Media Criticism Thread

[SouprMatt]

Welcome to the paradox of right-wing populism. You either interfere with the firehose of lies or you let all the bullshit flooding through. You get blamed in either case. The true solution is for the majority of people having an ability to read and posessing moral consistency. 😂🤣

Yet again, media had already addressed your criticism exactly the way you requested.

Yep, instead of just reporting the truth and going with the scientists’ and doctors’ recommendations, they gave airtime to crazy conspiracies.

Right-wing nuts took “we don’t have a perfect answer because COVID-19 is a novel virus” as “FAUCI LIED” when he didn’t accurately predict everything about the way the virus would spread and affect humans.

And the media treated it like a both-sides issue. I am truly astonished by the ignorance of the younger generation as evidenced above. Do they really believe this? Can they not read? I got used to right-wing senior citizens intentionally hunkering down in a bubble of ignorance. But what is the excuse of the younger generation? Did TikTok rob them of their brains? Zero critical thinking ability, zero knowledge about the scientific method, they don’t even seem to realize that time only moves in one direction. It’s becoming a lot more clear to me now why Trump increased his share of votes among the young. Just plain sad.

 

[SouprMatt]

Lab leak: no, the issue is people were handling the lab leak hypothesis as a fact because it fueled confirmation biases and then schmucks like Rand Paul and Gym Jordan were weaponizing these. It's all fun and games until people start dying en masse. My favorite part was when the same bioweapon/lab leak proponents concurrently went against military vaccine mandates😀 You can't have it both ways.

The geniuses who started spouting the “lab leak” hypothesis, were previously the first ones to say “We got this virus because Chinese people eat bats”. They just went with the most racist story possible. When the idea of transfer from animal to human wasn’t racist enough, they went with the Chinese bioweapon story. At no point did they do even 1 second of caring what the most likely explanation was.

And best of all, none of this was in the context of perhaps finding a vaccine more quickly. They didn’t care about that at all apparently. The worst of society on display, and instead of tamping it down, we had a President who fanned the flames. But I guess the younger generation missed all of that.

Trump hadn’t gotten around to replacing all the scientists and doctors when the pandemic hit, so at least we survived it by doing our best and listening to doctors giving the best advice they could. If this happens again after an RFK Jr. purge of the CDC? God help us…

Not to mention all these geniuses railed against the government, while their false messiah was PRESIDENT! But somehow no failures were his fault. The wall not getting finished wasn’t his fault. The COVID lockdown wasn’t his fault. Jan 6 was Nancy Pelosi’s fault.

In conclusion, the LAB LEAK nonsense was never censored by anybody. If it was, why did I have to read about it almost every day? And why would you want a news organization to run MORE stories on a highly unlikely hypothesis that had basically no effect on how we would treat the pandemic? So enough about censorship. It’s a load of crap, it literally did NOT happen. When one’s pet conspiracy theory doesn’t get as much news coverage as they want, that isn’t censorship. It’s just good reporting.

 

[P___X]

Yep, instead of just reporting the truth and going with the scientists’ and doctors’ recommendations, they gave airtime to crazy conspiracies.

Right-wing nuts took “we don’t have a perfect answer because COVID-19 is a novel virus” as “FAUCI LIED” when he didn’t accurately predict everything about the way the virus would spread and affect humans.

And the media treated it like a both-sides issue. I am truly astonished by the ignorance of the younger generation as evidenced above. Do they really believe this? Can they not read? I got used to right-wing senior citizens intentionally hunkering down in a bubble of ignorance. But what is the excuse of the younger generation? Did TikTok rob them of their brains? Zero critical thinking ability, zero knowledge about the scientific method, they don’t even seem to realize that time only moves in one direction. It’s becoming a lot more clear to me now why Trump increased his share of votes among the young. Just plain sad.

At this point the recipe is very very simple. Rightwing populism recognizes and harnesses the most obvious "weakness" of democratic societies. The assumption of basic decency. So in a policy or philosophical discussion, the take a partial truth and counter it with a blatant lie. Since a lot of people, and these days media as well, "exercise" impartiality, by averaging out the takes of each side, now the average shifts far to the right (insane). Boom they have the narrative. And in the era where people can watch assorted propaganda 60 takes/hour, not a single person is able to process the firehose of information with adequate critical thought.

The geniuses who started spouting the “lab leak” hypothesis, were previously the first ones to say “We got this virus because Chinese people eat bats”. They just went with the most racist story possible. When the idea of transfer from animal to human wasn’t racist enough, they went with the Chinese bioweapon story. At no point did they do even 1 second of caring what the most likely explanation was.

I'm so over the lab leak stuff. what sucks about science is it's not designed to deal with this level of political weaponization of partial data. It really hinders the quality of discussion and overall makes us dumber. Just imagine, you came up with some data that may support the lab leak hypothesis, if you cover it the way like we do it usually, the next thing you see is gym jordan shouting it to Fauci like a rabid dog with trismus. BTW, it remains baffling to me what made GJ qualified to have those discussions.

On one hand we have incredible tech that used responsibly will transform the world for the better, on the other we are dealing with a society that self-removed negative feedback loops, a political system that runs on anger. A recipe for civil war.

Ohh, and Project 2025 is obsessed with Fauci.

 

[SouprMatt]

I wanted to clarify what censorship really is. It’s not a news organization prioritizing one story over another. It’s a government suppressing or hiding information from the public. For example:

Trump Administration Censored Information on Water Pollution, Climate Change, and Endangered Species

The Trump administration made approximately 1,400 changes to agency websites that removed science-based information on environmental issues, such as water pollution, climate change, and endangered species.

www.ucsusa.org

Trump Administration Prevented the Publication of Climate Change Research

For three years, the Trump administration delayed an update to the EPA's peer-reviewed report on climate change indicators.

www.ucsusa.org

 

[lizkat]

This is a big deal. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz (its daily publication in Israel, not the weekly in the US) is to Israel the equivalent of the NYT, i.e., the paper of record. It leans left / liberal and has been critical of conduct of the war in Gaza. Netanyahu's government just passed a resolution (without usual run past counsel in the AG;s office) requiring all government-funded entities to cease communication with the paper and to pull all advertising. Essentially, an official boycott. Haaretz reported the decision earlier today.

This is apparently in retribution for arguments with the London editorial group of the paper last month over the wording of an piece in which it was not made clear (per Netanyahu and later by admission of the London editor) that the phrase "Palestinian freedom fighters" is not synonymous with the term "Hamas" or "terrorists." However, some see Bibi's response as using that as justification for now trying to shut down a major outlet for dissent against his current government and him personally.

The paper's response:

Haaretz reacted to the government decision with the following statement: "The opportunist resolution to boycott Haaretz, which passed in today's government meeting without any legal review, is another step in Netanyahu's journey to dismantle Israeli democracy. Like his friends Putin, Erdoğan, and Orbán, Netanyahu is trying to silence a critical, independent newspaper. Haaretz will not balk and will not morph into a government pamphlet that publishes messages approved by the government and its leader."​

Maybe the WaPo and NYT, CNN, etc. should copy that down in case they need to adapt it for their own use sometime in late January 2025.

 

[lizkat]

And then there's Nicaragua... now cementing yet more power to the presidency, well, the co-presidency, and managing also to exert yet more state control over both the church and media outlets. Not to mention getting a legislative rubber stamp to strip "traitors" of their citizenship.

Nicaragua: Ortega and wife to assume absolute power after changes approved

Loyalist lawmakers give green light to constitutional amendment as authoritarian president, 79, tightens grip

www.theguardian.com

We're clearly living through one of those periods where the world is just going mad.

 

[P___X]

This is a big deal. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz (its daily publication in Israel, not the weekly in the US) is to Israel the equivalent of the NYT, i.e., the paper of record. It leans left / liberal and has been critical of conduct of the war in Gaza. Netanyahu's government just passed a resolution (without usual run past counsel in the AG;s office) requiring all government-funded entities to cease communication with the paper and to pull all advertising. Essentially, an official boycott. Haaretz reported the decision earlier today.

This is apparently in retribution for arguments with the London editorial group of the paper last month over the wording of an piece in which it was not made clear (per Netanyahu and later by admission of the London editor) that the phrase "Palestinian freedom fighters" is not synonymous with the term "Hamas" or "terrorists." However, some see Bibi's response as using that as justification for now trying to shut down a major outlet for dissent against his current government and him personally.

The paper's response:

Haaretz reacted to the government decision with the following statement: "The opportunist resolution to boycott Haaretz, which passed in today's government meeting without any legal review, is another step in Netanyahu's journey to dismantle Israeli democracy. Like his friends Putin, Erdoğan, and Orbán, Netanyahu is trying to silence a critical, independent newspaper. Haaretz will not balk and will not morph into a government pamphlet that publishes messages approved by the government and its leader."​

Maybe the WaPo and NYT, CNN, etc. should copy that down in case they need to adapt it for their own use sometime in late January 2025.

interesting on the Haaretz, to me, that journal very often read as highly nationalistic/right leaning, so it being attacked is quite the surprise.
Also, they'll cave. They go into these fights with such bravado and in 1-2 years they'll just have a hostile takeover of the board of editors, and within the next 5 years it will turn into a RW propaganda outlet.

 

[lizkat]

interesting on the Haaretz, to me, that journal very often read as highly nationalistic/right leaning, so it being attacked is quite the surprise.
Also, they'll cave. They go into these fights with such bravado and in 1-2 years they'll just have a hostile takeover of the board of editors, and within the next 5 years it will turn into a RW propaganda outlet.

Bibi's self-serving abuse of power and attacks on aspects of Israel's democracy are basically what has driven Haaretz "to the left" over the years.

 

[SouprMatt]

This is a big deal. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz (its daily publication in Israel, not the weekly in the US) is to Israel the equivalent of the NYT, i.e., the paper of record. It leans left / liberal and has been critical of conduct of the war in Gaza. Netanyahu's government just passed a resolution (without usual run past counsel in the AG;s office) requiring all government-funded entities to cease communication with the paper and to pull all advertising. Essentially, an official boycott. Haaretz reported the decision earlier today.

This is apparently in retribution for arguments with the London editorial group of the paper last month over the wording of an piece in which it was not made clear (per Netanyahu and later by admission of the London editor) that the phrase "Palestinian freedom fighters" is not synonymous with the term "Hamas" or "terrorists." However, some see Bibi's response as using that as justification for now trying to shut down a major outlet for dissent against his current government and him personally.

The paper's response:

Haaretz reacted to the government decision with the following statement: "The opportunist resolution to boycott Haaretz, which passed in today's government meeting without any legal review, is another step in Netanyahu's journey to dismantle Israeli democracy. Like his friends Putin, Erdoğan, and Orbán, Netanyahu is trying to silence a critical, independent newspaper. Haaretz will not balk and will not morph into a government pamphlet that publishes messages approved by the government and its leader."​

Maybe the WaPo and NYT, CNN, etc. should copy that down in case they need to adapt it for their own use sometime in late January 2025.

Fascism is an international movement that is sadly growing. I guess climate change wasn't going to wipe out our species fast enough, so we're finding more efficient ways to do it.

 

[Thomas Veil]

Hoo boy. 🙁 Who didn’t see this coming?

Elon Musk has called MSNBC “the utter scum of the Earth.” He has said the channel “peddles puerile propaganda.” Just a few days ago he said, “MSNBC is going down.” And now he is posting memes about buying the channel.

…Musk’s posts are adding to the anxiety that MSNBC staffers are feeling about the reelection of Donald Trump and the recently announced spinoff of Comcast’s cable channels.

Elon Musk floats buying MSNBC, but he’s not the only billionaire who may be interested

But contrary to claims that Trump’s allies are posting on X, Comcast has not put a “for sale” sign on MSNBC’s door. If Comcast chief Brian Roberts really wanted to sell the liberal cable news channel, he could have done that already. Instead, he is moving MSNBC and a half dozen other cable channels into “SpinCo,” a pure-play cable programming company.

The hope is that spinning off the pressured-but-profitable channels will boost shares of both Comcast and “SpinCo.”

Well, let’s hope that’s all it is.

We all know how Elon loves to troll. But…you never know.

 

[Thomas Veil]

Okay, additional thoughts…since I hit the reply button accidentally before I had finished my previous post…

• To begin with the most superficial, Elon is massively projecting when he calls anything else the scum of the earth and says someone else is peddling puerile propaganda.
• This kind of thing (Musk or any other right wing fanatic buying MSNBC) is what I feared.
• Yes, they say they have absolutely “no plans” to sell off MSNBC, but how many times have you heard things like that before?
• When I heard Keith Olbermann talking about the new spinoff company being named SpinCo, I thought he was just being sarcastic. Apparently not.
• Left unspoken in the article is that if a “savvy businessman” were to peel off MSNBC from the rest of SpinCo, MSNBC would no longer be part of a package, it would be a separate channel. Cable carriers rarely buy single channels. They usually buy packages.
• Assuming cable carriers would even want to buy a single channel like MSNBC, Muskrat could run the channel into the ground the way he’s doing with Twitter. He could, for example, demand such a high carriage fee that cable companies are simply not interested anymore.
• Alternatively, he could simply choose to shut it down and take the loss. It’s not like he’s not rich enough to do that.
• Or, of course, he could turn it into another propaganda channel. Not that we need another right wing channel, because at some point they start cannibalizing each other, splitting their audience too thin…but who knows if they’ll think of that?

 

[lizkat]

Okay, additional thoughts…since I hit the reply button accidentally before I had finished my previous post…

• To begin with the most superficial, Elon is massively projecting when he calls anything else the scum of the earth and says someone else is peddling puerile propaganda.
• This kind of thing (Musk or any other right wing fanatic buying MSNBC) is what I feared.
• Yes, they say they have absolutely “no plans” to sell off MSNBC, but how many times have you heard things like that before?
• When I heard Keith Olbermann talking about the new spinoff company being named SpinCo, I thought he was just being sarcastic. Apparently not.
• Left unspoken in the article is that if a “savvy businessman” were to peel off MSNBC from the rest of SpinCo, MSNBC would no longer be part of a package, it would be a separate channel. Cable carriers rarely buy single channels. They usually buy packages.
• Assuming cable carriers would even want to buy a single channel like MSNBC, Muskrat could run the channel into the ground the way he’s doing with Twitter. He could, for example, demand such a high carriage fee that cable companies are simply not interested anymore.
• Alternatively, he could simply choose to shut it down and take the loss. It’s not like he’s not rich enough to do that.
• Or, of course, he could turn it into another RT. Not that we need another right wing channel, because at some point they start cannibalizing each other, splitting their audience too thin…but who knows if they’ll think of that?

SpinCo is a fairly common term for a proposed spinoff... whether in this case it's mean to become the actual spun off company, who knows. Anything is possible. But yeah, MSNBC is vulnerable in the sense it's out there with a well known lean, equivalent to and opposite to Fox News but without any of the muscle behind it that the Murdoch outlet has.

So if someone wishing to suppress "the mouth" on MSNBC and having the money to buy it shows up, that entity can be flipped to all-new management (and of course cheaper staff) with new marching orders as to political lean of hosts and guests. It could be bought by a private equity company that now manages "pink slime" newspapers all over news deserts in the USA, giving the papers something to feature that points to video versions of the same crap they're pitching in newsprint at convenience stores, maybe hooking the new "channel" up to X and hoping to draw in more viewers that way. Could get ugly.

 

[P___X]

Okay, additional thoughts…since I hit the reply button accidentally before I had finished my previous post…

• To begin with the most superficial, Elon is massively projecting when he calls anything else the scum of the earth and says someone else is peddling puerile propaganda.
• This kind of thing (Musk or any other right wing fanatic buying MSNBC) is what I feared.
• Yes, they say they have absolutely “no plans” to sell off MSNBC, but how many times have you heard things like that before?
• When I heard Keith Olbermann talking about the new spinoff company being named SpinCo, I thought he was just being sarcastic. Apparently not.
• Left unspoken in the article is that if a “savvy businessman” were to peel off MSNBC from the rest of SpinCo, MSNBC would no longer be part of a package, it would be a separate channel. Cable carriers rarely buy single channels. They usually buy packages.
• Assuming cable carriers would even want to buy a single channel like MSNBC, Muskrat could run the channel into the ground the way he’s doing with Twitter. He could, for example, demand such a high carriage fee that cable companies are simply not interested anymore.
• Alternatively, he could simply choose to shut it down and take the loss. It’s not like he’s not rich enough to do that.
• Or, of course, he could turn it into another propaganda channel. Not that we need another right wing channel, because at some point they start cannibalizing each other, splitting their audience too thin…but who knows if they’ll think of that?

Dozens resign at Hungary's main news site after editor fired

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Dozens of journalists, including top editors, resigned Friday from Hungary’s main news site because of the firing earlier this week of Index.hu’s editor-in-chief.

apnews.com

I can tell you, the aftermath is that there are people who start eating the propaganda running under the same logo. so acquisitions like this work.

 

[SouprMatt]

Dozens resign at Hungary's main news site after editor fired

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Dozens of journalists, including top editors, resigned Friday from Hungary’s main news site because of the firing earlier this week of Index.hu’s editor-in-chief.

apnews.com

I can tell you, the aftermath is that there are people who start eating the propaganda running under the same logo. so acquisitions like this work.

Which is why liberal billionaires should do a hostile takeover of Fox and switch it to a liberal network

 

[lizkat]

Which is why liberal billionaires should do a hostile takeover of Fox and switch it to a liberal network

Hope there are still some of those left by time the old man kicks off and leaves the "Succession" crowd to squabble over which way to lean if they're not all thrilled at how Lachlan runs things. Driving wedges among family members owning media empires was Murdoch's way with at least the WSJ... ironic to have it turn back on him after he passes. Of course Rupert and Lachlan might have tied the knots pretty tight for the latter re Fox, who knows.

Paper Chase (Published 2010)

A former Journal reporter’s definitive, even cinematic, account of Rupert Murdoch’s conquest and occupation of the paper.

www.nytimes.com

 

[P___X]

Which is why liberal billionaires should do a hostile takeover of Fox and switch it to a liberal network

I’d be happy to crowd fund that. Imagine if we had democratized media.

 

[SouprMatt]

I’d be happy to crowd fund that. Imagine if we had democratized media.

Like, people could just donate money? And there would be no commercials? Cool, maybe we could give them tote bags or coffee mugs when they make a donation! 😉

I’m just now realizing that the Fediverse could be the public television of social media. Imagine if every local public radio and TV station also ran an ActivityPub instance…

 

[SouprMatt]

Hope there are still some of those left by time the old man kicks off and leaves the "Succession" crowd to squabble over which way to lean if they're not all thrilled at how Lachlan runs things. Driving wedges among family members owning media empires was Murdoch's way with at least the WSJ... ironic to have it turn back on him after he passes. Of course Rupert and Lachlan might have tied the knots pretty tight for the latter re Fox, who knows.

Paper Chase (Published 2010)

A former Journal reporter’s definitive, even cinematic, account of Rupert Murdoch’s conquest and occupation of the paper.

www.nytimes.com

Speaking of Murdoch:

A voting machine firm suing Fox News now wants to probe Murdoch family trust fight

Lawyers for a voting machine company that's suing Fox News want to question Rupert Murdoch about his contentious efforts to change his family trust.

apnews.com

 

[lizkat]

Why newspapers need editors who are not on autopilot

​

 

[Thomas Veil]

I’m seeing more and more articles that tease you with an interesting headline, then do everything they can to avoid telling you that which they teased—the point of the article.

Here’s an example. The headline?

Miami Dolphins predicted to sign former first round QB as Tua Tagovailoa insurance

When you start reading the story, as I did, you find that you don’t get to the pertinent information—the name of the proposed backup QB—until one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven paragraphs in. 🤨 Everything preceding that paragraph is background info to set up the eventual “payoff”, the name of the quarterback.

Note, too, that that eleventh paragraph is the second to last one in the story.

This of course is the reversal of standard journalism, where you reveal the substance of the story in the first paragraph—or the second if a little setup is necessary. Everything else that follows in succeeding paragraphs is elaboration on the topic.

The purpose of this backwards reporting, naturally, is to keep you on the page longer, thus inflating its statistics for engagement and, oh yeah, making sure you have to scroll past more ads.

The article in question is from The Sporting News, but I’m also seeing this practice on second tier political news sites as well.

See for yourself.

Miami Dolphins predicted to sign former first round QB as Tua Tagovailoa insurance | Sporting News

The Dolphins inked their starting QB to a massive extension this offseason, but they may bring in a former NFL starter in case Tua Tagovailoa can’t stay healthy.

www.sportingnews.com