Tag: MainStream Media

The News Will Get More Unreliable

This post is for the many people that turn to CNN for their daily news….you might want to rethink that decision.

It is no secret that I do not trust many of the MSM to tell us peasants what is really happening in the country and the world.

Now CNN will most likely enter into the Trump sphere of bullshit.

Concerns are mounting about the state of the US media landscape now that it looks increasingly likely that Paramount Skydance—a company controlled by the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, a donor to President Donald Trump—will succeed in its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.

One day after Netflix announced that it was dropping its previously accepted bid to buy Warner, many critics demanded that antitrust laws be invoked to block the Paramount-Warner merger from going through.

Alvaro Bedoya, former commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission, warned that the Ellison family could soon use their control over vast swaths of US media properties to engage in mass censorship, and he pointed to their decisions to cancel Stephen Colbert’s program and to refuse to air an interview with Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico.

“One family is about to control CBS, CNN, HBO, and TikTok,” he wrote in a social media post. “They’ll buy [Warner Bros. Discovery] with $24 billion in money from the Saudis, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi. To win over Trump, they canceled Colbert… and blocked Talarico. Much more will follow. Block this rotten deal.”

Craig Aaron, co-CEO of Free Press, said the proposed Paramount-Warner merger was “even worse” than the proposed Netflix-Warner merger.

“This deal endangers our democracy by giving a family of pliant billionaires even more control of vast swaths of our news coverage, TV stations, and movie studios,” Aaron said. “Allowing more mergers in the already highly concentrated movie business will harm filmmakers and industry workers when Paramount delivers on its promise to make deep cuts to please its Wall Street backers.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/paramount-warner-merger-criticism

Little Donny already has FOX News and OAN in his pocket and now that will expand.

The morons are already slobbering over this eventuality…..Pistol Pete has his say….

During a briefing on the Iran war Friday, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth ventured into unexpected territory: ownership of CNN. “The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” Hegseth said in complaining about the network’s war coverage, reports the Hill. Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is poised to acquire CNN parent company Warner Bros. Discovery. Hegseth’s remark is likely to amplify anxiety inside CNN and across the industry that Ellison—who is friends with President Trump—could steer the channel’s journalism in a direction more favorable to the White House, per the New York Times.

Ellison has publicly pledged to protect CNN’s newsroom from political interference. “Editorial independence will absolutely be maintained,” he said in a CNBC interview last week. “It is maintained at CBS; it will be maintained at CNN.” Ellison bought CBS last year and installed Bari Weiss, a high-profile critic of legacy media, as editor in chief of CBS News. Weiss has faced internal and external pushback, particularly after delaying a 60 Minutes piece critical of the Trump administration.

“Fake news from CNN reports that the Trump administration underestimated the Iran war’s impact on the Strait of Hormuz,” Hegseth said Friday. “Patently ridiculous, of course. For decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This is always what they do. … CNN doesn’t think we thought of that. It’s a fundamentally unserious report.” The former Fox News host also complained about negative TV news banners. “What should the banner read instead? How about Iran increasingly desperate?  Because they are.”

So maybe look for another news source that is reliable because CNN just does not make the grade anymore.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

News Is Out At The Pentagon

And it is replaced with sycophants that will happily pass on bullshit, lies and propaganda in the guise of news….

Have you been following the reports of the ‘new’ criteria that the SecWar has put into place?

Several outlets supportive of the political right said Wednesday they had agreed to a new press policy rejected by virtually all legacy news media organizations and will take their place in the Pentagon, the AP reports. The new Pentagon press corps will include the Gateway Pundit, the National Pulse, Human Events, podcaster Tim Pool, the Just the News website founded by journalist John Solomon, Frontlines by Turning Point USA, and LindellTV, run by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Many of those outlets were not staffed for the job; Just the News, for example, posted an online ad seeking a Pentagon reporter.

The Pentagon’s announcement came less than a week after dozens of reporters from outlets including the New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN, and the Washington Post turned in their access badges rather than agree to a policy the journalists say will restrict them to covering news approved by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Sean Parnell, Hegseth’s spokesman, announced the “next generation” of the Pentagon press corps with more than 60 journalists who had agreed to the new policy. He said 26 journalists who had previously been part of the press corps were among the signees. The department wouldn’t say who any of them were, but several outlets reposted his message on X, saying they had signed on.

There isn’t unanimity among organizations that appeal to Republican consumers. Fox News Channel, by far the most popular news source for fans of President Trump, was among the walkouts, as was Newsmax. Some of the outlets moving in pronounce themselves conservative in their mission statements, and the “about” page on the National Pulse features a picture of Trump. The journalists who left the Pentagon haven’t stopped covering the military. With them out of the Pentagon, “reporters will have to work harder,” said Barbara Starr, a longtime Pentagon reporter retired from CNN. “But the real price is paid by the American people and the American military families,” Starr said. “Military families who have their sons and daughters serving, they want to know everything and they want to know it fast.”

LindellTV (seriously), Dead Charlie’s Turning Point, et al…..none of which is any real news gathering experience….but they are butt lickers….that is all you need to be part of the press corps.

This change will guarantee that there will be NO actual factual news coming from the Pentagon.

I will be watching to see which of the MSM will bite and carry the bullshit from Donny’s idiot, Hogsbreath.

+++I return to the infusion chair today so I may not be in any shape for further posting……I will try to catch as quickly as I can+++

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Hate Wins Again

Donny and the conservs got their way (finally–after trying for decades) the funds for NPR/PBS will dry up….

There are many reasons I have heard but none is a sound reason for trying to kill this broadcast entity….

Below is an opinion (not mine–keep that in mind before you go off half cocked which seems to be a tradition with some)…..

Our public radio and TV stations are in grave peril, and with them the unique services they perform for our communities.

By the end of day Friday July 18, we’ll know if Congress has clawed back the money it already gave to public broadcasting, through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or CPB. (The House will decide; this is your moment to call your representatives to ask them to support their public radio and TV stations, and to join — for free — Protectmypublicmedia.org.) Even if that money stays protected, though, public radio and TV will continue to be attacked.

I’ve studied public broadcasting here and around the world for 40 years. And I serve on the board of directors of the taxpayer-funded Independent Television Service, which coproduces a lot of the documentaries you might see on public TV. So, of course, I think it’s an important part of our media in America. But I think you probably do, too.

You might know public broadcasting through your local TV or radio station, both private nonprofits. Or you might know it through the services many such stations depend on for daily, high-quality, award-winning programs: National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Both of them are private nonprofits that make, select, and bundle programs for public stations.

Either way, you’re in good company. PBS and NPR are the most trusted media brands in the United States. Half of PBS viewers depend on PBS for news and information, including more than half of people who identify as “extreme conservatives” or “extreme liberals.” NPR’s news is trusted by more than half of those who have heard of it. Americans trust public media news and public affairs much more (by half) than they do commercial mainstream media.

https://www.rawstory.com/corporation-for-public-broadcasting/

Silence from NPR/PBS was not enough…..they are going after the late night shows as well because they are critical of the present POS of government….

Then there is this Colbert and CBS thing….

Stephen Colbert made the announcement himself to his studio audience on Thursday at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City. “I want to let you know something I found out just last night,” he said, USA Today reports. “Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending The Late Show next May.” When the audience registered its disappointment, Colbert said, “Yeah, I share your feelings.” CBS said the cancellation was a financial decision, per Variety.

It’s not just his show being canceled, Colbert said, it’s CBS’ late-night talk show franchise—a run that began when the network hired David Letterman from NBC in 1993. “I’m not being replaced,” Colbert told the audience. “This is all just going away.” There had been speculation that Skydance Media, which is acquiring CBS parent company Paramount Global, might not appreciate Colbert’s jokes at President Trump’s expense. In Monday’s show, Colbert had talked about CBS Global settling Trump’s lawsuit over the editing of a 60 Minutes story, per the AP. He said the technical name for such a settlement is a “big fat bribe.”

CBS referred to the speculation in its statement. The network blamed “a challenging backdrop in late night,” adding that the cancellation “is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.” Advertising revenue has been drying up for late-night shows, per the Los Angeles Times. Media companies are unhappy with the high production costs and the loss of young viewers to digital video. The network praised Colbert and the show, saying they’ll “be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television.”

Wassup with this move?  Is it politics?

The announcement from CBS executives came just three days after Colbert spoke out on his show about a recent $16 million settlement reached by CBS parent company Paramount over an interview that “60 Minutes” aired with former Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election, in which Harris ran against President Donald Trump.

Colbert had told his audience that the settlement appeared to be a “big fat bribe” to end a “nuisance lawsuit.”

“This all comes as Paramount’s owners are trying to the get the Trump administration to approve the sale of our network to a new owner,” said Colbert, referring to a pending $8.4 billion merger with the entertainment company Skydance—whose billionaire founder, David Ellison, has been spotted with Trump in recent months.

Trump’s lawsuit against Paramount claimed the Harris interview was deceptively edited and amounted to “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference,” allegations that legal experts and First Amendment scholars denounced as “ridiculous” and “dangerous.”

After the settlement was announced earlier this month, with Paramount pledging to release transcripts of future “60 Minutes” interviews with presidential candidates, one press freedom group condemned the company for “capitulating” to the president’s demands.

CBS executives appeared to preemptively respond to expected allegations that they were canceling Colbert’s show due to his criticism of the settlement—and his frequent rebukes of the president—saying the decision, effective in May 2026, was “purely a financial” one.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/cbs-late-night

Slowly all opposition voices are being silenced….and that is just fine for defeatists that care nothing for this country….but since I am NO defeatist I shall continue on my road….like it or not.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is This Assault On Free Press?

The Trump retribution continues.

Around every corner someone is bitching about the loss of a free press….the Right says the Left is doing it….the Left is accusing of the Right of assaulting the press on many levels….but now there is yet even more and it stems from the trump admin.

Four major news outlets will no longer have highly coveted office space at the Pentagon after the Defense Department released an internal memo announcing it’s giving their space to other outlets. CNN’s Haley Britzky posted the memo on X that said NBC News, the New York Times, NPR, and Politico will each need to vacate their offices at the Pentagon on Feb. 14 to give space to the New York Post, One America News Network, Breitbart News Network, and the Huffington Post. As CNN reports, three of the outlets are relatively small and conservative organizations that are openly pro-Trump.

The internal memo said the Pentagon calls the plan its “annual media rotation program,” and spokesman Jonathan Ullyot said the outgoing outlets will remain full members of the Pentagon Press Corps with “the same media access” as before. But they won’t have office space in the building this year. Ullyot said the rotation program will “broaden access to the limited space of the Correspondents’ Corridor to outlets that have not previously enjoyed the privilege and journalistic value of working from physical office space in the Pentagon.” Officials chose one outlet each from print, online, radio, and TV mediums to give up their space for one year.

Members of the Pentagon press corps can only speculate if the decision is related to intense coverage of the Senate confirmation of Pete Hegseth as defense secretary last week. Hegseth is a former Fox News host, and his confirmation followed weeks of coverage about allegations of sexual abuse and heavy drinking. NBC News, which had reported on the allegations, released a statement saying, “We’re disappointed by the decision to deny us access to a broadcasting booth at the Pentagon that we’ve used for many decades. Despite the significant obstacles this presents to our ability to gather and report news in the national public interest, we will continue to report with the same integrity and rigor NBC News always has.”

You were wondering when Trump would make his move….well wonder no more.

Making sure the Liberal publications are excluded from the press conferences for the Pentagon.

Supposedly it is for only a year but my bet it will be continuing even after the year.

Controlling the narrative has always been Trump’s aim and now he has started…. where will it end?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

CNN Is Changing

I have noticed that a few of my visitors and commenters use CNN as one of their primary sources…..I use them occasionally but not a major contributor to my posts…

I saw a report that I thought might interests those that like CNN and their coverage of the news….

CNN is making some big changes as President Trump’s second term begins. In a memo to staffers Thursday morning, CEO Mark Thompson outlined the “next phase of change” at the news organization, which will include laying off around 200 people, 6% of its staff. Thompson described the layoffs as an “unwelcome but inevitable part of the change process.” He said the company’s headcount would remain around the same, with people involved in traditional TV operations laid off and new employees, including data scientists, hired with the $70 million it is investing in plans to grow its digital business. Thompson said the company is responding to “profound and irreversible shifts in the way audiences in America and around the world consume news.”

  • New streaming service. A new streaming service will be introduced as part of plans “to develop a new way for digital subscribers at home and abroad to stream news programming from us on any device they choose,” Thompson wrote, per the Hollywood Reporter. “It’s early days but we’ve already established that there’s immense demand for it not just in America, but across much of the world.” CNN also plans to introduce its first “lifestyle-oriented digital product,” Thompson wrote.
  • Vertical videos. CNN has been focusing on vertical videos, which can be viewed easily on phones. The company plans to publish up to 100 of the videos per day, and it is working on a TikTok-style video news service that lets users swipe through the videos easily, reports the New York Times. “You can use your thumb to flick from a CNN news story to a CNN anchor to a reporter,” Thompson tells the Times. “That’s a really interesting experiment.”
  • Viewership is way down. The focus on digital comes as cable TV viewer numbers are sagging. CNN averaged “578,000 prime-time viewers in the three months through December, down by 74% from its peak in the fourth quarter of 2020,” according to the Wall Street Journal. During the same period, viewer numbers fell 62% at MSNBC and 27% at Fox News.
  • Jim Acosta. A CNN spokesperson said they are in “active discussions” about a new time slot for Acosta. Sources tell the Independent that Thompson spoke to Acosta, an outspoken Trump critic, last week about potentially moving his show to the midnight slot.

Okay do any of my viewers see this move as a good one?

Or is CNN caving to Trump pressure?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Those “Brain Flaws”

As we move closer to the actual day of our vote the media is still struggling with ways to report Trump and his minions….there have been many excuses for the acts and words of his adoring throngs…….the worse aggravation has been the media and all those damn polls.

The American people are being smothered by public opinion polls. Every day there seems to be some new poll expected to give precious insight into the presidential horse race that the news media is so obsessed with. As I try to decipher what these polls mean, I often find myself muttering, “Will someone please save me from this troublesome priest?”

In the aggregate, the polls now show that Kamala Harris is leading Donald Trump nationally in the popular vote. However, she and Trump are basically tied in the key battleground states. Focus groups and other data also show a very close race. This is because the American people are politically unsophisticated and are easily manipulated to believe things that are not true. Democracy, by design, is messy and the politically ill-informed have the same number of votes (one) as the politically savvy and engaged.

Contributing to the confusion is how the mainstream news media’s unhealthy obsession with polling has created a type of tunnel vision and myopia where other lenses — that would likely provide better insights — for understanding the Age of Trump and the larger democracy crisis have been mostly ignored. The Washington Post’s Jen Rubin recently summarized “five major media fails”: 

1. Ignoring Trump’s mental decline (until the last few weeks of the election). 2. Excess focus on meaningless polls. 3. Failure to engage historians and psychiatrists to provide context for Trump’s fascism and narcissism 4. Fixation on more details from Harris, demanding none from Trump 5. Consistent negative/inaccurate portrayal of the economy 6. Fueling Trump’s constant lies by asking Harris and others to respond.

In a recent essay at The American Prospect, Rick Perlstein echoes Rubin: “Even as the resources devoted to every other kind of journalism atrophied, poll-based political culture has overwhelmed us, crowding out all other ways of thinking about public life….The Washington Post’s polling director once said, ‘There’s something addictive about polls and poll numbers.’ He’s right. When we refer to ‘political junkies,’ polls are pretty much the junk.” 

There is also the empirical fact — a very inconvenient one for the news media and the political consultants and polling firms — that presidential public opinion polls have been wrong for many decades.

https://www.salon.com/2024/10/15/brain-flaws-understanding-maga-as-an-epidemic-disease/

The last sentence is the most compelling…..polls have been wrong for decades….and they are probably wrong this time around.

And that is the name of that tune!

Please make your decision from knowledge not some made up stats that is used to sell papers.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Hospital Too Far?

By now all the armchair generals and analysts have read or heard about the Israeli raid on the Gazan hospital….I know they have for the report validates their hatred of a people.

But in case you have not bothered to form an opinion (like that is ever going to happen) here is the original report.

Israel says its forces have entered Gaza’s Shifa hospital, the site of a lengthy standoff. The Israeli army had surrounded the facility as part of its ground offensive against Hamas, claiming the militant group conceals military operations in the hospital complex. But with hundreds of patients and medical personnel inside, it had refrained from entering. It said on Wednesday its forces were conducting a “precise” operation against Hamas in a specific area of the complex while taking steps to avoid harm to civilians. In a statement, the Israeli military said it had warned “the relevant authorities in Gaza once again that all military activities within the hospital must cease within 12 hours. Unfortunately, it did not.”

Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals as cover for its fighters, alleging that Hamas has set up its main command center in and beneath Shifa hospital, the largest in the besieged territory, the AP reports. Both Hamas and Shifa hospital staff deny the Israeli allegations. The US said Tuesday that it has unspecified intelligence that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad use some hospitals in the Gaza Strip—including Shifa hospital—and tunnels underneath them to hide and to support their military operations and to hold hostages. The White House’s national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, said the US does not support “striking a hospital from the air.”

Kirby added that the US also does not want to see “a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, sick people are simply trying to get the medical care that they deserve.” Conditions at Shifa hospital deteriorated so badly in the days before Israeli forces entered that a World Health Organization spokesman described it as “nearly a cemetery.” Thousands of people have been sheltering at the hospital, where authorities say patients, including premature babies, have been dying because of a lack of fuel for generators. The BBC reports that Hamas issued a statement blaming President Biden for the storming of the hospital, saying that the US had given Israel a “green light” by saying intelligence suggested it was used by the group.

I watched the report and I have a problem….one, we are in a room that could be anywhere….two, there are too many reports from too many people saying almost the same words…..I know I am a cynic but I would have wanted a lot more information before I am convinced.

The ‘evidence’ is not compelling for me…..I found some other info as I tried to get more information and here is the reports….

Israeli troops who raided Gaza’s biggest hospital on Wednesday continued to pore over the grounds on Thursday looking for evidence that Hamas used the area as a secret military base. So far, the Israel Defense Forces have displayed photos of a relatively modest cache of guns, bulletproof vests, and other equipment found in the hospital’s MRI wing, but no proof yet that the hospital complex played a substantial role in Hamas’ strategy, reports the New York Times. Israeli officials insist it will take time to do a thorough search and point out that Hamas knew for days the hospital would be raided and thus had time to hide evidence. Coverage:

  • ‘Underwhelming:’ The evidence presented by the military “so far is underwhelming,” Michael Horowitz, head of intelligence for the consulting firm Le Beck, tells the Wall Street Journal. But he, too, said the search would take a while. “This is a very delicate operation, given how quickly it could turn into a bloodbath.”
  • What they found: The BBC was allowed into the hospital and describes being shown “three small stashes of Kalashnikovs (about 15 in all), ammunition and bulletproof vests.” A lieutenant colonel says they also found military pamphlets, maps, and “a lot of computers and other equipment.” The BBC was not allowed to see the content of the laptops, but Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus says they contain recent images and video of hostages. “At the end of the day, this is just the tip of the iceberg,” he says. “Hamas aren’t here because they saw we were coming. This is probably what they were forced to leave behind. Our assessment is that there’s much more.”
  • Pressure: Israel justified its controversial raid on the hospital by asserting that the hospital complex was built atop a maze of tunnels that allowed Hamas members to come and go easily, and to use the hospital as a “command center,” per the Messenger. Failing to find evidence of that will ratchet up international pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu, notes the Journal. The Times agrees: “Israel’s ability to prove its claim could be key to whether its foreign allies continue to support its military response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.”
  • No US greenlight: The US had agreed earlier this week with Israel’s assessment that Hamas used the hospital complex as a “command-and-control” site, which would be a war crime, notes the Washington Post. But, said national security spokesman John Kirby, “we did not give an okay to their military operations around the hospital—in similar fashion to the fact that we don’t give an okay to their other tactical operations.” UN’s humanitarian relief coordinator tweeted that he was “appalled” by the raid. “The protection of newborns, patients, medical staff and all civilians must override all other concerns,” wrote Martin Griffiths. “Hospitals are not battlegrounds.”
  • Patients: The hospital once had thousands of people, but most have evacuated. Still, the AP estimates that “hundreds of people” remain there, a mix of medical workers and the most vulnerable patients, including infants. With no electricity and scarce medical supplies, the situation is dire by all accounts. The hospital has resorted to using foil to keep premature babies warm.

My problem is that the collection presented could have been from a previous stash…nothing compelling for me.

Let me say right here for all those that have made up their minds….I do not support HAMAS and I do not support Israel (there is more they have done that flies in the face of civility)…no I am not anti-Jew personally I do not care what someone believes ….there is a responsibility to act like civilized beings and neither side is accomplishing that.

Just like all wars the truth is the first causality.

This will be an on-going story for at least the foreseeable future and I am sure that more reports will be forthcoming.

Just my thoughts.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is The Media Truly Liberal?

To answer my own question….Not from where I sit….the MSM is anything but liberal.

But like I said….that is just my take on the question.

But let’s look a little deeper.

Conservative commentators and politicians attack the reliability of the “media” since they believe the liberals control it. They often point to television and some social media like Facebook. Except for the New York Times and Washington Post, they have avoided attacking other printed media and radio.

While the liberals do not dismiss all media as being too conservative, they argue that big corporations’ concentration of media ownership limits the breadth of opinion and promotes conservative views, such as promoting a smaller federal government.

Liberals don’t campaign for big government. Still, they support government intervention in regulating the marketplace and social behavior. The first is for maintaining a fair marketplace, and the latter protects citizens from being denied exercising their constitutional rights. Those efforts result in a larger central government, which big businesses usually oppose.

Support for smaller government was measured during and after President George H.W. Bush’s term. Gallup polling since 1992 asked respondents to respond to: “The Government should do more to solve our country’s problems.” And “The government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses.”

Only twice in the 29 years from ’92 to ’21 has the response reached 50 percent or higher that the government “Should do more.” Meanwhile, in 24 of those years, half or more responded that the government “was doing too much.”

Media significantly shapes cultural values and promotes politics that help determine how the public perceives the government’s usefulness. Since conservative commentaries and Republican politicians champion small government as a core talking point, tracking their appearance and support in the media indicates how much their message may influence public opinion.

Is the Media Really Liberal?

The whole ‘liberal media’ is just the conservs trying to blame someone for their own failings.

Smaller government is just nothing but smoke….always has been and will always be….just smoke.

So I ask again….is the media truly liberal?

Let me have your opinion on this massive mound of manure.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Ukraine Messaging

Trump has had his day in court…..so can we get back to stuff that is really important?

As I watch the daily news dump I see a lot about the war in Ukraine.

I would say that the messaging management of the conflict in Ukraine has been spot on.

The comments here tells me that few look beyond their favorite news media.

But the truth of the matter is that the messaging public and private are not the same thing.

“I want Russia to be defeated in Ukraine,” French President Emmanuel Macron publicly told the media. But it’s not what he privately told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He also said that now is not the right time for dialogue with Moscow and that France is ready to sustain “a longer conflict.” That’s not what he told Zelensky either.

“America…will stand with you as long as it takes,” President Biden publicly promised Ukraine in his State of the Union Address. But it’s not what his administration privately told Zelensky.

“The war I know about is not the war you are reading about,” investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said recently.

Managing public perception about the war to control the narrative and maintain support seems to have required a divorce between what NATO officials are telling Ukraine privately and what they are telling the public they are telling Ukraine.

Biden’s public mantra has been “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” and “will stand with you as long as it takes.” Privately, neither seems to be true.

Contrary to the public message of as long as it takes, as long as it takes has a private expiration date. “We will continue to try to impress upon them that we can’t do anything and everything forever,” a senior administration official said. CIA Director William Burns secretly communicated to Zelensky that “at some point assistance would be harder to come by.”

Contrary to the public message that the U.S. supports Ukraine’s aspirations to reclaim all of its territory, the private message to Ukraine is that that is not going to happen. After the war, Ukraine will be a divided nation.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/public-vs-private-managing-perceptions-of-the-war-in-ukraine/

The key to this disconnect is what the article called “managing the perception of war to control the narrative”…..I have been telling readers about this disconnect and few have seen the problem….basically because Putin is an ass (simplistic dribble).

Even a US general does not see this ending well at all….

Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine is unlikely to end on the battlefield and will instead come to a conclusion at a negotiating table, the top US general predicts.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said he believes that neither Russia, nor Ukraine, will likely be able to achieve their objectives through military power. The highest-ranking US military officer recently told the Eurasia Group Foundation in a podcast that he believes diplomats from various countries will be the ones to eventually put an end to the fighting.

“At some point people will figure out that the cost of continuing to execute this war through military means is extraordinarily challenging. It doesn’t mean it can’t be done. And I applaud the Ukrainian will and their courage and their resilience,” Milley said on the podcast, which was released on Tuesday, according to a transcript of his remarks. 

https://www.businessinsider.com/costs-ukraine-blood-treasure-kick-russia-invaders-out-us-general-2023-3

Zelensky has hired a bevy of PR firms and lobbyists to help sell the war to Congress and the public…..and it is working if the comments here are any indication.

This is probably basically a fart in a hurricane….the comments will tell.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is The MSM Trustworthy?

Do you trust the corporate news?

My friend over at linesbyliming.com who got me thinking about a question he asked on his site.

Yep, the news most people consume is fed to people by corporations that own the news these days.

It appears that most Americans do not trust the news they are given in there evening news and corresponding web sites.

Polling released Wednesday by Gallup and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation reveals half of American adults “feel most national news organizations intend to mislead, misinform, or persuade the public,” which could impact the future of both the industry and U.S. democracy.

The report is the second in a series that began with a publication in October and builds on a body of research that Gallup and the Knight Foundation have conducted about Americans’ trust in the news media since 2017.

“This data offers further evidence that sustainable journalism begins and ends with trust,” said Knight Foundation president Alberto Ibargüen in a statement. “We believe a citizenry that trusts the news is more informed, more engaged, and better prepared to participate meaningfully in our democracy.”

Key findings from the latest survey include that 53% of about 5,600 Americans across political affiliations have an unfavorable view of the U.S. news media overall, compared with just 26% who hold a favorable view. In line with previous polling, younger adults have less favorable views.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/american-news-media-mislead-public

The war in Ukraine is a great example and how the MSM handles its reporting.

It is a truism that the first casualty of war is the truth. But spinning and lying has real-world impacts in a war in which hundreds of thousands of real people are fighting and dying, while their homes, on both sides of the front lines, are reduced to rubble by hundreds of thousands of howitzer shells.

Yves Smith, the editor of Naked Capitalism, explored this insidious linkage between the information war and the real one in an article titled, “What if Russia won the Ukraine War, but the Western press didn’t notice?” He observed that Ukraine’s total dependence on the supply of weapons and money from its Western allies has given a life of its own to a triumphalist narrative that Ukraine is defeating Russia, and will keep scoring victories as long as the West keeps sending it more money and increasingly powerful and deadly weapons.

But the need to keep recreating the illusion that Ukraine is winning by hyping limited gains on the battlefield has forced Ukraine to keep sacrificing its forces in extremely bloody battles, like its counteroffensive around Kherson and the Russian sieges of Bakhmut and Soledar. Lt. Col. Alexander Vershinin, a retired US tank commander, wrote on Harvard’s Russia Matters website, “In some ways, Ukraine has no choice but to launch attacks no matter the human and material cost.”

How Spin and Lies Fuel a Bloody War of Attrition in Ukraine

This is just one example on the spin and lies that the media presents to us peasants….and believe me the corporations that own the news thinks of us as peasants.

It is said that the American people do not trust the MSM….yet they slurp up the lies and misinformation given to them on certain stories and situations.

For instance they believe every word of stories about Ukraine or immigrants or elections and no amount of logical contrary stories will get them to look past their set in stone spurious ideas.

Stop slurping up the crap that the MSM presents you on a silver platter….most of it is pure manure…..but few seem to care.

So to answer the original question….NO it is not trustworthy….no matter the event or story.

They treat the American news consumer like a mushroom….they keep us in the dark and feeds us manure.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“Lego ergo scribo”