Tag: media

LEAKED NYT GAZA MEMO TELLS JOURNALISTS TO AVOID WORDS “GENOCIDE,” “ETHNIC CLEANSING,” AND “OCCUPIED TERRITORY”

THE NEW YORK TIMES instructed journalists covering Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid” using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land, according to a copy of an internal memo obtained by The Intercept.

The memo also instructs reporters not to use the word Palestine “except in very rare cases” and to steer clear of the term “refugee camps” to describe areas of Gaza historically settled by displaced Palestinians expelled from other parts of Palestine during previous Israeli–Arab wars. The areas are recognized by the United Nations as refugee camps and house hundreds of thousands of registered refugees.

The memo — written by Times standards editor Susan Wessling, international editor Philip Pan, and their deputies — “offers guidance about some terms and other issues we have grappled with since the start of the conflict in October.”

While the document is presented as an outline for maintaining objective journalistic principles in reporting on the Gaza war, several Times staffers told The Intercept that some of its contents show evidence of the paper’s deference to Israeli narratives.

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“This Person Is A Crazy Racist”: New NPR CEO Exposed As Woke Activist

Last week, veteran NPR reporter Uri Berliner – a longtime ‘Subaru driving’ lefty who was raised by a ‘lesbian peace activist mother’ – wrote a scathing report accusing the network of overwhelming bias.

Introspection was the last thing on NPR’s mind, however, as new CEO Katherine Maher chastised Berliner as “profoundly disrespectful, hateful, and demeaning” to his colleagues for calling out political bias.

As Jonathan Turley notes:

In a memo Friday, Maher told the staff that Berliner attacked not only “the quality of our editorial process and the integrity of our journalists” but “our people on the basis of who we are.”

…

Maher’s response was hardly surprising. She was a controversial hire at NPR. Many had hoped that NPR would seek a CEO who could steer the company away from its partisan and activistic trend. The prospect could have brought moderates and conservatives back into NPR’s listening audience. Maher, however, was part of that trend.

This should come as no surprise given Maher’s history as a complete lunatic who spews woke diatribes on X – calling herself “someone with cis white mobility privilege” and other nonsense.

In response to journalist Chris Rufo pointing this out, Elon Musk replied that she’s a “crazy racist!”

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US Helps Pro-Ukraine Media Run A Fog Machine Of War

Ukraine’s American-backed fight against Russia is being waged not only in the blood-soaked trenches of the Donbas region but also on what military planners call the cognitive battlefield – to win hearts and minds.

A sprawling constellation of media outlets organized with substantial funding and direction from the U.S. government has not just worked to counter Russian propaganda but has supported strong censorship laws and shutdowns of dissident outlets, disseminated disinformation of its own, and sought to silence critics of the war, including many American citizens.

Economist Jeffrey Sachs, commentator Tucker Carlson, journalist Glenn Greenwald, and University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer are among the critics on both the left and the right who have been cast as part of a “network of Russian propaganda.”

But the figures targeted by the Ukrainian watchdog groups are hardly Kremlin agents. They simply have forcefully criticized dominant narratives about the war.

Sachs is a highly respected international development expert who has angered Ukrainian officials over his repeated calls for a diplomatic solution to the current military conflict. Last November, he gave a speech at the United Nations calling for a negotiated peace.

Mearsheimer has written extensively on international relations and is a skeptic of NATO expansion. He predicted that Western efforts to militarize Ukraine would lead to a Russian invasion.

Greenwald is a Pulitzer Prize-winning independent journalist who has criticized not just war coverage but media dynamics that suppress voices that run counter to U.S. narratives.

“What they mean when they demand censorship of ‘pro-Russia propaganda’ is anything that questions the US/EU role in the Ukraine war or who dissents from their narratives,” Greenwald has observed.

There’s no evidence of Kremlin influence over their viewpoints, but their comments alone are enough for a network of U.S.-backed Ukrainian media groups to tarnish these experts as Russian propagandists.  

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Google Begins Blocking News From California Outlets Over State Bill

Google has temporarily blocked access to California-based news outlets for some state residents, as the search giant escalates its battle with the state over a landmark bill which would force tech giants to pay online publishers for their content.

In doing so, the company has revived a political tactic used repeatedly by the tech industry to try and derail similar legislation in places like Canada and Australia which require online platforms to pay outlets for articles featured on their websites, Politico reports.

“We have long said that this is the wrong approach to supporting journalism,” said Google’s VP for global news partnership, Jaffer Zaidi, in a Friday blog post. According to Zaidi, the bill could “result in significant changes to the services we can offer Californians and the traffic we can provide to California publishers.”

Sacramento is hosting the latest round of a global fight over the journalism industry’s future in the digital age, and California’s battle has taken on additional resonance because the state is home to tech titans. Advocates for such legislation argue companies like Google and Meta have helped decimate already flagging newsroom revenues through their control over digital advertising, and outlets deserve compensation for content that users may see on their platforms for free.

The companies counter that these laws could stifle vital sources of information — and they’ve fought back by attempting to preview what they say that would look like. -Politico

In Canada, Google similarly threatened to block content before reaching a deal with the government last November, three weeks before the ‘Online News Act’ came into effect. The company agreed to make annual payments to news outlets in the range of $100 million.

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Former CBS Reporter Says Network Seized Her Confidential Files

Former CBS reporter Catherine Herridge said on April 11 that her former employer seized some of her files, including files containing confidential information.

Ms. Herridge told a U.S. House of Representatives panel in Washington that she was informed in a Zoom call that she was being terminated.

“I was locked out of my emails, and I was locked out of the office,” she said. “CBS News seized hundreds of pages of my reporting files, including confidential source information.”

Ms. Herridge said that was not normal, describing it as “an attack on investigative journalism.” She said that the move “crossed a red line” that “should never be crossed by any media organization.” Mary Cavallaro, an official with the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists union, said she could not recall another instance in which a reporter’s files were seized.

A CBS spokesperson previously told The Epoch Times that the network had her files but had not gone through them. “We have respected her request to not go through the files, and out of our concern for confidential sources, the office she occupied has remained secure since her departure,” the spokesperson said.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, which was holding the hearing, said that CBS “took unprecedented actions” regarding her belongings.

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CNN Reporter Slips Up, Suggests People Were “Happy” OJ “Could Get Away With” It Because He Was Black

A CNN reporter made a revealing Freudian slip when she suggested people were “happy to see ” OJ Simpson “get away with” it because he was black.

Simpson died after a long battle with cancer at the age of 76, it was announced yesterday.

The former NFL star was cleared of murdering his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994 in the so-called “trial of the century,” although many believe the verdict was wrong.

Simpson was later found liable of murder in a civil trial and ordered to pay a $33.5million judgment to the victim’s families.

Commenting on Simpson’s death, CNN’s Stephanie Elam placed it in the context of the race riots of the 1990’s, arguing that people were “happy to see” OJ being cleared as a form of restorative racial justice.

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“I Am Going To Lecture You On Climate Change”: BBC Reporter Gets Schooled For Hypocrisy

On March 28, President Mohamed Irfaan Ali of the South American country of Guyana became an instant hero to many as he refused to take lectures on climate change from a BBC reporter during an interview. In a two-minute video clip that went viral on X (formerly Twitter) and other social media, President Ali turned the tables on the BBC’s Stephen Sackur when the reporter accused Guyana of worsening the “climate crisis” by allowing the exploitation of its newly found oil and gas reserves.

“Over the next decade or two, it’s expected that there will be $150 billion worth of oil and gas extracted off your coast,” Sackur told the president. “It’s an extraordinary figure. But think of it in practical terms. That means – according to many experts – two billion tons of carbon emissions will come from your seabed from those reserves and released into the atmosphere.” Guyana’s head of state quickly rebutted: “Let me stop you right there. Did you know that Guyana has a forest that is the size of England and Scotland combined, a forest that stores 19.5 gigatons of carbon, a forest that we have kept alive?”

When the reporter asked President Ali whether the rainforest gave him the “right” to release the carbon, the Guyanese leader retorted: “Does that give you the right to lecture us on climate change? I’m going to lecture you on climate change.” Being lectured by the BBC on climate change is not a new development; it’s what the state-supported media service often does, and in hectoring tones. But is the BBC correct in its proclamations about what the “climate science” says?

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NPR editor says network ‘turned a blind eye’ to Hunter Biden laptop story because ‘it could help Trump’

A veteran National Public Radio journalist slammed the left-leaning broadcaster for ignoring the Hunter Biden laptop scandal because it could have helped Donald Trump get re-elected.

Uri Berliner, an award-winning business editor and reporter at NPR, penned a lengthy essay in Bari Weiss’ online news site The Free Press in which he called out his bosses for turning the public radio broadcaster into “an openly polemical news outlet serving a niche audience.”

“The laptop was newsworthy,” Berliner wrote. “But the timeless journalistic instinct of following a hot story lead was being squelched.”

Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, The Post was the first to reveal the existence of the laptop that Hunter Biden left at a Delaware computer shop.

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‘Arbiter of Truth’ & ‘Disinformation Guru’ Tells Public ‘Don’t do Your Own Research’

During a recent discussion, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt and Executive Director of the Pitt Disinformation Lab Beth Schwanke spoke about beguiling the public into believing establishment sources.

The discussion specifically regarded what they deem as misinformation and disinformation on elections and how Americans should not have a mind of their own.

The Pitt Disinformation Lab executive lambasted self-led investigations, instead saying Pennsylvanians should just blindly eat up what the ‘trusted sources’ claim to be true. She also discussed January 6th and the 2020 election as a failure of control over the minds of citizens.

“One thing everyone can do to make sure they are seeing accurate information is to use trusted sources. So in elections that means using the Department of State, that means using your county elections office, it means using media organizations that follow, that adhere, to professional journalism standards like … your local NPR affiliate,” Schwanke said. “And it doesn’t mean you know, ‘doing your own research’ and just asking questions and sharing, you know, posts from – I don’t know, in my case, it’s Uncle Joe, right? It means being thoughtful about where your sources are coming from.”

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NPR journalist blows whistle on network’s obsession with DEI and progressive diktats and reveals how stories like Hunter Biden laptop were ignored: ‘Here’s how we lost America’s trust’

A veteran NPR editor has blown the whistle on how the publicly-funded broadcaster has become an activist organization obsessed with pushing progressive ideals. 

Uri Berliner, a business editor at NPR for 25 years, has offered a glimpse into his belief that NPR has gone from a respected information source to one that can’t be trusted to honestly cover the news. 

In an essay for The Free Press, Berliner notes that while NPR has always had a liberal bent, the publication was not ‘not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding’ – something he says changed when Donald Trump entered the political arena. 

Berliner uncovers how NPR knowingly kept information from its audience during the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. 

He says NPR editors were quick to jump on claims that Donald Trump was a Russian asset – but far more reticent to cover their subsequent debunking.

It was a similar story with the Covid lab leak theory, which NPR continues to discredit, as well as the Hunter Biden laptop, which bosses declined to cover, Berliner says.  

‘Today, those who listen to NPR or read its coverage online find something different: the distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U.S. population,’ Berliner writes.

Berliner tracks the last days of the old NPR to 2011, when he says it still had a leftist tilt, but ‘still bore bore a resemblance to America at large,’ and an audience that described themselves as 26 percent conservative, 23 percent moderate and 37 percent liberal.

But by 2023, only 11 percent of listeners described themselves as very or somewhat conservative, while 21 percent said they were ‘middle of the road,’ and 67 percent reported they were very or somewhat liberal. 

‘That wouldn’t be a problem for an openly polemical news outlet serving a niche audience. But for NPR, which purports to consider all things, it’s devastating both for its journalism and its business model,’ the veteran editor says in his essay.

Berliner explains that Trump’s 2016 candidacy for presidency changed how NPR covered politics, writing: ‘what began as tough, straightforward coverage of a belligerent, truth-impaired president veered toward efforts to damage or topple Trump’s presidency.’

NPR, Berliner writes, became obsessed with rumors about Trump colluding with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton, repeatedly covering Representative Adam Schiff as he led the fight against Trump.

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