View Full Version : Fake news?
So the website BuzzFeed decided to publish a series of memos that have been floating around for months alleging all kinds of terrible things about Donald Trump.
Some of those terrible allegations have to do with efforts to influence the American elections and Trump. Some of them have to do with Trump’s personal sexual conduct.
Readers of this newspaper know well not to include me among Trump’s supporters. But the scurrilousness of what BuzzFeed has done here is so beyond the bounds of what is even remotely acceptable it should compel even those most outraged by Trump’s political excesses to come to his defense and to the defense of a few other people mentioned in these papers whose names are also dragged through the mud.
There is literally no evidence on offer in these memos or from BuzzFeed that any single sentence in these documents is factual or true. What’s more, we know most major news organizations in America had seen them and despite their well-known institutional antipathy toward Trump, had chosen not to publish them or even make reference to them after efforts to substantiate their charges had failed.
BuzzFeed tells us that “the document was prepared for political opponents of Trump by a person who is understood to be a former British intelligence agent.” Indeed, the memos are designed to read as though they were cables sent from the field to the home office. And they should set off the bull detector of every rational person who reads them.
I’ve been a newspaper and magazine editor for 31 years, and like many in my profession, have had occasion over the course of four decades to work with people linked to intelligence agencies both domestic and foreign when they are retailing stories injurious to one or another politician or cause.
In my experience, there is no source of whom you need to be more skeptical, and whose information you need to verify to the letter before you can even begin to think of publishing it, than an “intelligence” source.
Source (http://nypost.com/2017/01/10/buzzfeeds-trump-report-takes-fake-news-to-a-new-level/)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPaA4V-2cVo
The BuzzFeed report comes up in a Trump Presser.
tom kelly
01-13-2017, 17:07
Buzzfeed and CNN are going down that EXPENSIVE & False path of reporting lies as facts. Operation Tailwind & The Fake "Valley of Death Story with April Oliver, Jack Smith Peter Arnett, Ted Turner, Tom Johnson, and Rick Kaplan led to a lawsuit that has cost CNN money and loss of its journalistic reputation for reporting the story of the events surrounding Operation Tailwind as factual truth and not the outright lies portrayed in The CNN-Time-Warner "Valley of Death"
Tom Kelly
Badger52
01-13-2017, 20:24
I wonder if a sitting President can sue a media organization and his own CIA simultaneously?
:cool:
Here is some news for CNN to digest...
..and since these hacks like to use polls, then why not, I'll play their silly game.
A Rasmussen poll released last week shows that CNN is the least trustworthy of the major news outlets...
"news you can trust"
Among cable news network viewers who watch Fox News most often, 50% say they trust the political news they are getting. That compares to 43% of MSNBC viewers and just 33% who tune in mostly to CNN.
How's that for polling data CNN ?
CNN is only moderately less fantastic than supermarket tabloids and are probably the cable news equivalent of weekly world news
News outlets stopped practicing journalism shortly after the birth of the 24 hour news cycle. Greedy producers had to compete with the other 24 hour news networks just to stay relevant; as a result, we have been fucked over by low speed ford bronco car chases, a never-ending series of updates on the fucking Menendez brothers, constant new updates to let us know when the first lady gets her fucking hair cut, breaking news reports of Mel Gibsons antisemitic diatribes during a traffic stop, and anything else that they can dig up to fill some air time.
I'd rather just watch 'All in the Family' reruns so I can listen to Archie call his hippy son-in-law a meathead
...fuck CNN - all they do is irritate my hemorrhoids and I'm at an age where i just don't need the discomfort anymore
News outlets stopped practicing journalism shortly after the birth of the 24 hour news cycle.
On a large scale, yes. But, it actually started when women got in the game in local news in the early '70s. I was there and saw it. They brought emotions into the newsroom. Imagine a woman reporter working the same "beat" as Ernie Pyle in WW2.
Pat
miclo18d
01-14-2017, 06:55
It wasn't just emotions, but the dangers to the news team too!
AngelsSix
01-14-2017, 20:01
:rolleyes:
On a large scale, yes. But, it actually started when women got in the game in local news in the early '70s. I was there and saw it. They brought emotions into the newsroom. Imagine a woman reporter working the same "beat" as Ernie Pyle in WW2.
Pat
This is the first time I've heard something like this. Definitely interesting perspective.
Trapper John
01-16-2017, 12:04
On a large scale, yes. But, it actually started when women got in the game in local news in the early '70s. I was there and saw it. They brought emotions into the newsroom. Imagine a woman reporter working the same "beat" as Ernie Pyle in WW2.
Pat
And with that this whole thread is circling the event horizon :D
D9 (RIP)
01-16-2017, 12:23
On a large scale, yes. But, it actually started when women got in the game in local news in the early '70s. I was there and saw it. They brought emotions into the newsroom. Imagine a woman reporter working the same "beat" as Ernie Pyle in WW2.
Pat
I dunno about this. You might be confusing correlation with causality. Looking across the news landscape today, there seems to be a pretty even gender distribution among both the good and bad journalists.
I can't imagine ANY journalist from today working Ernie Pyle's beat, man or woman. It's not like Wolf Blitzer is the face of rugged individualism.
Badger52
01-16-2017, 12:37
And with that this whole thread is circling the event horizon :DI've been told I'm dense before, but that pic would be a great modern instrumental surf album cover - thanks!
:D
I dunno about this. You might be confusing correlation with causality. Looking across the news landscape today, there seems to be a pretty even gender distribution among both the good and bad journalists.
No, I was there. My first job after I got out of the Army, in 1970, was at Ch. 11, Tucson. News was a money loser back then and even the network news shows were only 15 minutes long with the local stations filling in another 15 minutes. We used film back then and it was not only expensive to buy and process, but required a deadline hours before the broadcast to allow for processing and editing.
About this time the FCC began requiring that local stations to provide X number of hours of news. (I don’t remember if that was per-day or per-week.) Coincidental to this time Electronic News Gathering was becoming possible as cameras became smaller and video tape machines more portable. ENG allowed for shorter deadlines and live coverage. Now the stations saw that they may actually make money on the news side of the business.
Women had been weather-girls for some time and, when I moved over to channel 4, a few were doing late night (10pm) 15 minute roundup newscasts. Many of the males news people had been in the military, no women had. At Ch. 11, we had one anchor that had been a Tucson police officer. My last CO in the Army was hired by Ch. 13.
One of Ch. 13’s women went to a San Diego then mysteriously returned to Tucson and was hired by my station as the Assistant News Director for some reason. We never had one before. Her hiring coincided with Barbara Walters’ “historic” hiring by ABC as the first woman co-anchor on a national newscast. (BTW, I was in the production department, not the news department, but we were in charge of broadcasting their product.)
Following this, the stations started hiring more young women as reporters and the stories covered and the way they were covered began to change. One that comes to mind, and probably when I first noticed the changes, was a story that reoccurred regularly: rent increases. Every time taxes were raised or utility cost went up the landlords had to raise rent to cover their overhead. And that’s the way it was usually covered, as a fiscal story. Under the direction of the new Assistant News Director (who Roughneck 91, on here, ran against for Congress a few years back) the woman reporter was sent into South Tucson and found a couple of run-down rentals who’s tenants had had their rents raised. Suddenly landlords became “slumlords”. There was no mention of the fact that many, if not most, of the inhabitants of South Tucson at that time were not ones who took care of their rented cribs.
I left television and moved to Los Angeles about this time.
Pat
D9 (RIP)
01-16-2017, 16:10
No, I was there.
I'm not doubting the sincerity of your experience.
But allowing women into the newsroom is not the reason we have identity politics, or even an anti-masculine slant, in the news today. You have to look to the influence of the identity politics Leftists who dominate our universities (including schools of journalism), for that. Just my 0.02.
All things being equal, I'm happy there are women in journalism. They're Americans like everyone else and should be able to go and get any job they're qualified for. And I'd rather listen to Martha MacCallum than Piers Morgan any day of the week.
I'm not doubting the sincerity of your experience.
But allowing women into the newsroom is not the reason we have identity politics, or even an anti-masculine slant, in the news today. You have to look to the influence of the identity politics Leftists who dominate our universities (including schools of journalism), for that.
I meant to include that but forgot. The "young women" I mentioned being hired had all come out of college with either film/TV or journalism degrees. None of the guys, at that time, did.
I'd rather listen to Martha MacCallum than Piers Morgan any day of the week.
Agreed! I remember seeing Martha interview Carl Bernstein several years ago. He was slouched in the chair as she introduced him. After her first question, he sat bolt upright and she proceeded to eviscerate him. He clearly was not expecting that from her. :D I'm glad to see that she's got a possible shot at prime-time, now.
Pat
Trapper John
01-16-2017, 19:11
Before I clicked on the link I just knew where it was gonna go! Yep!!! :D:D
This is why I prefer to get my news and weather from the Spanish channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHlropH_ECQ
There was news and weather on that clip😱
There was news and weather on that clip😱
Threw you a curve, did it? ;)
Pat
Trapper John
01-16-2017, 19:23
So before this thread crosses the event horizon :eek: here's a post from American Thinker (posted by one of the QPs in another forum):
January 13, 2017
Why the left hates Trump so intensely
By Thomas Lifson
The intensity of the hatred for a newly elected president faced by Donald Trump is equaled only by the reaction of the Confederacy to the election of Abraham Lincoln. That ended up in civil war, a precedent that one hopes will not be equaled. But there has been a remarkable fury at people who do not shun Trump: boycotts of a company whose shareholder contributed to a PAC supporting Trump, attempts to pressure the president of a historically black college to prevent its marching band from performing at the inaugural, and hateful rhetoric at Hollywood awards ceremonies. With much more to come.
A useful perspective is to regard this as a religious conflict. Cults behave exactly the way the left is behaving when a member leaves the fold. And remember that Donald Trump used to be a member in good standing of the Democrat cultural machine. He even had a show on NBC, a mainstay of the left, in addition to being a generous contributor to many Democrats.
An anonymous poster on Reddit offers an interesting take on the religious nature of the conflict (strong language warning). “NotJaffo” writes:
Why is Hollywood (in particular) freaking out so badly over Trump?
First, because he's a Republican who might actually do the things he said he wanted to do. But second, because this is the first cultural victory the right has scored since Reagan stumbled into one in the '80s.
The left is used to losing political battles. They scream and cry over these but they don't truly panic, because they know that as long as they maintain their hammerlock on the culture, Republicans can't really change anything.
Blue Team Progressivism is a church, offering you moral superiority and a path to spiritual enlightenment. As a church it's got a lot going for it. It runs religious programming on television, all day every day. Every modern primetime program is like a left-wing Andy Griffith show, reinforcing lessons of inclusion, tolerance, feminism, and anti-racism.
Watching a 90-pound Sci-Fi heroine beat up a room full of giant evil men is as satisfying to the left as John Wayne westerns were for the right.
The Blue Church controls the HR department, so even if you don't go to church, you have to act like a loyal churchgoer in every way that matters while you're on the clock. And off the clock, on any kind of public social media platform.
Jon Stewart and John Oliver are basically TV preachers. Watching them gives the same sense of quiet superiority your grandma gets from watching The 700 Club. The messages are constantly reinforced, providing that lovely dopamine hit, like an angel's voice whispering, "You're right, you're better, you're winning."
Hollywood award shows are like church talent shows - the skits and jokes aren't really funny, but it's fun to look at the pretty girls, and you're all on the same team.
The interesting point is that until now:
Red Conservativism is a business, selling a set of political products. They don't make you feel good, they don't appeal to your morality or your spiritual sense of self, but sometimes you really NEED one of their core products like security, jobs, or national defense. Their appeals to "freedom" and "family values" ring hollow these days, but when people are flying planes into buildings, you need a strong member of Conservatism, Inc. in the big chair. And now this unequal match has changed:
For the first time in decades, voters explicitly rejected the Blue Church, defying hours of daily cultural programming, years of indoctrination from the schools, and dozens of explicit warnings from HR.
We've been trained since childhood to obey the pretty people on TV, but for the first time in decades, that didn't work.
Donald Trump won because flyover America wants their culture back, and Blue Team has not been rejected like that before.
The younger ones have grown up in an environment where Blue Faith assumptions cannot even be questioned, except anonymously by the bad kids on Twitter.
But now the bad kids are getting bolder, posting funny memes that make you laugh even though John Oliver would not approve, like passing crude dirty pictures under the table in Sunday School.
Meryl Streep is panicking because for the first time voters have rejected HER, and everything her faith has taught her to believe.
Donald Trump is not peddling a religion, but he is peddling a counterculture that challenges the “Blue Faith,” as NotJaffo aptly labels it. And that is the basis of panic.
And that's what Meryl Streep is really scared of. She's not truly aware of it, just like fluttering housewives couldn't really understand the counterculture threat in 1968. But they feel that something is changing in their safe little world, and they know they have to fight it, because this threat isn't just passing pointless budget resolutions and selling pointless platitudes about family values - these guys mean business, and they're fighting on her turf.
The global warming religion has already folded itself into the Trump hater cult. The question facing us now is how to deprogram cult members.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/01/why_the_left_hates_trump_so_intensely.html#ixzz4Vx Dx8Y5M
Best explanation of the cultural seismic event we are witnessing IMO. :lifter
I would rather make my point with her than Barbra Walters.
Remember, Walters was this chick 40+ years ago, with a little speech impediment tossed in. Wait, Brokaw had a speech impediment, too. NBC must have been into that sort of thing. ;) (Walters went from NBC to ABC. Harry Reasoner hated her.)
Pat
sfshooter
01-16-2017, 21:06
So before this thread crosses the event horizon :eek: here's a post from American Thinker (posted by one of the QPs in another forum):
A useful perspective is to regard this as a religious conflict.
Best explanation of the cultural seismic event we are witnessing IMO. :lifter
I heard something similar the other day in regards to how people can believe in the fake news: Leftism, liberalism, socialism is a religious belief (whether they think so or not). With religion only faith matters. Therefore the facts of real stories don't make any difference if the belief is different. Truth doesn't count if you have faith.
That's how all this is propagated. "CNN said that and that's what we have faith in so it must be true"
The revival continues...............
No, I was there.
Pat
Your posts in this thread have been very informative Pat, thank you for taking the time to hammer out your replies.
I am curious to know how the profitability model for news was born and evolved into what it is today. Is the only selling point ad revenue?
Trapper John
01-17-2017, 09:17
So here's a very good example of Fake News, i.e. Propaganda posing as news that appeared on the Front Page of the Philadelphia Inquirer this morning:
Get ready for ‘jarring’ shift at top
The styles of Obama, Trump are opposites.
By Jonathan Tamari WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON — Last week, President Obama gave a farewell address ringing with calls to optimism, reason, and civic engagement.
The next day, President-elect Donald Trump held a raucous news conference, berating perceived enemies in the media before launching into a Twitter-fueled battle with civil rights icon John Lewis, days before Martin Luther King’s Birthday.
The contrast in personal style provided a preview of the stark change coming to the Oval Office — and into American lives — after Trump’s inauguration Friday.
“This is a very jarring switch we’re about to go through,” said Julian Zelizer, apolitical historian at Princeton University.
As much as any policy change, the shift in tone from Obama to Trump could be just as impactful and shape the country’s dialogue and mood for the next four years, scholars say.
“It’s not only their personalities — it’s in many ways what they represent,” Zelizer said.
Many presidents’ most resonant images come not from bill signings but from indelible moments created by a confluence of history and their personal presence.
Their temperaments are often tested, and shown most clearly, amid national crisis or tragedy, or historic moments that few could foresee during an election. At these unpredictable times, their personalities guide the country and set the tone for a path forward.
“A president becomes consequential and his temperament becomes even more important at moments of great turmoil,” said the renowned presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
When President Obama went to a black church after the Charleston, S.C., mass shooting and sang “Amazing Grace,” he created a moment unique to his place in history.
When a Supreme Court ruling legalized same-sex marriage, Obama amplified the resonance by bathing the White House in rainbow-colored lights. Joyful crowds marked the moment there deep into the night.
Former President George W. Bush used his bravado to rally the country after 9/11, grabbing a bullhorn to give a rousing exhortation at ground zero. A former Major League Baseball owner, he defiantly took the mound in front of roaring New Yorkers weeks later to throw out the first pitch of a World Series game.
“The president is asked to be a policy leader and a symbolic leader,” said Matthew Kerbel, chair of Villanova’s political science department.
How might Trump, who has thrived on combat, handle a time that calls for unity?.........
Clearly this should be in the Op/Ed section, but no it got front page positioning above the fold!
This is what we are fighting boys and girls. :mad:
I am curious to know how the profitability model for news was born and evolved into what it is today. Is the only selling point ad revenue?
I have no idea. If I had to guess, it was probably that people were becoming increasingly mesmerized by the tube. In my younger days I remember the family having movie nights and on weekends my parents had friends over to play cards. There was church on Sundays and most men were members of a fraternal organization of some sort during the week.
As television programming increased it cost more for the networks to pay the production costs so they probably saw the simple and increasingly cheaper daytime soaps and newscasts as a way to recoup some of the lost costs. People the newscasts with appealing and even entertaining hosts, similar to the soaps, and you will capture an audience.
Just a guess, though. I stayed far away from that side of the business and moved on to the movie business as soon as I could, which was even worse. ;)
Pat
Badger52
01-17-2017, 12:45
I have no idea. If I had to guess, it was probably that people were becoming increasingly mesmerized by the tube. In my younger days I remember the family having movie nights and on weekends my parents had friends over to play cards. There was church on Sundays and most men were members of a fraternal organization of some sort during the week.
Same here; Cooper's "different country." I don't even recall anything like the major sporting events having the current level of influence. Baseball games were listened to on the radio & my folks stood in the kitchen listening to the radio when Clay knocked out Liston. I can't imagine that revenue mattered that much at the time because I can distinctly remember ABC TV covering the 24 Hours of Le Mans - for 24 hours. (Mom swore I dozed off for a bit but I dispute that.) And that cannot have been a cheap thing to produce.
Trapper John
01-17-2017, 13:35
Same here; Cooper's "different country." I don't even recall anything like the major sporting events having the current level of influence. Baseball games were listened to on the radio & my folks stood in the kitchen listening to the radio when Clay knocked out Liston. I can't imagine that revenue mattered that much at the time because I can distinctly remember ABC TV covering the 24 Hours of Le Mans - for 24 hours. (Mom swore I dozed off for a bit but I dispute that.) And that cannot have been a cheap thing to produce.
Yup!! I told yous guys that we started going downhill when the Cowboys came out in white shoes, in a dome, with astroturf, and cheerleaders and a QB called "Dandy Don".
Haven't recovered since! :D
tom kelly
01-17-2017, 15:20
CNN former reporters April Oliver,Jack Smith & Pam Hill were fired &Peter Arnett the producer was forced to resign. CNN & Time Warner were sued for this fabrication & were forced to settle the case and give a full retraction on the "Valley of Death" Operation Tailwind story of a U S Army Special Forces mission in Laos in September 1970 accusing U S SF of using Sarin Nerve Gas.
My 12 year old could write a more interesting story. She would probably even include a few facts, maybe a reference or two.
Aides are clearing the way for President-elect Donald Trump to take the first steps toward transforming the immigration system as soon as he takes office Friday, fulfilling a major campaign pledge while deepening the fears of immigration advocates about what’s to come.
So you think this is the first thing he's going to do? Not check out the new digs, hang his clothes or organize his sock drawer?
Gone will be the temporary protections of the final Obama years for people in the country illegally. In their place, say immigration advocates and people familiar with his plans, expect to see images on the evening news of workplace raids as Trump sends a message that he is wasting no time on his promised crackdown.
In addition to the high-profile raids, those people said in interviews, Trump will also widen the range of people singled out for deportation, focusing on those with criminal convictions, and he could move immediately to reduce the number of refugees allowed into the U.S.
He may also limit who can come into the country as a security measure, making good on a sweeping vow to stop immigrants “from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism.”
So people who are not named have deep and intimate knowledge of not only Trumps plans for Friday, but his immigration plans as well.
What a moron, and what a horrible start to a story full of conjecture and hyperbole.
Here (http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pol-trump-immigration-actions-20170119-story.html) is the rest of this fine example of modern journalism.
CNN takes an innocent tweet by Nancy Sinatra and turns it into an anti Trump tweet. Nancy sees it and slams CNN.
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/01/20/nancy-sinatra-congrats-trump-slams-cnn-lie-cnn/
Counterfeit News Network. And you are surprised why? :confused:
I showed one of my libtard friends that his post saying sanatra was upset was fake. No "thanks and I will correct it" but just erased the post and all their friends comments as they dog piled the post. I just can not fathom why they have closed minds while demanding that every one else has to change. All I can think and visualize is a rainbow Gestapo libtard as I read what they write. They love to rant and rave on the internet but when standing in front of me they agree with most of my points.....
Badger52
01-28-2017, 16:30
Got a kick out of this one (http://michaelpramirez.com/press-alert.html).
Nice job Mr. Ramirez.