Fake news?

[Hand]

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

[MR2]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPaA4V-2cVo

The BuzzFeed report comes up in a Trump Presser.

[tom kelly]

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]

I wonder if a sitting President can sue a media organization and his own CIA simultaneously?

[Box]

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

[PSM]

Originally Posted by Billy L-bach

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]

It wasn't just emotions, but the dangers to the news team too!

[AngelsSix]

[Hand]

Originally Posted by PSM

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]

Originally Posted by PSM

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

[D9 (RIP)]

Originally Posted by PSM

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]

Originally Posted by Trapper John

And with that this whole thread is circling the event horizon

I've been told I'm dense before, but that pic would be a great modern instrumental surf album cover - thanks!

[PSM]

Originally Posted by D9

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)]

Originally Posted by PSM

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.

[PSM]

Originally Posted by D9

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. I'm glad to see that she's got a possible shot at prime-time, now.

Pat