Tag: media

CBS News Report Frames Removal Of Gay Porn Books From Children’s Library As ‘Book Banning’

CBS Evening News ran a report Wednesday lamenting the fact that various controversial LGBTQ themed books have been removed from a school library in Jamestown, Michigan after parents complained that the material was pornographic.

The piece framed the development, which is occurring in schools nationwide, in the context of a “sharp rise in book bans in America’s schools and libraries”.

Correspondent Elaine Quijano noted that a group of parents called the Jamestown Conservatives have “led a successful drive to essentially defund the library.”

Defund?

“They want those books removed from the shelves,” Quijano further complained.

The report also contained an interview with the library board president, who repeated the “defunded” pejorative and whined “I feel like we’ve kind of stepped back in time, talking about book banning.”

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“Be Afraid, Be Actually Afraid”: Reporters Panic At The Thought Of Twitter Restoring Free Speech Protections

“Be afraid, be actually afraid.”

Those words from former Politico Magazine editor Garrett M. Graff captures the hyperventilation in the media week. No it is not Vladimir Putin’s threat of unleashing a nuclear war or the word that our national debt has reached a staggering $31 trillion. No, it is the news that Elon Musk may go forward with the purchase of Twitter and . . . [triggering warning] . . . free speech protections might be restored on the platform. The pearl-clutching of various media and academic figures show how engrained the censorship culture has become in the United States.

After Musk indicated that he was going forward, the Twitter stock quickly soared. The news that Musk might bring an end to Twitter’s extensive censorship system has previously drawn people back to the platform. However, the media is in full panic mode that the control over speech could be loosened with Musk. Twitter employees also previously panicked at the thought that they might lose some of their control over the speech of others.

NBC News reporter Ben Collins wrote quickly raises the most immediate concern that the sudden ability to speak freely on Twitter could impact the midterm elections.

Consider that for a second: the loss of control over political speech could mean a loss of control over the midterm elections. 

There is, of course, no concern by Collins that Twitter (and other social media companies) have long been “aligned” with Democrats and the Biden Administration.

NPR editor Neela Banerjee retweeted and echoed his concern about “the broader implications for the rest of us of a Musk takeover of Twitter.” 

Others joined in on the collective panic that there could be a loss of control over what people say on social media.

BBC journalist Dickens Olewe warned that “Guardrails will be dropped, misinfo & conspiracy theories will thrive. No functional alternatives available, this is it: a complete destruction of the global public square. Been nice y’all.”  In other words, free speech protections will lead to the destruction of “the global public square” by losing control of who can speak or what people can say.

PoliticusUSA head Sarah Reese Jones seemed to move from the desperate to the outright delusional: “Before 2020, Facebook deplatformed progressives, then it came for mainstream media and elevated only radicalized conservatives. Cut to 2022, we know Elon Musk plans to do same with Twitter. We know how damaging it will be.Tech giants pose ongoing threat to western democracy.”

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When a ‘conspiracy theory’ turns out to be…not a theory

WHEN A ‘CONSPIRACY THEORY’ TURNS OUT TO BE…NOT A THEORY. On Monday, the New York Times published a story about Konnech, a small election software company that has just 27 employees, 21 based in Michigan and six in Australia. The paper reported that Konnech has been the target of “election deniers” who have made it the focus of “a new conspiracy theory about the 2020 presidential election.”

“Using threadbare evidence, or none at all,” the New York Times’s Stuart A. Thompson reported, the “election deniers” said Konnech “had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and had given the Chinese government backdoor access to personal data about two million poll workers in the United States.”

In the last two years, the New York Times added, “conspiracy theorists have subjected election officials and private companies that play a major role in elections to a barrage of outlandish voter fraud claims.” But now, “the attacks on Konnech demonstrate how far-right election deniers are also giving more attention to new and more secondary companies and groups.”

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Konnech officials assured the New York Times that “none of the accusations were true.” Thompson reported that employees “feared for their safety” from right-wing violence and that “Konnech’s founder and chief executive, Eugene Yu, an American citizen who immigrated from China in 1986, went into hiding with his family after receiving threatening messages.”

Any reasonable reader would come away with the conclusion that Konnech, an innocent company that makes products to deal with “basic election logistics, such as scheduling poll workers,” has been the target of crazy, and possibly dangerous, conspiracy theories. To press the point, the New York Times used the phrase “conspiracy theory” or “conspiracy theorists” nine times in the article, once in the headline — “How a Tiny Elections Company Became a Conspiracy Theory Target” — seven times in the body of the story, and once in a photo caption. Got it?

Fast forward one day. Twenty-four hours. The New York Times published another story about Konnech, this one headlined, “Election Software Executive Arrested on Suspicion of Theft.” Thompson reported that Yu had been “arrested by Los Angeles County officials in connection with an investigation into the possible theft of personal information about poll workers.”

From the New York Times: “The company has been accused by groups challenging the validity of the 2020 presidential election with storing information about poll workers on servers in China. The company has repeatedly denied keeping data outside the United States, including in recent statements to The New York Times.” And then: The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office “said its investigators had found data stored in China.” And this is from the New York Times on the core of the matter:

Konnech came under scrutiny this year by several election deniers, including a founder of True the Vote, a nonprofit that says it is devoted to uncovering election fraud. True the Vote said its team had downloaded personal information on 1.8 million American poll workers from a server owned by Konnech and hosted in China. It said it obtained the data by using the server’s default password, which it said was ‘password.’ … The group provided no evidence that it had downloaded the data, saying that it had given the information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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News & Conspiracies

The Western political/media class has been dismissing as “conspiracy theories” all claims that the U.S. is likely responsible for last month’s sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, even while leveling the exact same accusations against Russia without ever using that term. Which probably says a lot about the way that label has been used over the years, if you think about it.

At a U.N. Security Council meeting on Friday, U.S. envoy Richard Mills repeatedly accused Russia of promoting “conspiracy theories” in its Nord Stream accusations against the United States, saying that “our Russian colleagues have decided to instrumentalize the Security Council meeting to spread conspiracy theories and disinformation.”

“It’s important that we use this meeting not to foster conspiracy theories, but to focus our attention on Russia’s blatant violation of the Charter and its crimes in Ukraine,” Mills argues, after saying that “the United States categorically denies any involvement in this incident” and that there is no justification for “the Russian delegation raising conspiracy theories and mass disinformation in this Council.”

Mills then spends the remainder of his remarks insinuating that it is actually Russia who perpetrated the attacks, mentioning the word “infrastructure” no less than nine times in his arguments to establish that in Ukraine, Russia has a history of attacking critical civilian infrastructure similar to the pipelines.

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No One Talks About Ending Ukraine War For Fear Of Being Labelled A ‘Traitor’

Journalist Glenn Greenwald noted Monday that talks to deescalate or end the conflict in Ukraine are virtually nonexistent because the legacy media and political elites have nurtured an atmosphere where to do so is considered ‘unpatriotic’.

Speaking to Tucker Carlson, Greenwald stated “There is a very real threat of a nuclear exchange, or even a direct confrontation with Russia and the United States. And over what? Over who governs and rules, not even Ukraine, but the Donbas, the eastern region in Ukraine, where a majority of people actually identify as ethnic Russians and want to be part of Russia.”

Greenwald continued, “Yet there’s almost no debate about whether we should be sending huge amounts of money there and risking the lives of American citizens through the possibility of a nuclear war.”

“Because everyone knows that the minute you step up and step out of line, there’s a hoard of people ready to call you unpatriotic, or a traitor, or an admirer of Vladimir Putin, as I know is being done with our very segment right this minute by all those Media Matter people and all those other people online,” the journalist continued.

“It’s a really repressive atmosphere and squashing a debate that we absolutely have to have,” Greenwald further urged.

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Enemies list? Fed-backed censorship machine targeted 20 news sites

The private consortium that reported election “misinformation” to tech platforms during the 2020 election season, in “consultation” with federal agencies, targeted several news organizations in its dragnet.

Websites for Just the News, New York Post, Fox News, Washington Examiner, Washington Times, Epoch Times and Breitbart were identified among the 20 “most prominent domains across election integrity incidents” that were cited in tweets flagged by the Election Integrity Partnership and its collaborators.

The Washington Post, New York Times and CNN also appeared on the list, though the consortium’s after-action report emphasizes most of the mainstream media reports “were referenced as fact-checks” that played a “corrective role” against “misleading narratives.”

The report also identified the 21 “most prominent repeat spreaders [of misinformation] on Twitter,” all of them politically classified as “right.” Actor James Woods led that group, followed by The Gateway Pundit blog, Donald Trump Jr. and President Trump himself. The report emphasized 15 were verified by Twitter.

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“No Evidence” US Involved in Nord Stream Pipeline Attack Because Pentagon Says So

Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin has confirmed that the U.S. was not responsible for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline explosion, because the Pentagon told her so.

Yes, really.

Despite accusations flying that the United States could have been involved in the blasts that have reportedly could scupper the pipelines permanently, and without any investigation having taken place, Griffin’s crack journalism has solved the case.

“There is no evidence or indication the US was involved in any way with the Nordstream 2 pipeline explosions,” Griffin tweeted. “My question at the Pentagon briefing today: Can you rule out that the U.S. was involved? Senior Military Official: ‘Yeah, we were absolutely not involved.’ ”

Well, that’s that then, case closed.

As Chris Menahan notes, the Fox News reporter has been guilty of brazenly amplifying false regime propaganda before.

“Earlier this year, Griffin put out the debunked hoax story that Russia bombed the Babi Yair holocaust memorial in Ukraine.”

The reporting was later debunked after an Israeli journalist visited the site and found it to be completely unscathed.

Griffin also recycled the lie that Russia was using “mobile crematoriums” to “evaporate” war dead, when the supposed video proving it was taken from a 2013 YouTube video.

“When news came out about US biolabs in Ukraine, Griffin also simply repeated Pentagon talking points to dismiss the story as a nothingburger,” writes Menahan.

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Chelsea Clinton Claims Her Family Is ‘The Reason That Fox News Was Created’

Chelsea Clinton claimed during a recent interview that her family was “the reason that Fox News was created,” arguing that the network’s founder Rupert Murdoch had seen an opportunity and a market for attacks against them.

Clinton and her mother, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, spoke with entertainment magazine Variety about their new Apple TV+ venture, “Gutsy,” in a wide-ranging feature interview that was published on Tuesday, and the topic eventually turned to Fox News.

“Your family was the first great target of Fox News’ approach,” the interviewer prompted.

“We were the reason that Fox News was created. Because Rupert Murdoch recognized a great market opportunity,” the younger Clinton replied.

The interviewer then asked the Clintons both to explain whether they felt their move into the media space — albeit a much smaller space than that occupied by Fox News — was an effort to fight back in some small way.

“Climate change illuminated where Fox News was willing to go and its destructive impact,” Chelsea responded first, saying that it was not solely Fox News, but multiple right-leaning outlets.

“I’m 42, and when I was in junior high, two-thirds of Americans knew human activity is partly responsible for climate change,” she said. “The right proved to themselves, ‘We can hit people with relentless misinformation and every night pipe into their homes to disbelieve scientists — what else could be possible?’ Today, with COVID, it’s the same playbook.”

“There’s an element to this which is quite frustrating, because they get away with it,” Hillary added then, arguing that progressive media had failed to do enough to fight back against right-leaning media.

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NBC News slammed after suggesting that the Feds should begin censoring text messages

NBC News has proven yet again that ‘mainstream’ media outlets in America are nothing but propagandists for the deep state, which is exactly the opposite of the vision our founders had for a “free press.”

NBC published a story exaggerating the issue of supposed “disinformation” going out via text messages, citing one campaign that nearly ended what the outlet described as “abortion protections” in Kansas to make its point.

In addition, the ‘story’ referenced a former Obama campaign official, Scott Goodstein, who “built the bulk text messaging apparatus for” the former president’s 2008 campaign, who now claims that Americans are being inundated with text message “disinformation.”

Citing the report, Newsbusters added:

NBC noted there is no regulatory agency to monitor text messages and wondered if “political groups that spread text message disinformation” would face any “consequences.” The news outlet did not present a definite solution.

Leftists “won’t rest until our text messages, television news, personal emails, phone calls—and eventually in-person conversations—are censored to fit their preferred narrative,” Internet Accountability Project (IAP) founder and President Mike Davis noted in an email, Newsbusters reported.

American Principles Project (APP) Director of Policy Jon Schweppe opined that NBC News shielded the real reason for its ‘story.’

“We know what this is really about,” he wrote in an email to Newsbusters. “It has nothing to do with ‘disinformation.’ This is about power, about censoring political messages that run counter to the elite consensus, and about rigging elections.”

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