Tag: mainstream media

How a Secluded 1984 Conference Forged Israel’s Unprecedented Influence Over US Media

As Israel’s October 1 invasion of Lebanon unfolds, the media’s complicity in shaping public perception raises urgent questions, particularly when viewed through the lens of a controversial 1984 conference where influential advertising and media figures gathered to refine Israel’s narrative strategies. This conference laid the groundwork for a sophisticated propaganda campaign—Hasbara—that sought to sanitize Israel’s actions and cast its military operations in a favorable light. Today, as Western journalists whitewash, distort, and conceal Israel’s the realities of Israel’s deadly campaign of violence, the enduring legacy of this meeting becomes alarmingly clear, revealing how narratives crafted decades ago continue to shape the coverage of a conflict that claims countless lives.

In the first week of October, Israeli forces fired 355 bullets at a car containing a five-year-old, then shot at rescue workers who rushed to save her life. A horrific crime – yet, per many Western media headlines, she was simply a “girl killed in Gaza.” The circumstances and perpetrators of her death, if mentioned at all, were invariably buried at the bottom of reports, well hidden from the 80% of the news-consuming public who only read headlines, not accompanying articles.

By contrast, on October 15, Sky News was very keen that its viewers know the names and faces of four “teenage” IDF soldiers “killed” in a “Hezbollah drone attack,” humanizing and infantilizing individuals who, by mere token of their service in Israel’s military, are by definition, guilty of genocide. In passing, the same report briskly noted: “‘23 die’ in Gaza school strike.” Their identities, ages, and photos, let alone clarity on who or what murdered them, weren’t provided.

Moreover, the inverted commas incongruously hovering around the number of Palestinians killed subtly undermined that claim’s credibility while reducing the child victims to an afterthought compared to the considerably more important quartet of deceased IDF genocidaires. MintPress News senior staff writer Alan MacLeod put it succinctly when he Tweeted, “In years to come, students in university departments around the world will be studying the propaganda embedded in this headline. It’s truly incredible how much propaganda has been packed into 16 words.”

The mainstream media’s systematic use of distancing and evasive language, omission and other duplicitous chicanery to downplay or outright justify Israel’s murder of innocent civilians while simultaneously dehumanizing their victims and delegitimizing Palestinian resistance against brutal, illegal IDF occupation is as unconscionable as it is well-documented. Amazingly though, ‘twasn’t ever thus. Once upon a time, mainstream news networks exposed Israel’s war crimes without qualification, and anchors and pundits openly condemned these actions on live TV to audiences of millions.

The story of how Western media was transformed into Israel’s doting, servile propaganda appendage is not only a fascinating and sordid hidden chronicle. It is a deeply educational lesson in how imperial power can easily subordinate supposed arbiters of truth to its will. Comprehending how we got to this point equips us with the tools to assess, identify, and deconstruct lies large and small – and effectively challenge and counter not only Israel’s falsehoods but the entire settler colonial endeavor.

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America Isn’t Free As Long As Its Press Is Subservient To The Democrat Party

For most honest Americans, truth and lie are fairly easy to differentiate. But to our nation’s propaganda media, the terms are completely subjective.

Case in point: the media’s unhinged response to Donald Trump’s Thursday critique of Liz Cheney’s obsession with military adventurism. While speaking with Tucker Carlson in Arizona, the former president rebuked Cheney for her foreign policy and the threat it poses to the U.S. and its service members.

“[Liz Cheney] always wanted to go to war with people. I didn’t want to go to war. She wanted to stay in Syria; I took them out. She wanted to stay in Iraq; I took them out. I mean, if it were up to her, we’d be in 50 different countries,” Trump said. “[N]umber one, it’s really dangerous; number two, a lot of people get killed; and number three …, it’s very, very expensive. That’s why we owe $36 trillion.”

Later in the conversation, Trump followed up with comments that have since been hijacked by corporate media: “[Cheney is] a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle, standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it … when the guns are trained on her face. You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Gee, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy,’” he said.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand Trump’s commentary. He was clearly saying that neocons like Cheney are all for risking the lives of U.S. service members when they themselves are not the ones taking fire on the front lines.

But as is often the case with our ethically bankrupt media, anything Trump says is automatically open for interpretation and outright distortion. In this case, the propaganda press has taken Trump’s analysis and manipulated it into something far removed from its true meaning.

Within a matter of hours, a media-wide pseudo-scandal was completely fabricated out of thin air.

Countless hack-tastic headlines and lie-filled hot takes deployed by our so-called defenders of “democracy” accused Trump of calling for violence against Cheney.

While the intention of damaging Trump’s electoral prospects heading into Election Day is fairly obvious, the incident presents a perfect case study on how the media acts as a public relations firm operating on behalf of the Democrat Party, and by default, our leftist-run federal government.

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Karoline Leavitt Absolutely Destroys ABC Propagandist for Defending Democrats’ Hypocrisy on Political Violence

The Trump campaign’s National Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, made waves in a blistering takedown of mainstream media’s double standards.

Leavitt appeared on ABC to address former President Donald Trump’s comments about Liz Cheney, which the media falsely spun as advocating her execution.

Leavitt quickly dispelled the narrative, calling out Democrats’ hypocrisy and the media’s blatant attempts to twist Trump’s words.

ABC’s Elizabeth Schulze began the segment by suggesting Trump’s comments were “inciting violence” against Cheney.

Leavitt expertly dismantled Schulze, pointing out that Trump’s comments were a valid critique of Cheney’s hawkish foreign policy stances and her willingness to send American soldiers to war while she herself has never served.

Elizabeth Schulze:
Joining us now for more on the campaign is National Press Secretary for the Trump campaign, Caroline Leavitt. Caroline, thanks so much for your time tonight. As you heard in our last report, the former President today doubled down on that comment against Congresswoman Liz Cheney, calling her a coward and a “dumb warhawk.” What’s the strategy here with this message and continuing to repeat that rhetoric?

Karoline Leavitt:
First of all, President Trump is saying the truth, and he is 100% right about Liz Cheney and so many others who have made up the Washington DC establishment class for so many years. They are so quick to take action that starts foreign conflict and wars, sending America’s sons and daughters into overseas conflicts where many American soldiers have lost their lives when they themselves have never served in combat.

This is an issue that both Democrats and Republicans, by the way, have taken with the Washington DC establishment class for so many years. That’s all President Trump was expressing on that stage last night. It’s shameful that we woke up today to so many misleading headlines from the mainstream media, saying that President Trump was suggesting Liz Cheney should be executed. That is utterly absurd. What he was suggesting is that Liz Cheney should maybe understand the severe consequences of war before she tries to send more Americans overseas to fight in them.

When Schulze pushed the narrative that Trump’s words could lead to violence, Leavitt flipped the script, exposing the left’s hypocrisy.

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CNN Contributor Jonah Goldberg Retracts Statement After Misleading Voters with Erroneous ‘Execution’ Remark on Trump’s Cheney Comments

Another day, another hoax. The mainstream media’s relentless campaign to misrepresent former President Donald Trump has reached new heights.

In a Friday appearance on CNN, so-called conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg falsely claimed that Trump suggested a firing squad execution for former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).

President Trump had criticized Cheney’s hawkish foreign policy views during an interview with Tucker Carlson on Thursday, condemning her stance on “endless wars.” At no point did Trump imply or suggest any such violent intentions toward Cheney—he merely called her out for her support of prolonged conflicts.

Goldberg, however, attacked Trump with an inflammatory conclusion, saying, “I don’t think you even need to call it fire-up on. He’s saying quite explicitly and unambiguously that Liz Chenney should be shot, should be executed by a firing squad. That is appalling. It is a small facet of the reasons why he’s unfit for office, and the Republican Party has made a disastrous mistake renominating him.”

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Despite History of Fabrication, Press Uncritically Covers IDF-Provided Documents on Hamas

Earlier this month, the New York Times (10/12/24), Washington Post (10/12/24) and Wall Street Journal (10/12/24) each published front-page articles based on different sets of documents handed to them by the Israeli military.

Israel claims it seized all the documents—in the form of meeting minutes, letters and planning documents—in its ground invasion of Gaza, and that they reveal insights into Hamas’s operations prior to the October 7 attacks. The documents include alleged evidence of Hamas’s pre-10/7 coordination with Iran, plans to blow up Israeli skyscrapers, and even a scheme to use horse-drawn chariots in an attack from Gaza.

Documents received directly from intelligence agencies should always be treated with skepticism, and that’s especially true when their government has a well-documented history of blatant lying. Yet leading newspapers took these Israeli document dumps largely at face value, advancing the agenda of a genocidal rogue state.

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Trump’s Critics Keep Undermining Their Case by Lying About Stuff He Supposedly Said

It is no secret that Donald Trump hates former Rep. Liz Cheney (R–Wyo.), a leading critic of the former president who joined nine other Republicans in supporting his second impeachment, served as vice chair of the House select committee that investigated the 2021 Capitol riot, and is now campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris. But contrary to what you may have heard, Trump did not say Cheney “should be fired upon” (as CNN reported), recommend “executing her” (as CNN anchor Sara Sidner claimed), suggest that she “go before a firing squad” (as The Atlantic‘s David Graham averred), or make “a dark and ominous threat” of “death” against her (as The New Republic‘s Hafiz Rashid asserted).

Here is what Trump actually said about Cheney during an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson at a campaign event in Glendale, Arizona, on Thursday night: “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it—you know, when the guns are trained on her face.” Referring to politicians who are inclined to favor U.S. military interventions, Trump added: “You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building, saying, ‘Oh, gee, well, let’s send, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.'”

Trump’s remarks about Cheney reflected a standard complaint about armchair interventionists: that they are insulated from the consequences of the wars they support and do not give adequate consideration to the human costs. Although he may have expressed that point in especially vivid terms, he did not argue that Cheney deserved to be shot or killed.

Cheney nevertheless joined other Trump critics in portraying his comments as a death threat. “This is how dictators destroy free nations,” she wrote on X. “They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”

The blatant distortion of Trump’s comments is part of a pattern, and it reflects a broader problem. With four days to go before the presidential election, people who rightly worry about what a second term for Trump could mean might have a chance to persuade on-the-fence voters that his authoritarian instincts, reflected in his frequently expressed desire to punish his political opponents after he regains power, make him unfit for office. But when Trump’s critics try to do that by misrepresenting easily checked facts, they encourage potentially persuadable voters to dismiss the case against him as mendacious fearmongering.

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NYT and Washington Post Push YouTube To Censor Election “Misinformation,” Lament Podcast Censorship Challenges

The New York Times, Media Matters for America, and The Washington Post are stepping up their pressure on YouTube to demonetize and censor election “misinformation,” particularly statements that the 2020 election was rigged or insecure.

As these organizations push for stricter speech suppression, questions are raised about the implications for open discourse on the platform and the legacy media and activist attempts to get it shut down.

In the past months, Media Matters undertook an extensive review of content from 30 prominent conservative YouTube channels, identifying 286 videos containing what they classified as election misinformation, which collectively garnered over 47 million views. This report, backed by verification from The New York Times, pointed out that YouTube profited from ads placed on many of these videos.

Highlighted in the Times article were figures such as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, all of whom have voiced skepticism regarding the legitimacy of various aspects of the 2020 election process.

According to The New York Times, “Giuliani, the former New York mayor, posted more false electoral claims to YouTube than any other major commentator in the research group.”

Surprisingly, YouTube’s stance, as relayed by a spokeswoman, stresses the importance of open political discourse: “The ability to openly debate political ideas, even those that are controversial, is an important value — especially in the midst of election season,” she stated, defending the platform’s approach to content management.

However, YouTube did still remove three of the videos that Media Matters flagged.

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The Establishment Media is Unaware of its Growing Irrelevance

Last week, the news media went ballistic after the owners of the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post blocked each paper’s editorial boards from formally endorsing Kamala Harris for president. The Times editorial editor resigned in protest. Two other members of the editorial board followed her lead. Two Washington Post columnists resigned as well to signal their disapproval of the move, and many readers from both publications have reportedly canceled their subscriptions in response.

Journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who are famous for reporting on Watergate while working at the Washington Post, released a statement stating their disappointment. Former executive editor Martin Baron called the decision “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.” Nineteen Washington Post columnists signed an op-ed calling the lack of an endorsement a “terrible mistake.” And the unions of both publications released statements expressing their concern over such a move.

Across the board, the cited concern is that we are just days away from a consequential election where one of the candidates poses a major threat to democracy itself. The rest of the media see the billionaires who own each outlet as “preemptively self-censoring” themselves to avoid offending Donald Trump. This “self-censorship” then, we’re told, makes it more likely that Trump will get elected.

The assumptions that underlie these concerns are worth unpacking. The first, and perhaps most foolish notion, is that an endorsement from the LA Times or Washington Post will be a consequential factor in this election. The audience of both papers already skews heavily Democrat. Also, it is no mystery to anyone who spends as little as thirty seconds scrolling through editorial headlines that the papers’ editors support Harris over Trump, and why.

A short look at the opinion and news stories in either paper is also enough to dispel the notion that either outlet’s executives are worried about displeasing Trump. Even in the “hard news” sections, Trump is framed as an unhinged fascist set to destroy the country to nurse his fragile ego, while Harris is a serious, stern, problem-solving public servant who, at worst, has made a few tactical mistakes on the campaign trail. No honest observer can seriously say these papers are “staying silent” about this election.

Above all, the intensity of the meltdown we’re seeing from media figures both inside and outside of these two publications reveals how profoundly out-of-touch most of the establishment media is about their own importance.

There was a time, mainly back in the mid-to-late-1800s, when the public got virtually all its news from newspapers. It’s hard to overstate how much power that put in the hands of the printers, and later editors and executives, who produced these papers.

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ABC affiliate ‘mistakenly’ airs election results sparking conspiracy theories

An ABC affiliate has sparked wild conspiracy theories after mistakenly airing election results for Pennsylvania.

The results appeared on the ticker along the bottom of the screen during a broadcast of the Formula 1 Mexico Grand Prix by ABC local affiliate WNEP-TV on Sunday.

It showed Kamala Harris taking the state with 52 percent of the votes, while Donald Trump‘s share was 47 percent.

It instantly prompted claims of election rigging on social media, with one person tweeting: ‘The cheat is on.’

WNEP-TV said that the numbers came up on the screen in ‘error’ and that they had been ‘randomly generated’ as part of a test ahead of election night on November 5.

Trump is currently leading the state by 0.6 percentage points in an average of the top polls by Real Clear Politics.

Biden won Pennsylvania by the narrowest of margins in 2020, beating Trump by 80,555 votes or 1.17 percent.

Democrats have accused Trump and his allies of laying the groundwork to contest a potential loss by stoking doubts about the election’s legitimacy.

He has portrayed Democrats as cheaters, called mail-in ballots corrupt and urged supporters to vote in such large numbers to render the election ‘too big to rig.’ 

In response to the WNEP-TV broadcast, one person wrote on X: ‘If the same graphics pop up after November 5th, with the same percentages & the same vote count, it’ll be EXTREMELY suspicious. And the media wonders why nobody trusts them?’

Another said: ‘ABC is cheating for the Democrat machine. Their license should be revoked.’ 

In a statement the broadcaster said: ‘Those numbers should not have appeared on the screen, and it was an error by WNEP that they did.

‘The numbers seen on the screen were randomly generated test results sent out to help news organizations make sure their equipment is working properly in advance of election night.

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After 4 Years of Censorship: Mainstream Media Now Confirms that “COVID Jabs May be to Blame for Increase in Excess Deaths”

“Covid Jabs May be to Blame for Increase in Excess Deaths”

If this report by The Telegraph had been published in early 2021, several million lives would have been saved.

But in 2021, censorship was imposed. Honest journalism was silenced. The media was supportive of the fear campaign.

The Telegraph report by Science Editor Sara Knapton, 5 June 2024 pertains to:

Researchers from The Netherlands analysed data from 47 Western countries and discovered there had been more than three million excess deaths since 2020, with the trend continuing despite the rollout of vaccines and containment measures.

They said the “unprecedented” figures “raised serious concerns” and called on governments to fully investigate the underlying causes, including possible vaccine harms.

Writing in the BMJ Public Health, the authors from Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, said: “Although Covid-19 vaccines were provided to guard civilians from suffering morbidity and mortality by the Covid-19 virus, suspected adverse events have been documented as well.

“Both medical professionals and citizens have reported serious injuries and deaths following vaccination to various official databases in the Western World.”

Click here to read the full article on The Telegraph.

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