Tag: media

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Bristles When RFK Jr. Tells Her the Truth About the Mainstream Media

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins was not pleased during a Thursday interview she had with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., when he accused the media of being complicit in spreading false information during the COVID pandemic.

“You know, one of the big mistakes that you and many of your media colleagues made during COVID is to try to convince the American people that they should trust the experts,” Kennedy said.

“What we should do is trust the science,” he argued.

Collins countered, “The message was to trust the science, and what studies were finding.”

“No, it was trust the experts,” Kennedy retorted.

True. Who can forget how dismissive people like Dr. Anthony Fauci were of subjects like natural immunity, the lab leak theory, questioning the efficacy of the vaccines to stop the spread of COVID, and raising concerns about the potential health impacts of the vaccine, such as myocarditis?

The mainstream media narrative on all these subjects was to trust Fauci and the other Biden administration health officials, and they were wrong.

Kennedy contended that Americans should also be skeptical about any medical advice and do their own research.

“I would say be skeptical of authority. My father told me that when I was a young kid. People in authority lie. And we’ve seen a lot of that in our country,” RFK Jr. said.

“People in the media lie,” he continued. “And people need to make their own judgments and be skeptical, and maintain their capacity for critical thinking, and that was shut down during COVID, and the media was complicit in that.”

“Disagree on that last part,” Collins shot back and ended the interview.

DHS released its MAHA report Thursday, aimed at making children healthy again.

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Just when you thought Team Biden and CNN couldn’t sink any lower… this happens…

They told us Joe Biden had a “childhood stutter.” They told us he was sharp as a tack, lucid, and a fully in-command grandfatherly type. They told us that questioning his mental fitness was “dangerous disinformation” and bullying.

And now, after years of pushing North Korea-style propaganda, the entire corporate media complex is pretending to be shocked – shocked – that Joe Biden can’t form a sentence on his own. They’re replaying clips of him stammering and wandering around a six-foot stage totally lost, like they just woke up from a coma and missed the last six years.

Sorry, CNN, but we remember everything. Right-wing outlets were reporting on Biden’s decline almost daily. This isn’t news. It’s damage control. Legacy media is scrambling to rebuild their reputations after selling their souls to Team Biden and refusing to cover the biggest story in the world: the President of the United States is a lumbering zombie who could barely remember his own name.

Joe’s cognitive issues weren’t random “gaffes” that popped up once in a while. It was a daily train wreck, and the media acted like nothing was wrong. That was their biggest and most shameless fake news stunt to date.

Here are 98 seconds of Biden completely losing his train of thought. And this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of how embarrassing his time in office has been.

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BBC Reporter Shows How To Spread Extreme Climate Alarm

A gleeful, self-satisfied Mr Punch was often heard to remark: “That’s the way to do it.” Today we examine how Mark Poynting, one of the BBC’s top doom-mongering Net Zero activists, uses the trusted ‘scientists say’ message to turn a centennial sea level rise of around 30 cm into prose stating: “The world could see hugely damaging sea-level rises of several metres or more over the coming centuries”. Added fear is inserted into the mix with the warning that the disappearing act will occur, “even if the ambitious target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C is met, scientists have warned”.

Poynting and the BBC are essentially telling a worldwide audience that coastal land and beyond across the world could be overwhelmed with several metres of sea rise if the global temperature is three-tenths of a degree centigrade higher. This message properly belongs on a doomsday sandwich board walker, not least because the rise in temperature is almost within the margin of error of constantly-adjusted and unnaturally-heated global temperature datasets.

Extrapolating computer modelled data rigged with improbable ‘pathways’ that even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change more or less dismiss as ‘low confidence’ – that’s the way to do it.

The BBC story is based on the recent compilation and interpretation of material from a group led by Geography Professor Chris Stokes. This provides just the sort of findings that are catnip to the BBC. At one point the authors seem to think that humans can control the amount of ice on both Greenland and Antarctica, arguing that the global mean temperature should be reduced with further work “urgently required to more precisely determine a ‘safe limit’ for ice sheets“. Given the catastrophic consequences of a rapid collapse of one or more ice sheets, the authors state, “we conclude that adopting the precautionary principle is imperative and that a global mean temperature cooler than present is required to keep ice sheets broadly in equilibrium”.

That’s the way to do it. Poynting could have informed his gaslit readers that overall ice loss in Antarctica is minimal with suggestions of an annual 100 gigatonnes reduction equivalent to 0.00041% of the total mass – well within the margin of error. At current rates of melting on a continent that has seen no overall warming for at least 70 years, it would take around 300,000 years for all the ice to disappear. And this assumes no intervening glaciations, a new ice age, or just more accurate measurements. Instead he reports the comments of the Stokes crew that the “major concern is that melting could accelerate further beyond ‘tipping points’ due to warming caused by humans”. That’s the way to do it – talk about ‘tipping points’ that never occur and then cover yourself by adding “though it’s not clear exactly how these mechanisms work and where the thresholds sit”.

Instead of “not exactly clear”, try, “haven’t got a clue”. But it is “precautionary” to remove hydrocarbons from modern use and drive humanity back to the dark ages – just in case the model inventions do occur.

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Indigenous Amazon tribe says New York Times story led to its members being smeared as porn addicts

An Indigenous tribe from the Brazilian Amazon has sued The New York Times, saying the newspaper’s reporting on the tribe’s first exposure to the internet led to its members being widely portrayed as technology-addled and addicted to pornography.

The Marubo Tribe of the Javari Valley, a sovereign community of about 2,000 people in the rainforest, filed the defamation lawsuit seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages this week in a court in Los Angeles.

It also names TMZ and Yahoo as defendants, alleging that their stories amplified and sensationalized the Times’ reporting and smeared the tribe in the process.

The suit says the Times’ June 2024 story by reporter Jack Nicas on how the group was handling the introduction of satellite service through Elon Musk’s Starlink “portrayed the Marubo people as a community unable to handle basic exposure to the internet, highlighting allegations that their youth had become consumed by pornography.”

“These statements were not only inflammatory but conveyed to the average reader that the Marubo people had descended into moral and social decline as a direct result of internet access,” an amended version of the lawsuit filed Thursday says. “Such portrayals go far beyond cultural commentary; they directly attack the character, morality, and social standing of an entire people, suggesting they lack the discipline or values to function in the modern world.”

In a statement to The Associated Press, a Times spokesperson said: “Any fair reading of this piece shows a sensitive and nuanced exploration of the benefits and complications of new technology in a remote Indigenous village with a proud history and preserved culture. We intend to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”

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Similarities in media coverage of viral moments in Washington draw scrutiny

Coverage of the White House and Congress has come under greater scrutiny in recent years as the media landscape has shifted and America’s politics have become more polarized in what analysts see as a more partisan environment and shifts in the news industry as it has evolved from radio broadcasts and newspapers to around-the-clock coverage on cable news channels and social media.

Blow-ups during meetings in the Oval Office, quips from lawmakers in the hallways of Congress and in hearing rooms and testy exchanges between politicians regularly attract widespread attention in headlines and on social media where users are fed content they will stay engaged with and seek more of.

The landscape of the news business has also shifted drastically since cable news burst onto the scene to today’s backdrop with a seemingly endless supply of digital outlets, newsletters, podcasts and social media accounts all competing for a limited supply of attention and advertising dollars that make up the bulk of revenue for a wide range of publications.

It is a challenging dynamic for newsrooms to operate in as media companies of all sizes face major questions about their ability to keep reporters on staff and trying to keep the public informed as revenue streams disappear or get shifted to social media.

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FTC probes Media Matters over Musk’s X boycott claims, document shows

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has demanded documents from Media Matters about possible coordination with other media watchdogs accused by Elon Musk of helping orchestrate advertiser boycotts of X, according to a document seen by Reuters on Thursday.

The civil investigative demand seen by Reuters seeks information about Media Matters’ communications with other groups that evaluate misinformation and hate speech in news and social media, including a World Federation of Advertisers initiative called Global Alliance for Responsible Media. X has ongoing lawsuits against both organizations.

The probe marks an escalation in U.S. government scrutiny of whether groups like Media Matters helped advertisers coordinate to pull ad dollars from X after Musk bought the social media site formerly known as Twitter in 2022.

The demand seeks all documents Media Matters, a Washington, D.C.-based liberal advocacy group, has produced or received in the X lawsuit related to advertiser boycotts.

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, who was appointed by President Donald Trump to run the agency, highlighted the potential for a probe in December.

“We must prosecute any unlawful collusion between online platforms, and confront advertiser boycotts which threaten competition among those platforms,” Ferguson said in a statement on an unrelated case.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Republican member Jim Jordan, accused the Global Alliance for Responsible Media last year of coordinating an illegal group boycott. The initiative was shut down in August.

A spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment.

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NYT Reports FBI Closing FISA Office. FBI Denies It

FBI Director Kash Patel closed the agency’s surveillance watchdog unit, according to a Tuesday report by The New York Times (NYT).

The bureau’s Office of Internal Auditing ensured compliance with surveillance regulations, specifically concerning the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), officials familiar told NYT.

“The FBI’s Office of Internal Auditing is not being shut down; it is being moved to the Inspection Division which is responsible for internal reviews of FBI policies, programs, and investigations to ensure they fully comply with our authorities. Oversight is important to the FBI, and we will continue to work with DOJ’s National Security Division for FISA review. The FBI is committed to ensuring that we are fully compliant with querying standards,” the FBI told the Daily Caller in a statement.

The assistant director of that department, Cindy Hall, has retired, according to the outlet. While a former official was informed she was “forced out,” another source familiar told NYT the FBI described her exit to Congress as “voluntary.”

Prior to the reported closure, Hall was working to onboard workers to expand the office’s operations, according to NYT.

The watchdog’s closure is part of a broader restructuring, people familiar told the outlet. The office’s functions, along with The Office of Integrity and Compliance, “have been absorbed by the inspection division,” NYT reported.

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Media Picks a Fight With Trump Over South Africa – Big Mistake

The establishment media has gotten itself into another fine mess, as the late, great Oliver Hardy would have put it. And, once again, it is destined for humiliation at the hands of President Donald Trump. On May 21, he hosted Cyril Ramaphosa, the president of South Africa, at the White House. This meeting came on the heels of 59 Afrikaners arriving in the United States – white South Africans of primarily Dutch descent who chose to flee a regime that is openly hostile toward them.

At one point during the encounter between the two leaders, Trump made his South African counterpart watch a video of a black South African politician, at a packed outdoor rally, inciting the murder of white farmers.

The US leftist media was not happy, but they have already picked out the paint and chosen the corner into which they will paint themselves – again. As if any more proof were needed that there is no independent journalism on the left and that these media outfits all draw from the same progressive talking points, the rebukes were swift and all but identical.

Trump’s claim that the white farmers of South Africa are the victims of genocide was attacked by much of the left-wing legacy media as “unfounded,” “false,” “unsubstantiated,” etc.

The New York Times and ABC News, in particular, took a drubbing on the X social media platform. Their attempts to deny the existence of a deadly situation for which the evidence is copious and beyond rational dispute drew much scorn and ridicule.

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Fox News Notches Big Win Against Smartmatic as Appeals Court Grants Access to Damning Insider Info

Fox News lawyers fighting off a defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic Voting Systems have been granted access to new ammunition.

Last week, Fox was granted access to materials connected with a 2024 federal bribery indictment concerning company co-founder and president Roger Piñate and other company executives, according to The Wrap.

The Justice Department has alleged that more than $1 million in bribes went from company executives to a Philippine official in an attempt to influence which voting machines were used in the nation’s 2016 elections, according to a Justice Department news release.

Those charged have pleaded not guilty.

Fox claimed that the charges are relevant to its defense because Smartmatic was suffering for reasons other than Fox’s coverage of the 2020 election, according to The Wrap.

“We are pleased with the Court’s ruling that materials about Smartmatic executives’ indictments are ‘plainly relevant’ to its lack of damages. The factual evidence shows that Smartmatic’s business and reputation were badly suffering long before any claims by President Trump’s lawyers on Fox News,” Fox said in a statement.

In a separate filing calling for summary judgment in its favor, Fox argued that Smartmatic’s sales had “cratered” before the 2020 election.

Fox  sought to undercut Smartmatic’s claim that it was damaged by saying that the company’s books show “no profit record to serve as a basis for projecting millions of dollars in future profits.”

Smartmatic fired back against Fox News in a separate filing, according to CNN.

The company alleged in court documents that Fox “orchestrated the destruction of text messages across all levels of their corporate hierarchy … despite a clear duty to preserve evidence.”

Smartmatic claimed Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch “deleted their texts” in an “extensive and willful” fashion.

Fox said the allegation was a “desperate attempt to distract” from the ruling in Fox’s favor.

“Smartmatic weakly attempts to resurrect stale, baseless discovery issues that actually were disclosed by Fox and resolved two years ago,” a Fox representative said.

“These issues have no bearing on the merits of Smartmatic’s case, which has fallen apart at every turn,” the Fox representative said.

As noted by The Wrap. Smartmatic is seeking $2.7 billion from Fox.

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‘Ambush’: Watch network interrupt live footage of Trump airing montage of South Africans calling for genocide against whites

CNN cut away from live footage of President Donald Trump airing footage of South Africans calling for violence against white people during his Wednesday Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

During his meeting with the South African president, Trump aired a montage of the minority party in South Africa calling to kill the Boers, a term that refers to white farmers, by shooting them and “cutting their throat[s].” While the video played, CNN cut away so viewers could only hear “Inside Politics” host Dana Bash and her panelists react to Trump forcing Ramaphosa to watch the video.

“[The video] is obviously playing right now and our understanding is that the point of this video is to back up some of the claims that Trump has made about South Africa. It seems this is clearly a well orchestrated effort. They brought screens, there’s not usually TVs in the Oval Office. And they were prepared to do this,” one panelist said. Another panelist called this act an “ambush.”

The moment the video ended, the network returned to airing the meeting live so viewers could hear Ramaphosa’s response, where he stated that the utterances made in the video are not “government policy.” The South African president and members of his government all maintained that there is no genocide against white people happening in their country, which Trump firmly disagreed with.

Besides the opposition party calling to kill white farmers, other parts of the video showed burial sites where white farmers are said to be laid to rest. While the montage played, Ramaphosa spent much of his time facing forward or glancing at Trump rather than watching the video.

“Burial sites. Right here. Burial sites. Over a thousand white farmers and those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning. Each one of those white things you see is a cross. And there is approximately a thousand of them. They are all white farmers, the family of white farmers. And those cars aren’t driving. They are stopped there to pay respects to their family member who was killed,” Trump said during the video.

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