory infections – is about 5,000 per 100,000, or 5%.

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What the Media’s Mainstreaming of UFOs Means for Government Transparency

After decades of secrecy and over-classification, the U.S. government is gradually beginning to reveal to the public what it knows about UFOs  —now known as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). In 2021, Congress directed the Department of Defense (DOD) to investigate UAP by establishing an office now called the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which recently published a report describing 274 observations of UAP by DOD units over the period from August 2022 to April 2023. Congress then doubled down on government transparency this year, with both the House and Senate drafting separate versions of the UAP Disclosure Act of 2023, which is being considered this week as part of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.

This about-face on UAP by the government has resulted in a similar response by the media. Once a subject of skepticism and stigma, UAP reports are increasingly regarded as mainstream news. In 2017, the New York Times was the first to reveal a Defense program to collect and analyze data on UAP, including videos captured by U.S. Navy pilots of aerial objects whose flight characteristics were impossible to reproduce with modern military aircraft. These pilots also provided eyewitness accounts of UAP to other respected mainstream outlets, such as CBS’s 60 Minutes in 2021.

More recently, The Debrief broke the biggest development to date with its remarkable report about Pentagon whistleblower David Grusch, who claimed that the U.S. government has been covering up programs to retrieve crashed UAP materials and reverse-engineer them. Unable to resist such a sensational story, news networks nationwide have made the move to cover it regardless of the previous absurdity associated with the topic, in addition to the historic House hearing this year with Grusch and two former Navy pilots who testified on their astonishing observations of UAP while conducting training missions off the East and West Coasts and alleged the government was in possession of non-human “biologics” recovered from crash sites. Just this weekend, NBC’s Meet the Press even featured one of those pilots, Ryan Graves, who discussed his nonprofit, Americans for Safe Aerospace, which he established to investigate UAP and improve safety and awareness of the aerospace domain.

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The Media Is Hyping Up ‘Carbon Passports’ To Restrict Travel

A talking point that is now everywhere in the media is the notion that in the near future travel is highly likely to be restricted through the introduction of so called ‘carbon passports’.

Last week, CNN ran a piece created by something called ‘The Conversation,’ which had the headline “It’s time to limit how often we can travel abroad – ‘carbon passports’ may be the answer”

Within this “analysis,” readers were told that record-breaking heatwaves, wildfires and extreme weather events are being driven in part by people going on holiday.

“Tourism is part of the problem,” the piece asserts, adding “The tourism sector generates around one-tenth of the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving the climate crisis.”

It then goes on to suggest that the introduction of carbon passports which would see every “traveler being assigned a yearly carbon allowance that they cannot exceed,” could “ration” travel.

“This concept may seem extreme,” the writer states before telling you that it isn’t and it’s a probably a good idea because of how on the verge of collapse the environment is.

“Boiling temperatures will probably diminish the allure of traditional beach destinations,” anyway, claims the author.

This isn’t just one alarmist story languishing somewhere in the dark depths of CNN’s website, it’s everywhere.

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“Non-Binary Queer” Artist And Former VICE Contributor Sentenced For Child Pornography Possession After Arranging To Meet 9-Year-Old Boy For Rape

A “non-binary queer” artist and former VICE contributor has been sentenced to 90 months in federal prison for the possession of child pornography after arranging to sexually abuse a 9-year-old boy. Efrem Zelony-Mindell, 35, was initially arrested in Manhattan, New York, on December 16, 2022.

According to the criminal complaint reviewed by Reduxx, Zelony-Mindell began communicating with an undercover FBI agent in early 2022 after meeting him on Scruff, a hook-up app for homosexual men. During these conversations, Zelony-Mindell slowly began to introduce more extreme topics, and questioned the agent if he was “into taboo.”

Soon after, Zelony-Mindell asked if the agent had a Telegram account, where the two then began corresponding. He expressed an interest in “[young] incest,” and repeatedly stated his desire to sexually abuse children.

Approximately one month later, the undercover agent offered to introduce Zelony-Mindell to another agent posing as a father of a 9-year-old boy offering his son for rape. He immediately affirmed his desire to sexually abuse the child, and arrangements were made for the two to meet after they had spoken both through an encrypted messaging service, text message, and on the phone.

Zelony-Mindell also sent videos and images of child pornography to the undercover agent after admitting his interest in pedophilia. Within the FBI special agent’s complaint, graphic descriptions of the materials Zelony-Mindell sent to the first undercover agent were provided.

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Just Admit You Were Wrong!

The answer to the question “Will they ever admit to being wrong?” is of course: no. I’m speaking in particular of the architects of the lockdown and mandate policies that wrecked the rights and liberties of billions worldwide.

Now they want to pretend like it never happened or that someone else is responsible. And they do this even as they hammer out policies and treaties that normalize that exact response – OK, some tweaks here and there – in the future, while forging institutions that crush dissent.

Those people we know about. They are rather hopeless.

Let’s address a different case, the run-of-the-mill pundit who got it wrong and just cannot admit it. These are the people who should trouble us more because saying sorry in this case is completely cost-free. In fact, the opposite is true.

Readers would cheer their humility and congratulate them for honesty. The only cost would be psychological in some measure. They are supposed to be these great opinion leaders and cannot bring themselves to admit that they were so bloody wrong on such a huge topic.

This comes to mind because of an effusive and even absurdist article by Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal. It was about how and why Taylor Swift is the greatest thing America has to offer.

The language here is intentionally over the top and she knows it. It’s a fun way to write. I know this because I used to write this way all the time, celebrating the glories of vending machine chicken salad or the McDonald’s cheese stick or what have you.

My argument here is not with the hyperbole as such. The problem comes deep into the article where she says the following:

“Downtowns across the country — uniquely battered by the pandemic and the riots and demonstrations of 2020 — are, while she is there, brought to life, with an influx of visitors and a local small business boom. Wherever she went it was like the past three years didn’t happen.”

Battered by the pandemic? Seriously? The pathetic pathogen never closed a single business, school, church, country club, arts theater, mall, stadium or public park. Governments did that, on the advice of crazed experts who pushed for this nonsense with no concern for public well-being.

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Texas Newspaper Virally Claims Ted Cruz Wanted To ‘Limit’ Preferred Pronouns. His Bill Doesn’t Do That.

A headline published Thursday in the San Antonio Express-News claimed that Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas) had introduced a bill that would “limit using preferred names, pronouns,” noting that the senator himself uses a preferred nickname, not his legal name. The outlet tweeted a link to the article repeating the same claim, and it quickly racked up over 6 million views on X, formerly Twitter, by Friday afternoon.

“We already knew that Republicans were synonymous with hypocrisy, but this is so typical of them. How is it no one ever calls them out on it?” read one reply.

“I don’t see how this is remotely constitutional,” another commenter added.

But the bill Cruz introduced doesn’t limit individuals’ ability to respect preferred names or pronouns for transgender people. Instead, it would prohibit the government from enacting any rule forcing its employees to use preferred pronouns or names. Instead of compelling speech, the bill prevents the government from trying to compel speech from their employees.

While the article headline was eventually updated to accurately reflect the bill’s content, the original viral post remains online at time of publication.

The “Safeguarding Honest Speech Act,” introduced by Cruz and Rep. Andy Ogles (R–Tenn.) in November, states that “No Federal funds may be used for the purpose of implementing, administering, or enforcing any rule…requiring an employee or contractor of any Federal agency or Department to use—(1) another person’s preferred pronouns if they are incompatible with such person’s sex; or (2) a name other than a person’s legal name when referring to such person.”

And the bill would likely enforce already existing First Amendment protections.

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Press Relayed Israeli Claims of Secret Hospital Base With Insufficient Skepticism

A cover image of the New York Post (11/16/23) depicted a supposedly shocking find. The headline “Guns Behind the MRI Machine” accompanied a photo of what Israeli troops had allegedly uncovered: Hamas guns at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

On the Post cover were fewer than a dozen AK-47s and matching magazines, as well as a few tactical vests. In its subhead, the Post called this “proof Hamas used hospital as  military base in stunning war crime.”

Many other media outlets reported Israel’s claims—and accompanying photos and videos the IDF offered as evidence—with little pushback other than Hamas’s denials and an acknowledgment that the outlet could not independently verify the claims. “IDF ‘Found Clear Evidence’ of Hamas Operation out of Al-Shifa Hospital, Says Spokesperson,” was an NBC News headline (11/15/23); Fox News (11/15/23) had “Watch: Israel Finds Weapons, Military Equipment Used by Hamas in Key Gaza Hospital After Raid, IDF Says.”

Israel’s assault on Al Shifa hospital provoked widespread international outrage, so a great deal hinged on its claim that the hospital was being used as a military base. But there are many reasons to question this display of weaponry, questions that imply that not only did the Israeli military make a weak case, but that some media outlets and pundits were too quick to take this presentation at face value.

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BBC presenter says ‘overwhelmingly white’ workplace affects his mental health

BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Nihal Arthanayake has said an “overwhelmingly white” working environment is affecting his mental health.

The presenter told a journalism diversity conference on Wednesday: “It’s really affecting me that I walk in and all I see is white people.”

His colleagues’ response when he told them this was to reply defensively that they were not being racist, he claimed as he said that was missing the point.

Speaking at the Journalism Diversity Fund (JDF) conference at BBC Media City in Salford, he said: “I’ve seen a lot of people leave this building because they couldn’t deal with the culture.”

He also said others found they had to try to be a certain type of person to progress with the broadcaster, adding: “If you want journalists to progress, they have to be who they are.

“I don’t think there’s a single Muslim involved in the senior editorial processes” at BBC Radio 5 Live, he added.

He went on: “The hardest thing is to walk into a room, look around and nobody looks like you.”

The presenter made the comments in an on-stage interview with Jo Adetunji, editor of The Conversation, at the JDF’s annual equality, diversity and inclusion conference organised by the NCTJ, which trains new journalists.

The JDF awards bursaries to aspiring journalists from diverse backgrounds who do not have the financial means to support themselves through their training.

Mr Arthanayake added that he has noticed a difference since moving north after living in London for 20 years.

He said: “Since moving up here, being called the P-word – that didn’t happen in London.

“You’d get a slap for that in London, not even from me.”

Following the interview, Cheryl Varley, a BBC Radio 5 Live producer, said the organisation is committed to tackling the lack of diversity in its newsrooms.

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BBC Editor Speaks Out After False Gaza Hospital Reporting, Says He ‘Doesn’t Regret One Thing’

BBC’s international editor Jeremy Bowen was pressed on his initial reporting of an explosion at a hospital in Gaza on Saturday and said he didn’t regret his mistakes during an interview on the network on Saturday.

Several media outlets initially reported that Israel was responsibile for an explosion at a hospital in Gaza. Bowen claimed during his initial reports that the Al-Ahli hospital was flattened.

“The missile hit the hospital not long after dark. You can hear the impact. The explosion destroyed Al-Ahli Hospital. It was already damaged from a smaller attack at the weekend. The building was flattened,” Bowen said.

Bowen, during an appearance on BBC News channel’s “Behind The Stories,” said he didn’t regret his reporting and that he “didn’t race to judgment.”

“So it broke in, I suppose, mid-evening. And to answer your question, no, I don’t regret one thing in my reporting, because I think I was measured throughout. I didn’t race to judgment,” he said.

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