Tag: Journalistic Garbage

Closing Thought–26May17

Then There Is All That “Fake News”!

And boy you want some fake news then I suggest you visit some random Right wing blog….does not matter which one they all have the same posts about the same subject…the topic du jour, if you will.

This past election has seen its share of “fake news”……no it was not invented for the 2016 election….it has been around in force since the Clinton years…..probably longer….in fact it has been around for about 100 years.

Think fake news is a new phenomenon? Think again. Dr David Clarke from Sheffield Hallam University looks at a 100-year-old story that fooled the world.

Fake news, false stories that masquerade as real news are not new.

In the spring of 1917 some of Britain’s most influential newspapers published a gruesome story that has been called “the master hoax” – and I think we finally have proof about where it came from.

Britain was at the time trying to bring China into the war on the Allied side.

Source: The corpse factory and the birth of fake news – BBC News

Like so many disgusting things “fake news” was born in the heat of war.

See what you think is new is really a recycled product from an age gone by….

And so begins my Memorial Day weekend….me and my better half will spend some time doing things that adults do (use your imagination…wink….wink).

Enjoy your days with family, food and some fun….chuq

A Step Closer To Trump TV

Recently the Trump adviser Bannon has chastised the media for their constant scrutiny….

White House strategist Steve Bannon granted the New York Times an interview this week, and the main topic appears to have been how much he hates the New York Times and the rest of the news media. “The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while,” the former Breitbart chair said. “I want you to quote this. The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.” He said the media had gotten the election “dead wrong,” making it a “humiliating defeat that they will never wash away, that will always be there.”

Bannon—who jokingly referred to himself as Darth Vader—described unspecified editors and reporters as “outright activists of the Clinton campaign,” telling the Times: “That’s why you have no power. You were humiliated.” He staunchly defended new White House press secretary Sean Spicer, saying it was a “badge of honor” to have the media question his integrity. “The media has zero integrity, zero intelligence, and no hard work,” Bannon said. At CNN, Jake Tapper’s response to Bannon’s request to shut up was a simple “No,” while the ACLU tweeted that it will see the Trump administration in court if it tries to shut the media up. Erik Wemple at the Washington Post wrote that since Bannon “helmed a campaign heavy on deceit, division, and cynicism, we don’t want any praise from his likes.”

A few months ago I wrote a couple of posts about the possibility of a Trump News Network……

Source: “Trump News Network” – In Saner Thought

And few days later I wrote yet another along the same lines……

Source: Trump’s News Network Or Reality Show? – In Saner Thought

Since I wrote those posts another incident has occurred….this time it is the VOA that made the news…..

But it’s not the money that VOA gets that is worth noting; it’s the changes in its mandate. What used to be a propaganda machine directed externally is now going to be turned inward on the homeland. Is this what Trump meant by “American First. Always America First”? You see, the new VOA is going to be allowed to operate in the United States and it is no longer going to be run by an independent board of governors. It will be headed by a CEO appointed by the president. Yes, it’s Donald Trump’s personal broadcasting network, just like he wanted during the campaign, but paid for by you and me—we who can’t afford PBS and NPR at half the cost. But what propaganda could the VOA broadcast to people who already believe in freedom?

About now the reader is thinking that I have gone off the deep end or something….let me explain what the VOA has to do with is situation….Voice of America (VOA) no longer is controlled by a non-partisan board but rather a CEO appointed by the president…that means Trump holds the keys to what is reported on VOA…in essence he has his News Network at his disposal.

The news will soon reflect the personal characteristics of the man himself….

  • Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
  • Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
  • Exaggerating your achievements and talents
  • Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate
  • Believing that you are superior and can only be understood by or associate with equally special people
  • Requiring constant admiration
  • Having a sense of entitlement
  • Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations
  • Taking advantage of others to get what you want
  • Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
  • Being envious of others and believing others envy you
  • Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner

That’s right…..Trump now has control over a media outlet…..how will it be used?

The War Against Alternative Information

I recently wrote a piece about the establishment of the US “Ministry of Truth”…..something that the government wants to add to an existing bill so they can decide what is “truth” and what is “fake”…..

Does anyone recall the “Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda”?

Do not hurt yourself diving for Google…..it is the title that Hitler bestowed on Joseph Geobbels…..there was a governmental agency that had a lock on the “Truth”….why do I bring this up?

I am so glad that you asked that one important question.

Source: The Birth Of The “Ministry Of Truth” – In Saner Thought

Since I wrote that op-ed back in the closing days of 2016….others have started commenting on this new “Ministry of Truth”……

The U.S. establishment is not content simply to have domination over the media narratives on critical foreign policy issues, such as Syria, Ukraine and Russia. It wants total domination. Thus we now have the “Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act” that President Obama signed into law on Dec. 23 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2017, setting aside $160 million to combat any “propaganda” that challenges Official Washington’s version of reality.

The new law mandates the U.S. Secretary of State to collaborate with the Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence and other federal agencies to create a Global Engagement Center “to lead, synchronize, and coordinate efforts of the Federal Government to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United States national security interests.” The law directs the Center to be formed in 180 days and to share expertise among agencies and to “coordinate with allied nations.”

Source: The War Against Alternative Information – Consortiumnews

Very soon the government will decide what news you are going to see and hear….not exactly what a free press means to me….how about you?

Feed the fear of the ignorant and you control the game….chuq–09Jan17

Stop The Presses!

This is a piece that I wrote for Ace News room about the possibility of a new “state run” media operation.

I am not saying that this is an eventuality….only that there is a possible way to start up such an institution.

When Donald Trump began his run up to the general election I was one of those that thought he was doing nothing more than expanding his brand….I was deeply mistaken…..

I even wrote a post about his possibility of a new “Trump TV”……

There has been lots of verbiage on the treatment Trump is getting in the media….most of his supporters feel they are being unduly targeted for their support…..I can see where they would be feeling thus……I have some stuff uttered on the news that I do not think needs to be said….that is until there is concrete proof.

Source: Stop The Presses! | Ace News Room

The Days Of “Ad Hominem”

Now there is a term you do not hear often…of course not because people capable of using it are attacked using the very tactic that they try to explain….how’s that?

I wrote about this about 6 years ago to an audience that did not want to acknowledge such a thing existed……if you like read it for yourself and I will expand after reading…..

Source: Argumentum Ad Hominem – In Saner Thought

But that was a bit difficult to follow so I will try to clear up any confusion……

Ad hominem (Latin) means “against the man”. As the name suggests, it is a literary term that involves commenting on or against an opponent to undermine him instead of his arguments.

To put it simply, the considerations regarding the use of ad hominem can explain certain arguments and the motives behind them better. Nevertheless, such considerations are not enough on their own to evaluate an individual’s opinion and are certainly not sufficient to disregard them as false or invalid. The fact is that ad hominem is a kind of fallacy that leaves a great impression on the audience’s mind. It is an argumentative flaw that is hard to spot in our daily life. Although, the personal attack that has been made on the opponent might not even have a speck of truth in it, it somehow makes the audience biased. Ironically, despite being flawed, ad hominem has an amazing power of persuasion.

The worst thing about using ad hominem purposely is that an opponent insults you publicly. Whenever this happens to you, you must recover from the humiliation and then point out the false connection in the argument, which was used a trap for the audience. Moreover, the dilemma with ad hominem is that once it has been used against you it smears your reputation. Once somebody makes such a judgmental argument about you, the audience instead of evaluating it on logical grounds take it to be true.

What made me think about a post from the past of IST was something I read over the holidays……

This article was originally published by Scientific American.

Have you ever noticed that when you present people with facts that are contrary to their deepest held beliefs they always change their minds? Me neither. In fact, people seem to double down on their beliefs in the teeth of overwhelming evidence against them. The reason is related to the worldview perceived to be under threat by the conflicting data

Creationists, for example, dispute the evidence for evolution in fossils and DNA because they are concerned about secular forces encroaching on religious faith. Anti-vaxxers distrust big pharma and think that money corrupts medicine, which leads them to believe that vaccines cause autism despite the inconvenient truth that the one and only study claiming such a link was retracted and its lead author accused of fraud. The 9/11 truthers focus on minutiae like the melting point of steel in the World Trade Center buildings that caused their collapse because they think the government lies and conducts “false flag” operations to create a New World Order. Climate deniers study tree rings, ice cores and the ppm of greenhouse gases because they are passionate about freedom, especially that of markets and industries to operate unencumbered by restrictive government regulations. Obama birthers desperately dissected the president’s long-form birth certificate in search of fraud because they believe that the nation’s first African-American president is a socialist bent on destroying the country.

All too familiar these days of vile and disgusting assaults on others….when one is a dolt (yep that was an attack….see NO one is immune) then attack the person when one has NO argument….

Closing Thought–21Dec16

Stop The Presses!

There has been much written and said about the news and the news institutions…..most Americans do not like or trust their news outlets…..why is that?

This Press is pertaining to the media in the UK but all you have to do is change the UK to US and it would still be accurate….

While most of us don’t trust journalists, many of us are still under the illusion that we have a free and independent press. The truth is we don’t. Here’s five reasons why we should be very sceptical of the information we read in the corporate media and why there is hope for the future.

Source: Five reasons why we don’t have a free and independent press in the UK and what we can do about it | openDemocracy

Sounds all too familiar……huh?

Plus I seem to get a chuckle when I hear the MSM use the term “Freedom of the Press”…..it is all so much smoke and mirrors.

The Curious Debate Over “Fake News”

This is an FYI piece……I do not expect those who “know” the facts to employ any of these suggestions…..but I had to try.

So….One More Time……

There has been lots written about the use of “Fake News”…..some of it not so pretty….and then there are the ever popular diatribes about what is fake and what is real…..

Basically in our society we are at the point where the only “real” news is the news that supports one’s small thoughts…..it is kinda like propaganda….

There are so few that know what a propaganda piece is or is not……I have tried to help my readers discern what is what……several years ago I wrote a couple of posts that pointed out the characteristics of propaganda….

https://lobotero.com/2013/01/11/what-is-propaganda/

https://lobotero.com/2014/01/06/propaganda-2-0/

I bring this up because there is a way to tell what is fake and what is not…..well it works for me and that assumes that the reader wants to know the difference….but I am starting to think that that is a wrong assumption on my part.

Some readers have asked how does one know what is fake and what is not….for those that actually want to know here is the formula…..

  • Crazy claims. We’ve been told for years that the best way to spot a con artist is to remember that if the outcome he promises is too good to be true, it probably is. The same concept is applicable here: If a “news” story is too crazy to be true, it probably is.
  • Incredulous introduction. Watch out for phrases in the top of the story that acknowledge the incredible, unbelievable nature of what’s coming. Examples are “As preposterous as it might appear,” or “Unimaginable as it may seem.”
  • Audacious repetition. Consider this scenario: Your coworker walks into your office with a stunned look on his face and says, “Are you ready for this? Santa Claus is sick!” Your natural response is to roll your eyes and say something like, “Go away, I don’t have time for this.” But then he looks at you with a troubled expression on his face and says, “No, I mean it, Santa’s really sick.” The moment  he says that, he has suddenly captured your attention, and you find yourself asking something like, “What do you mean, Santa Claus is sick?” At that point, without realizing it, you’ve begun the process of buying into the fake story. You’re now asking a question about it, whereas just a moment earlier, you were telling the guy to get out, because you were too busy for this nonsense. Suddenly it matters in your life, because while Santa is fictitious to you, he’s not fictitious to your kids—it has some relevance to you. Writers of fake news stories have learned the value of leveraging the psychology of repetition—the more something is repeated, the more believable it becomes. Consider how Madison Avenue advertising works: The magic number is three. If the consumer receives the message three times, research has shown that he may not buy the product immediately, but the door has been opened to his willingness to at least consider buying it.
  • Hyper hyperbole. Over-the-top statements of degree permeate the story. The news isn’t just “significant,” it’s “absolutely astounding.” Similarly, if the story has to do with some misfortune, it’s not just “serious” or “bad,” it’s “the worst thing we have ever seen.”
  • Validation void. Invariably, fake news lacks substance in terms of sourcing—the sources tend to be vague and unidentifiable. At the same time, there tends to be no actionable information in the story, in the sense that there’s nowhere within reason to go to attempt to validate it.

This works well….but I have NO illusion that there will be those people that bend over for whatever confirms their thoughts…..without checking them out…..outrageous claims only fires them up more…..and then there are those “trust me” moments……that is when I start to roll my eyes…..trust without validation is STUPID!

Me?  I dig for answers…but I seem to think ALL news is fake until I check it out in detail…..I think that is what we all should do….but sadly most are too goddamn lazy for any work….they prefer to rely on CRAP for their “knowledge”.

So you continue to believe crap…..I will do what I do best…..DIG!

You see I refuse to read only partisan bullshit…… and make NO mistake it is bullshit……but then I do not expect others to put in the time to learn anything……it takes a special kind of person to look at all sides….and there are damn few of us anymore.

This will be my last post on the subject of “Fake News”……(to everyone’s relief I am sure)

New Strain of Fact-Resistant Humans

I am always on the lookout for stories that my readers may find informative or at least entertaining…..and I believe I have found a good one for this Sunday.

There has been a lot of reports about this site of that that passes off “fake news” as accurate….and then there will always be those comments about “facts”…how do you know that the “facts” you get are accurate….I would go into this situation but I have tired myself out debating this situation in the recent past…..

While reading different sites I cam upon this story in The New Yorker…and the title alone made me sit up and want to read it…….

Scientists have discovered a powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans who are threatening the ability of Earth to sustain life, a sobering new study reports.

The research, conducted by the University of Minnesota, identifies a virulent strain of humans who are virtually immune to any form of verifiable knowledge, leaving scientists at a loss as to how to combat them.

“These humans appear to have all the faculties necessary to receive and process information,” Davis Logsdon, one of the scientists who contributed to the study, said. “And yet, somehow, they have developed defenses that, for all intents and purposes, have rendered those faculties totally inactive.”

Source: Scientists: Earth Endangered by New Strain of Fact-Resistant Humans – The New Yorker – Linkis.com

This situation seems to get worse with each passing election…..facts are NOT facts if they do not conform to what the person wants to believe…..

Time to bow out and enjoy the rest of my weekend and I suggest that everyone should try to do the same….life is too short without any enjoyment…..

Peace….out….my friends.

Closing Thought–01Dec16

As December begins and Trump is putting together his cabinet…one thing jumps out…..Americans will be attacked on many fronts….health care, education, and quote possibly veterans……his appointees do not fill me with optimism…..

On to “Fake News”……

The “news” has been flooded with stories on the “fake” news that was used during the past election….I wrote a piece as a Closing Thought…..

Media distrust and Fake News…… This past election illustrated just how much social media can play in the election of a president…. Take Facebook for instance…..on a personal…

Source: Closing Thought–18Nov16 – In Saner Thought

Since I wrote that op-ed 10 days ago….more news about the fakes has been published….

No one outside of a few obsessed cranks would’ve noticed it if the Washington Post hadn’t given it front page prominence last week: a formerly obscure web site, propornot.com, which purports to identify a “Russian active measures” campaign with some very specific goals in mind As Post “reporter” Craig Timberg put it:

“The flood of ‘fake news’ this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation.”

Source: The Witch-Hunters – Antiwar.com Original by — Antiwar.com

The WaPo is not a site that I use much…..I do not trust them or the NYTimes….too corporate and too much propaganda for the government there.

My friends at the American Conservative have weighed in on this developing story……

“Fake stories” are in the news. The narrative goes something like this: fabricated accounts that misrepresent “the truth” are proliferating on the internet, and once they appear on a social networking site, they are frequently spread far and wide, often doing serious damage along the way to whatever or whomever was the target of the initial posting. Reportedly, Google and Facebook are now alert to the problem and doing their best to monitor and eliminate such material. How exactly that will work is not yet clear, as it would be blatant censorship, and the relative openness of the internet is a major part of its appeal.

Source: The Fake News Fake Story | The American Conservative

In my opinion a lot of the news in the MSM is fake news……and it is just now coming to light….for whatever reason.

There has been a shit storm about the “fake news” around this past election.

There are many opinions on who, what, where and how.

Below is an opinion piece on the situation…..

Consider for a moment the oxymoronic concept of “fake news,” which we have been hearing so much about lately. This isn’t your typical disinformation or misinformation — generated by the government, or foreign adversaries, or corporations — to advance an agenda by confusing the public. It isn’t even the familiar dystopian idea of manipulated fact designed to keep people lobotomized and malleable in some post-human autocracy. Those scenarios assume at least an underlying truth against which nefarious forces can take aim.

Fake news is different. It is an assault on the very principle of truth itself: a way to upend the reference points by which mankind has long operated. You could say, without exaggeration, that fake news is actually an attempt to reverse the Enlightenment. And because a democracy relies on truth — which is why dystopian writers have always described how future oligarchs need to undermine it — fake news is an assault on democracy as well.

Source: Who’s Really to Blame for Fake News? Look in the Mirror, America. | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

That is about enough on this subject….I mean really….NO one cares…now do they?

Closing Thought–30Nov16

Fake News Update………..

I recently wrote about the presence of fake news especially during this last election….(a reminder)…

Media distrust and Fake News…… This past election illustrated just how much social media can play in the election of a president…. Take Facebook for instance…..on a personal…

Source: Closing Thought–18Nov16 – In Saner Thought

Since that was written more info about these sites has come to light…..

Some of the anti-Hillary Clinton news stories that popped up in your social media feeds during the election campaign may have been put there by Russia. That’s the conclusion of independent propaganda research group PropOrNot, which provided its report to the Washington Post. PropOrNot found more than 200 websites, including RT and Sputnik, published Russian propaganda during the election campaign that was read by 15 million Americans. The stories—reportedly the work of “thousands of botnets, teams of paid human ‘trolls,’ and networks of websites and social-media accounts,” per the Post—were then viewed an estimated 213 million times on Facebook.

An earlier study identified a similar campaign conducted by “organized hordes of trolls,” per the Verge. The propaganda campaign “was equivalent to some massive amount of a media buy,” says PropOrNot’s executive director. “It was like Russia was running a super PAC for Trump’s campaign … It worked.” What the RT had to say in an email to the Post: “RT adamantly rejects these claims.” (Mark Zuckerberg maintains fake news didn’t impact the election.)

This appears to be the way of the future…..news consumers need to be vigilant or be stupider than they are today.