Exclusive: The mainstream U.S. news media insists that its bias against Donald Trump is an aberration justified by his extraordinary recklessness, but the truth is U.S. media bias has a long history, says longtime journalist Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
The new excuse for the U.S. mainstream media to violate its professional principles of objectivity and balance in covering this presidential race is that it’s all Donald Trump’s fault, or as The New York Times put it, “Trump Is Testing the Norms of Objectivity in Journalism.”
But that is just the latest dodge for American journalists who don’t really believe in the principle of evenhandedness. Many have been slanting their coverage for as long as I can remember in my nearly four decades covering news in Washington.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in an MSNBC interview.
Indeed, bias and outright dishonesty have long been the norm for major American news outlets, especially in the fabrication of foreign monsters around the world for the U.S. military to seek out and destroy.
The truth is that at virtually every spin of America’s revolving wheel of “enemies,” The New York Times could write a similar headline blaming the foreign leaders, just as the newspaper did Trump: “Putin Tests the Norms of Objectivity in Journalism” or Bashar al-Assad or Saddam Hussein or any other designated villain du jour.
In the Times’ framing of the problem, it’s not the journalists who have a responsibility to maintain “the norms of objectivity”; it is Trump or some foreign villain who “tests” the norms. The journalists are the victims here, with their high standards being put under unfair pressure.
But I can’t remember a time when major U.S. news outlets approached a foreign policy issue with anything approaching objectivity or balance. With very few exceptions, the pattern is to fall in line behind the U.S. foreign policy establishment’s propaganda.
Indeed, when some of us have tried to apply objective or even-handed standards to foreign controversies, we faced resistance and punishment from our own news organizations. We learned that very few senior editors would challenge even the most blatant nonsense from the State Department or the White House. After all, that’s how they got to be senior editors.
Whether it was Nicaragua’s Sandinistas in the 1980s, or Iraq and Serbia in the 1990s, or Iraq (again) and Iran in the 2000s, or Syria, Russia, China and Iran (again) today, U.S. “star reporters” shucked aside even the pretense of fairness in favor of careerism. The more you pile on these “enemies” the better for you.
Along with these longer-term “enemies,” there are short-term “villains” who are transformed into cartoon characters almost overnight, such as Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych. Though elected by the voters, he was made into a “black hat” in 2013 and 2014 because he wouldn’t go along with an economic deal with Europe that involved harsh “reforms” from the International Monetary Fund.
Yanukovych also was considered an ally of neighboring Russia, so he got the full propaganda treatment from U.S. government agencies and their client “journalism” outfits, such as the U.S. AID-funded Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Those anti-Yanukovych themes, in turn, were picked up and amplified by mainstream U.S. media outlets, including The New York Times and The Washington Post.
So, on Feb. 22, 2014, when Ukraine’s elected president was violently overthrown in a putsch spearheaded by neo-Nazis and other ultra-nationalist street fighters, the West’s media almost universally cheered the coup as a victory for “democracy.”
No Self-Awareness
Of course, the abandonment of “objectivity” and honesty is not a new story in American journalism. In reality, there has long been a self-serving suspension of self-awareness on the part of U.S. media figures who still view themselves through the heroic but now foggy and yellowed prism of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate.
Coffins of dead U.S. soldiers arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware in 2006. (U.S. government photo)
Yet, the pervasive bias in reporting on international crises is not just dishonest journalism in some academic sense; it also has helped the Military-Industrial Complex soak the U.S. taxpayers of trillions of dollars and enabled Official Washington to dispatch American soldiers to fight endless blood-soaked wars.
Arguably what’s different now is that this pattern of bias, which has been common in U.S. coverage of international affairs for years, has now spread to U.S. politics. But even that’s not especially new. The political pack has often had its favorites and has barely tried to conceal its desired outcome.
For instance, in Campaign 2000, which turned out to be one of the most significant elections in American history, the cool press corps kids covering the race between Al Gore and George W. Bush were smitten by Bush, the “regular guy” who gave them neat nicknames, while Gore was a boring wonk.
The anti-Gore journalistic sneering was palpable as reporters gleefully misreported key campaign moments such as the bogus quote attributed to Gore that “I invented the Internet” and other “boasts” that Gore never made.
The mocking of Gore and the fawning over Bush continued into the coverage of the Florida recount which gave the White House to Bush though Gore got more legal votes both in Florida and nationally. [For details, see Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush.]
While the hot-shot campaign reporters saw Campaign 2000 as a something of a lark – since the catastrophic consequences of Bush’s presidency were still in the future – today the mainstream media justifies its lack of objectivity as something of a duty to the nation.
As Jim Rutenberg wrote for the Times, “If you’re a working journalist and you believe that Donald J. Trump is a demagogue playing to the nation’s worst racist and nationalistic tendencies, that he cozies up to anti-American dictators and that he would be dangerous with control of the United States nuclear codes, how the heck are you supposed to cover him?
“Because if you believe all of those things, you have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half-century, if not longer, and approach it in a way you’ve never approached anything in your career.
“If you view a Trump presidency as something that’s potentially dangerous, then your reporting is going to reflect that. You would move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional. That’s uncomfortable and uncharted territory for every mainstream, nonopinion journalist I’ve ever known, and by normal standards, untenable.”
Rutenberg acts as if he’s never given a thought to the prejudicial journalism that his own newspaper routinely shows in its coverage of foreign issues. [See, for instance, Consortiumnews.com’s “NYT’s Orwellian View of Ukraine.”]
A Trump-Putin Two-fer
In the Trump bashing, there’s also been a merger with the bashing of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump is sometimes accused of being a Russian “agent” because he believes that the United States can cooperate with Russia on fighting terrorism and other issues, rather than just rush to confront nuclear-armed Russia in a costly and dangerous New Cold War.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, following his address to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2015. (UN Photo)
Amid the media frenzy over this so-called Trump-Putin “bromance,” Trump suggested that the Russians might be able to find Hillary Clinton’s missing 30,000 State Department emails. Though obviously meant as a joke referring to the suspicions that Russia was involved in hacking the Democratic National Committee’s emails, the comment was widely interpreted in the mainstream U.S. media as an act approaching “treason.”
Or as Rutenberg put it, Trump sought to “entice Russia to meddle in a United States presidential election by hacking his opponent (a joke, Mr. Trump later said, that the news media failed to get).”
Though it’s certainly true that some of Trump’s off-hand remarks – like suggesting that “Second Amendment people” could take action to stop Clinton’s gun-control plans – cross the line into the reckless, Trump’s email comment was surely not some serious appeal to the Russians to spy on Clinton. If he were serious, he surely would never have made the appeal publicly.
But the more important point is that the American people need to recognize that the major U.S. news media on foreign policy issues is deeply biased in line with what the U.S. foreign policy establishment wants. With Trump and Putin, the media gets a two-fer.
And, there is no conspiracy here. It’s just that if a foreign-policy or national-security reporter wants to get access to U.S. government information, much of it classified, he or she must show a readiness to take the U.S. “side.” If not, the next time there’s a major event – say, a U.S. military strike or the preparation of a government report on a foreign crisis – your competition will get the inside-story “tick-tock” or the document “leak,” not you.
Then, your editors will want to know how you got beat. They won’t want to hear excuses about how you’ve given the U.S. government authorities a hard time on some serious investigative project. Your editors will just want to have what the competition has – and if you can’t get it, they will happily give your job to someone who will play ball with the powers-that-be.
As for American journalists, they should come clean about their obvious biases – or they should commit themselves to an “oppositionist” position vis a vis all government officials, regardless of which government they represent and what the personal career consequences might be. One standard should fit all.
But that’s just wishful thinking. The best career path for media “stars” is to be dishonest, to pretend that you’re faithfully abiding by professional journalistic standards, except in some extreme cases like Trump’s presidential candidacy or in writing about some foreign “villain.” Then, you’re just doing what’s “good for the country.”
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
so 1+1=2 but it can’t equal 3 just because 3 has had a relationship with 1.
Excellent summary analysis of the NORMAL state of journalism in an unregulated/’free-market’ capitalistic state, and some excellent comments. I do wish Mr Parry would extend the historical perspective back further than just the 1970’s brief ‘golden age’ (seeming-so, at least in the US) of reporting, because I think it would unfortunately show that there seem to be just relatively brief periods of critical reporting, followed by longer periods of nationalistic bandwagon reporting which could be arguably termed ‘the norm’. The pressroom-politics that Mr Parry so ably describes have undoubtably always been with us — they’re a normal work-place dynamic that’s only exacerbated by the hyper-profit mentality. Unfortunately, they help bring the world things like the Spanish-American War, WWI, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, but the MSM (much like lawyers) will always benefit/get-paid, whether their ‘clients’ win or lose.
The media coverage this election was sort of like adding contrast to an mri. If you looked hard enough, you always knew something dangerous was going on in there. But this year both Sanders and Trump challenged the Washington consensus and were both brutally attacked. It was a bit scary seeing how lockstep the negative coverage was.
Nice… Democrats beware
Hell, even the comments are corrupted. I gave up after the most egregious partisan slander.
EXHIBIT A: Does Jeff Bezos buys a newspaper out of love of country? Carlos Slim?
There is no journalism anymore. You HACK for publication A or publication B. Ditto for ABC,CBS< NBC & CNN. Globalists own all the megaphones… and they use them to advance their interests, destroy competition and increase market share for the profitable operations that provide money for weapons like WAPO and NYT..
A populist, nationalist right of center voter has no where to turn but Drudge, Breitbart and Fox on a good day…. but the recent purge puts a use date on that as well.
How anybody thinks this bastardization of our information chain is redeemable is also delusional. We are diminished as a country.
NO – Trump isn't the guy with the Moe haircut and funny mustache. He just knows where too many bodies are buried. A Trump presidency will end the money laundering, corruption and comfy arrangements of career criminals … LIKE THE CLINTONS.
Hand wringing over "bias" … JUST THIS TIME — because Trump is too evil… is an out and out lie.,
This author has been handed the baton. And he/she/it ran with it …. NEXT?
… but the truth is U.S. media bias has a long history
The same applies to mainstream media around the world working as propagandists for their particular establishments – left, right and center.
There’s only one thing missing from the equation..a possible Trump “October Surprise”..
The media can continue on doing what Mr Parry explained; diss The Donald and praise the Goldwater Girl to where she looks like a cinch bet come late October..
People have to get off their derrieres and go vote, so hypothetically, with a ‘uge’ lead, many Democrats might think “Its in the bag” and watch Game of Thrones. Then factor in the “Bernie Bros” who will vote ‘clandestine’ for Trump just to begrudge Clinton…
It has been said that Republicans tend to exercise their vote mores as a duty than the Democrats..
Maybe Trump is a crappy businessman but has always had a horseshoe up his you-know-what..
Always falls into a septic tank and come out smelling like a rose..
We’re not talking political class like Secretariat and Seattle Slew in this horse race, its more like two mules racing pulling donkey carts…
To borrow from horse racing, when you have such low-class field and a strong-favorite, an ass like Trump can upset and ‘pay off in boxcars’…
Of course there is always the thinking by some Democrats too that they don’t want to see Bill running wild in the White House again with Sidney in the Oval Office, having been invited for a “Hillary Dillary Dalliance”..
Maybe that’s what its about with ‘Mrs Clinton’, huh?…
Hey this is silly season and it has been raw emotions..”Raw…Raw…Raw!”, if nothing else by the press swooning the Goldwater Girl…
My fear drives my imagination.
If she’s doing it…ahem…she’ll be too busy to be doing it overseas to somebody else..
Time for a gold water splash…Opps! “cold”…haha…
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, or CBC, is a government much financed media hornswoggle. At one time, being publicly owned , one might hope to see some occasional balance. No more.
Whatever is pronounced truth by the USA major press/media, our CBC grabs, magnifies and rebroadcasts.
CBC is a major sickness in Canadian broadcasting .
Meaning, while it pretends to support the suffering “common” man, it actually in fact is a shill for elitists, the establishment, and corporate power of every kind.
Exactly the same with Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC, a publicly “owned” that is tax paid broadcaster, pure regime servant and straightforward liar. It purged all alternative opinions over the past few government downsizings. Only Australia has an even worse pure propaganda outlet, one called Special Broadcasting Service SBS, officially Australia’s multicultural and multilingual broadcaster. This one is pure Blairite propaganda pumped out of London, combined with progressive and culture content, that is targeted at left-leaning intellectuals and globalists. Selling the concept of one globalised World under Anglo-Zionist management.
Google this name, Timothy Bancroft Hinchey. This man has a lot of interesting things to say about a lot of things, be sure to read what he has to say about Tony Abbot. He also gets good and bad reviews from the Jewish press. Although, he writes for Pravda he is a strong advocate for LGBT rights. Wait, Russia LGBT rights ???? What! Read his open letter to the next U.S. President, and at the end of his letter be sure to read his bio.
http://www.pravdareport.com/opinion/columnists/19-08-2016/135391-open_letter_president-0/
Here is what Hinchey had to say to Abbot.
http://www.pravdareport.com/opinion/columnists/14-10-2014/128794-shirt_front_bonker-0/
A scarily funny fact was that Abbott was preparing for a military intervention in Eastern Ukraine. For about three or four weeks the Australian military was put on a war preparation footing, which should have happened together with the Dutch ground forces and German airforce, with full support of NATO. But Germany pulled out first, then the Dutch and Abbott was left with no partners in the war crime of aggression.
This anecdote was revealed by the son in law of the character who deposed Abbott in the intra-party squabble and became the new Prime Minister of Australia. The son in law is an officer of the Australian military.
When Hinchey wrote this article, nobody had any idea of this idiotic plan by Abbott, everybody was just laughing at the shirt-fronting comment as colourful Australian English.
Great read Jo, thanks. Here is my favorite sentence:
“Under Saddam Hussein, most Iraqis had bread to put on the table. Under Gaddafi, most Libyans lived in peace and relative prosperity. Whether or not they were despots is not up to the United States of America to decide.”
Attention talking heads……Do you love freedom ? Contact your Reps. to kill the “Stand for Ukraine Act” The language of the bill restricts future presidents from friendly negotiations with Russia…..written by Eliot Engel (NY Zionist Jew) and Adam Kinzinger (NY Christian Zionist)….and as a side note the end of capitalism is
upon us brought on by
Inflation
Stagnation
Catastrophic Debt……and they will achieve this without firing a single shot……
Wow, talk about mean and wrong headed, this is it….
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5094
How would America feel if Russia were to not recognize Alaska? Sadly, I think many Americans are clueless to the Crimeans voting to rejoin Russia. The MSM and our politicians always refer to this event as being a Putin aggressive invasion, and the American public buys this baloney without question. I would suggest America install a Truth Ministry, but that would certainly get corrupted in the present governmental climate we are in at this moment.
I think the “objectivity” criterion is a road going nowhere.. Everyone has a bias, and I don’t mean it in the pejorative sense, since we all come from different places and are at different stages of the “journey” that we are all taking. Anyone can play that game. For there to be true objectivity one would have to assume a universal position from which everyone viewed the world. Consortium news has a bias, which I (Who am I?) happen to like and approve of, but Joe Blow (Who is he?) may not. In the end, it’s subjective, which is the last thing that we all want to admit, but that’s the truth.
There are other criteria with which to judge, i.e. knowledge and experience or their opposites just plain ignorance or inexperience. Of course, these are, in reality, subjective, as I’ve mentioned. For example, in the particular area that is under discussion, foreign affairs, there is just simply a very clear line between the wisdom that comes off the pen of a world resident and the drivel (Ignorance) of a jet-stop journalist. There is no way that the latter type is going to say anything sensible to those with experience. Objectivity is just not an issue. They just don’t know what they are talking about, even though there are going to be many who are responsive to their message.
There is nothing very nuanced about outright dishonesty or pandering for career purposes, which we seem to be talking about here, but the truth is that the guilty parties probably don’t know that they are guilty. They are just being their subjective selves like everyone else.
You are quite right that everyone carries a certain bias and one persons bias may not be another’s.
Which is fine.
There is , however, a distinction between bias and fraud.
I consider Mr Parry’s journalism exceptional because its bias is toward seeking the truth for its readers.
Many are drawn to Consortium News because they don’t want to waste time reading a lot of baloney.
I know I am drawn to Consortium News for precisely this reason.
I recall , very well, when the Ghouta sarin gas attack was being attributed to Assad “.
it seemed so profoundly counter intuitive for Assad to choose to initiate the use of chemical weapons, knowing full well, before hand, this was the singular action which might elicit the full force reaction of the most powerful Military on the planet.
Why would any leader do that ? How could any leader who carried such a decisive edge at that point in conflict, seek to jeopardize it so recklessly ?
It made no sense to me ,whatsoever, and sure enough,it seemed fishy to Mr. Parry, too.
But with Mr. Parry’s journalism, “fishy” doesn’t mean it isn’t true, so he fleshed out the story to find out the facts and BINGO !….he hit the bulls eye on the trajectory path of the chemical weapon as irrefutable proof the attack could not have come from the Syrian army ‘s location at the time.
Fantastic journalism.
And the truth about Mr. Parry, is if the trajectory path had pointed to Assad, he would have said so ,too.
Absolutely!
The point being the” bias” he displays is always toward getting his readers the TRUTH of the facts of events, so we can see clearly what reality is, which is exactly what all true journalism is supposed to do.
This is in diametrical opposition to our MSM, where all news is a construct formed around the agenda.
Which is sickening both in its utter contempt for those it speaks to, and wholly manipulative in its willingness to defraud us.
If you want the facts of events,where the only “agenda” is getting them to you, Mr Parry and Consortium News are an absolute must.
Thank you(again) Mr. Parry for having the integrity to your craft that you do.
Truly exemplary !
Enels,
Your down home approach roped me in, and the points you’ve made are pregnant with reality’s children.
Enels — “He will have been one part of a genius Pincher Move- stalking horse play.”
The pincer movement, or double envelopment, is a military maneuver in which forces simultaneously attack both flanks (sides) of an enemy formation.
The name comes from visualizing the action as the split attacking forces “pinching” the enemy.
( jurisprudence, force and politics )
( courts, police/military and ‘voting’ )
They got a gubment to run heah… ! dat means dey gota lots a stuff to keepem busy.
Elections are a great way to cycle money into the media coffers, but a huge waste of time and energy, so, just let be a circus like it’s sposed to be, and concentrate the real energies on getting the ducks all in a row when Bill returns to the helm. at wife’s side.
No FDR him!, but he slicks a third term outta the deal, who’s really paying attention anymore?
They got all the want to bees lining up to take a slot in the new cabinet etc. etc. there’s a lot of serious jockying for position in the up coming spoils system, which is where the real action is.
As far as Trump goes, he is moving right along according to plan, like Bernie did what he was supposed to do. Bernie delivered up a bunch of idealists and naifs from the left field, and Poof… he disappeared
Trump has the Righty field rounded up, but the difference is, Trump can’t repeat that kind of thing, he can’t be a Quitter like that, or his people will go apeshit. There’s a different culture on the right, like you don’t just run off or stop fighting, that’s against military rules. Unpatriotic, and Cowardly!
Trump must be seen to have been pushed off the stage against his will, then that works, He will have achieved his purpose, within the system, (he called it rigged didn’t he?).
He will have been one part of a genius Pincher Move- stalking horse play.
They got too much to think about for this democracy bs to get in the way.
The huge media bias is in favor of Hillary no matter what. The media is even ignoring that Hillary rigged and stole democracy.
(click here may not work but copying and pasting a site does work)
I wish the media would focus on the fact Hillary rigged and stole the Democratic nomination for President instead of totally ignoring it. I was a staunch supporter of Bernie, not a Trump supporter, but what is the point of having campaigns or who else is running if Hillary is just going to coronate herself.
Election fraud resource list:
1 – Stanford University Confirms Election Fraud – full report. click here
2 – Election Justice USA – Full report. An Electoral System in Crisis http://www.electoralsystemincrisis.org/
3 – Arizona Secretary of State Confirms Election Fraud click here
4 – Summary of Election Fraud in several state primaries. click here
5 – Committing Election Fraud in Iowa click here
6 – Election Fraud in the Massachusetts Primary click here
7 – Election Fraud in the NY Primary click here
8 – Election Fraud in the Michigan Primary click here
9 – Redacted Tonight: (video) Details of NY Primary Fraud click here
10- Redacted Tonight Interview (video) – click here The Democratic Presidential candidate you’ve never heard of, Rocky De La Funte Explains how the fraud was executed – and how he watched 900,000 votes disappear from the totals.
11 – Redacted Tonight: A Second Stanford University Study Shows Deeper Fraud – (video) click here Major voting machine companies actually donated heavily to the Clinton Foundation AND produced non-verifiable electronic voting results that drastically favored Hillary in an absurd contrast to 337 pre-election polls. video at RT.
12 -Redacted Tonight: Bernie Actually Won. video at RT. click here
13 – Finally: The Eruption of the Clinton Foundation Scandal click here
14 – Election Fraud in the 2016 Democratic Primaries – Just Doing the Math highbinder.org/election-fraud-2016/
15 – Phony Coin Tosses at the Iowa Caucuses http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmkFYuUf6kY and
16 – Redacted Tonight (video) – Interview with Bob Fitrakis and Cliff Arnebeck, exit polling experts say they have proof of election fraud that benefited Clinton. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibK4de85IKw
17 – It’s not just Arizona: Election Shenanigans have defined the Democratic Primary – and benefit Hillary Clinton click here
18 – CA Election Update – Links to Resources. Day 24 After the Election Greg Palast – List of Election Justice Resource Links click here
*****
The Election Fraud Resource List – How They Stole it from Bernie | OpEdNew
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Election-Fraud-Resourc-by-lila-york-Election-Fraud_Election-Litigation_Fraud_Fraud-160818-552.html
W.R. Knight, if it happens, which is unlikely, it was not be design. Kinda funny. Will make it even more hysterical about Trump. As to Trump as a President, what he would do is an unknowable, kind of a takeoff on Rumsfeld as his known unknowns. On foreign policy, he could be worse that the continuation of the policies that Hillary supports, but I don’t see how.
Try to imagine a scenario where Trump and Putin meet and shake hands and declare the Cold War is over.
Donald: “What do you say, Vlad. Why don’t we stop all this foolishness?”
Vlad: “Good idea.”
Donald: “What do we do now?”
Vlad: “How about dinner?”
WHAT IS ABSENT….
What is left out of the excellent analysis above are the faults of
Hillary Clinton. These frightening facts (only alluded to
above) have been covered in depth by many previous
columns in Consortiumn and in particular by Robert Parry.
Instead of re-stated what has been said before, some of those
articles should have been referenced.
I TOLD YOU SO!
As the Democratic campaign has shaped up has been precisely
as I predicted in past comments. Hillary Clinton wants to run
not on her record. In fact as far away from it as possible.
What she and her campaign advisors dream of and with the
mainstream media’s cooperationhave obtained is a “villain” who will
attack each and every traditional minority group which
has in years past made up the bulk of Democratic vote.
This “villain” has been found in Donald Trump. Trump’s stated
racism emphasized and re-emphasized by the “balanced” media “experts”.
I am waiting for Hillary to join in a #Black Lives Matter
protest or two and in some protests against attacks
against Muslims here and abroad. Of course, that
would be inconceivable from, her campagn’s point of
view.Too much campaign money would be lost.
But haven’t Democratic candidates marched with
labor on strike in the past?
Instead we get lectures on how everyone should
not be angry and get together for the long term
and so on and so forth. While people in the
US and in Palestine are being murdered and
dispossessed in the short term
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Thanks to President Obama, America is still the greatest Country in the World. Check the other parts of the World. People are really hurting, thanks in part to their government. Americans, we are so blessed. But, we are spoiled. We want more, more and more. The wealthy want even more. Wake up people. Look around and extend a hand across the neighborhood. Most importantly, look in the mirror and hopefully see someone God had in mind when he made mankind.
Yes, people overseas are hurting alright. Double tap drone strikes hurt. Of course, we don’t get the coverage on our lapdog news media here in the exceptional nation. Thank God, your Nobel Peace Prize winning Obomber’s term is almost up.
The bad news of course being that Killary is chomping at the bit to pull the trigger once coronated and installed.
Thank you Mr Parry for describing how the media controls work in the West. What you describe about US journalism applies in all Western countries. This method of control existed always, but in the past the media organizations had one or two counter-opinion journalist who were allowed freedom to be the official opposition and thus show how the media reporting is balanced. It appears that the role of the official (permitted) opposition has disappeared when the Internet took over the more intelligent part of audience. Since then the MSM have turned mono-opinionated, essentially pure propaganda organs of the state. Now only the alternative media present the opposite points of view, but most are not “official” opposition. Without the “official” opposition and having to counter the alternative media, the MSM have gone extremely pro-regime and do not even try to keep the minimum of objectivity as they used to. Outright blatant lies are now the norm at NYT, for example when the recent editorial stated that the Ecuadorian Embassy has finally permitted the Swedish prosecutor Ny to interview Assange inside the embassy, something that this embassy has been offering publicly and persistently for four years. As I wrote before, it is worth consuming MSM only to laugh at the blatancy of their lies, the same feeling as when a salesperson is lying to your face about something that you know more about than he/she does.
Excellent points Kiza. There used to be something called the Fairness Doctrine that was more or less abided by. Congress attempted to codify it into law in 1987, but did not override Reagan’s veto. It was felt by some as an unnecessarily onerous regulation that had become outdated due to the expansion of media outlets…supposedly plenty of room now for diverse opinions, right? Of course that view perhaps didn’t anticipate the media consolidation that has occurred since Clinton’s Telecommunications Act of 1996. Worse still, propaganda directed at American citizens n the U.S. was legalized in 2013. The very thing that Americans would point to in criticism of the Soviet Union is now part of Americana.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34789-democracy-in-peril-twenty-years-of-media-consolidation-under-the-telecommunications-act
http://www.activistpost.com/2016/08/yes-us-government-propaganda-use-american-citizens-officially-legal-now.html
Gone are the days of America having a vibrant left wing, or a responsible news media, and with it all anything of value when it comes to maintaining a decent level of human civil liberties. Our news hour has been replaced with news shows, and all critical thought has been crushed by panels, upon panels of silly paid special interest pundits who supply the naive public with meaningless talking points to get you through the day. Rational debate has been pushed aside by mean and nasty comments, and name calling, which separates more than brings one to any sensible conclusion. It’s all a planned set up. A set up to allow the controllers to more easily move us all to where they should wish us to be. Trump makes a valid point when he states how our elections are rigged, and even when Hillary gets caught with her hand in a primary deception which should be considered criminal, the majority of the viewing public attack the messenger instead. The latest trend is to attack all things Russian and most definitely all things Putin. With an American populace who has no fear of serving in the armed forces there is no reason to question any of this, and Putin is a macho creep, end of story. I guess our colleges didn’t teach critical thinking, and with that we all lose. There’s more despair over Caitlyn Jenner having her show canceled than there is concern over NATO moving nukes into Poland and Romania, and life goes on. The question is, will America come to deeply regret these ignorant passive times, and will we recognize who and what really brought us here? Probably not, because nothing is our fault and we are the exceptional ones indeed.
Hello Jo, the MSM spend a lot of resources to demonise someone, for example Vladimir Putin. Once this has been achieved, it is much easier to demonise a secondary target such as Trump through guilt-by-association. Once the bridge is established between the old target and the new target, they can demonize two for the price of one. For example, even though Trump used in one of his ads both Putin and ISIS side-by-side as two ENEMIES that the elected POTUS will have to face whilst Hillary is barking like a dog, this got shoved down the memory hole and they used his words that he was willing to negotiate with Putin to create the demonization bridge. Obviously, Trump does not consider Putin a friend of the US then an opponent that the POTUS will have to negotiate with. Contrary to this, Hillary calls Putin another Hitler, a great way to start negotiations. US rules, it does not negotiate, even with someone who could turn it into a glass parking lot.
Most propaganda relies on brief and low attention (forgetfulness) of the audience and ceaseless repetition of the same meme.
they likewise demonized Valerie Plame, and none of them have suffered for it
Key Players in the CIA Leak Investigation
Compiled by washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, July 3, 2007;
::
On Oct. 28, 2005, a grand jury handed down a five-count indictment in the 22-month-long investigation into whether White House officials illegally leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent, in retaliation for public criticisms made by her husband, Joseph Wilson IV, about the Bush administration’s case for invading Iraq.
Washington Post reporter Dan Eggen has written an explainer of the CIA leak case and key players in the investigation are listed below.
Valerie Plame | Joseph C. Wilson IV | “Scooter” Libby | Karl Rove | George W. Bush | Richard B. Cheney | Patrick J. Fitzgerald | Reggie B. Walton | Robert D. Novak | Judith Miller | Matthew Cooper | Bob Woodward
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/plame/Plame_KeyPlayers.html
DC operates on double standards…see provided link;
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-08-19/sailor-denied-clinton-deal-gets-1-year-in-prison-for-6-photos-of-sub
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-08-19/judge-orders-clinton-to-answer-written-questions-in-e-mail-case
KIza you seeing through the media’s twofer of placing Trump and Putin in the same box is a great observation, and makes you a unique fellow for not buying into it. Another shell game the media seems to be having success with is the changing narrative of the Hillary Democrate party email scandal. I’m not sure that everyone is buying it, but the media has turned this into a Russian hacker story, and showing no shame for doing it. Even though guccifer is Romanian the media strongly suggest that he is selling his talents to the Russians. So far every article I have read about these Russian hacker allegations, has presented no verifiable evidence, nor have these articles ever produced any substantial proof whatsoever to back up these claims. Way back in 2008 I feared how another Clinton presidency would pull America further down, and now here we are.
Instead of the story being about the content of the DNC leaks, which was ignored, the press ran with the Trump is a Putin mole angle. How pathetic. A friend remarked that Wikileaks committed the offense of journalism in America, something outlets like the Huffing and Puffing Post can’t abide.
HuffPo is very confusing to pin down in regard to their liberalism. There have been some pretty great writers who have contributed their essays to HuffPo. Writers such as Majorie Cohen, Professor Michael Brener, Raplh Nader, and even Robert Parry. When it comes to their Putin bashing I seem to recall HuffPo turned anti-Putin back when Rudy Giuliani and Bill O’Reilly compared Putin to being a grand wizard chess player to Obama’s struggling to play checkers. After that HuffPo went nuts attacking Putin even more than they attacked Fox and Giuliani. Recently HuffPo demeaned Lt General Michael Flynn, who accompanied Donald Trump to a national security briefing, by labeling Fynn as being a ‘Putin Lover’ for his having appeared on RT to speak about how Obama has been lacking towards his going after ISIS. HUffPo definitely has a hands off Obama policy, and I suspect this policy will apply to the critics of Hillary Clinton.
Oddly enough, the article I’am referencing in the below link, actually quotes important information that was reported on the HuffPo site, concerning Monsanto and GMO food products. I wonder how HuffPo fans feel about Russia’s outlawing GMO food stuff. Oh, and to the fiscal conservatives who hate Vlad and his Russia, I would like to see the look on their faces if one day they should learn how all Russians pay a flat 15% tax. Knowing how their HuffPo mines work, they will probably only hate Putin that much more.
Our corporate media, along with our corporate owned government, goes to work everyday thinking of themselves, and never a thought about the welfare of the citizens of this country and the world. It’s called being selfish and arrogantly selfish at that. We don’t need as much of a government revolution, as much as we all could use a corporate demolition to return business back to being a servant to the paying public. The new generation of Americans would do well to raise their own modern version of a Trust Buster, who will break this mega corporatocracy down to it’s rightful size. Instead of us running business, business is running us, and that’s not the way it should be.
Read this, it pretty well explains what is wrong with our food and our political system;
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/07/26/monsanto-gmo-subsidies.aspx?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=facebookmercola_ranart&utm_campaign=20160819_monsanto-gmo-subsidies
Jo, it is actually much worse than we think. Here is a piece from today’s Sydney Morning Herald of Fairfax, which is a leading printed/electronic mainstream medium in Australia: http://www.smh.com.au/world/russia-may-be-moving-buk-missile-launches-back-into-eastern-ukraine-20160819-gqx6nl.html.
They are making a claim that “Russia is moving back the BUK missiles into Eastern Ukraine”, the same system that supposedly shot down MH17. I tried hard to work out which authorative source was making this claim, but attribution was impossible. The sentence of this claim was just inserted inside. The article also uses the old insinuating propaganda technique: Russia may be moving BUK missiles back into Ukraine.
As kids, we used to call such technique: a lie upon a lie upon a lie upon a lie …
Considering that 38 Australians (including some dual nationals) died in MH17 shootdown, it is hard to stomach that the authorities would allow such abuse of the truth and the victims. But I must say that I understand why the Sydney Morning Herald office had an almost military grade security when I visited it the first time about 25 years ago, that is even in the pre-war-on-terror times.
BTW, Fairfax is almost bankrupt like all the rest of the Western propaganda organs referred to as MSM. I am expecting a day when all Western MSM turn to the big and generous Government tit for survival.
I call “may be” in the Western MSM “a lie with a built-in fire exit”.
In the extremely unlikely situation that someone would challenge the journalist’s assertion containing the “may be”, that is put the journalist’s behind on fire, the individual could head for the fire exit by claiming that it was truth to the best of his/her knowledge (who would have known?).
KIza, my dear sweet Mother hated lies. She believed lying was at the foundation to all mortal sins, and she was right.
The biggest lie the Western leaders are attempting to cover over is that we are technically broke. When occasionally the truth does leak thru a little bit, then the bad economy is blamed on the lowest rung of the little people. Now, by the one per cents standard it is all imperative that the west conquer every nations natural resources, since we spend and ruined what was theirs.
If the press really viewed Trump as such a great threat, why did they give him all the free press coverage he could ask for? They gave him so much coverage he hardly had to spend any campaign funds. While they ignored Sanders, especially at the beginning of his campaign (which probably cost Sanders the nomination), they covered Trump every time he let wind from the very beginning (which probably secured Trump’s nomination). In my view, American’s can lay the blame for Trump’s nomination directly on the press. And if Trump becomes president, it will again be the press’ fault.
And if Clinton becomes president whose fault will that be?
The problem with Mr. Parry’s article is that it does not address how damaging the US media is in telling its repeated lies.
Financial, economic and militaristic powers are so extreme that if America continues its path of total collapse, then with someone like a Hillary Clinton in power, the US lies about Russia and Putin will trigger a nuclear response.
But you’d never know it by the vast majority of Illiterate Americans who do not search and find US military/foreign policy aggressions repeatedly made against Russia or China.
Nor do Americans care to learn about the hyper-rigged US financial system in maintaining its $$ hegemony and how it is being challenged by the East.
We all know the US media is a ministry of propoganda. What matters is connecting all those lies with the US geo-political, financial, military powers that are dead set on maintaining its status quo.
It’s not going to last that much longer and if Clinton is elected, she’s only going to greatly exacerbate Russian, Chinese, Turkish, and Iranian powers.
I’d suggest the readers here expand their base of knowledge by keeping up with other views and observations such as:
http://www.sputniknews.com
RT. com
PaulCraigRoberts.org
Dr. Michael Hudson
Zerohedge
Pepe Escobar -the investigative reporter who specializes in Asian and Eastern affairs
If Clinton becomes president it’s because people are basically ignorant of her record on any number of issues, and the press has given her an easy pass, as well as supporting her. Even Roger Moore clobbers Trump every chance he gets, but doesn’t put out an honest assessment of Clinton. She’s got the military, the CIA, Obama, Wall Street, the Banksters, and neocons all backing her, and they’re all backing the status quo.
Why give Trump the coverage? Shaping the political narrative. Steer the most outrageous candidate into place for their horrible Establishment candidate to face. Did anyone check the voting machines to see if they were hacked? Or, the Establishment’s “plan A candidate” (a Bush) went nowhere, so steer the madman to face the Establishment “plan B candidate” (a Clinton), while doing everything to trip up Sanders, possibly even including thinly veiled threats if he didn’t play ball with “plan B”. I think Michael Moore is right…Trump doesn’t even want the job, his ego got the better of him, so he had to trounce the “losers” arrayed against him in the primary wars. He might find an excuse to drop out, rather than be labeled a loser to Clinton…then the narrative will have to be shaped to make Trump look like a serious contender (butressed with phony pols) that just might, y’know, knock out Clinton if too many Sandernistas drift towards the Greens with the better woman candidate (the REAL Establishment threat whose votes will be hacked and flipped, possibly keeping her below 5% to deny Federal matching funds)…and on it goes ad nauseum. Don’t worry, the plan B candidate will be given a sufficient number of hackable votes to secure Establishment’s place in the sun.
Trump is a special case. I truly believe the man is crazy and has been manipulating and using the press for a year. The danger is not believing he means what he says. He’s now hired the most extreme right winger in the country, the manager of Breitbart, to run his campaign. The fact checkers said that Trump was telling the truth 25% of the time, now it will be closer to zero. I do want to know his connections to Russia. I don’t want a president in debt to Russia and I’ve read that he’s in debt to the Deutsche Bank of germany. There is also a rape case against him in New York for raping a 13 year old girl and the press won’t even report that it’s been filed. They’ve given him billions of dollars of free press which he craved. He’s gotten everything from the press he wanted and now they are starting to demand more truth and facts from him and he can’t do it.
The worst possible case is Trump telling the truth 50% of the time. If he lied 100% of the time, you could rely on the opposite of what he said. At 50%, you can’t rely on anything. It’s a crap shoot.
“And, there is no conspiracy here. It’s just that if a foreign-policy or national-security reporter wants to get access to U.S. government information, much of it classified, he or she must show a readiness to take the U.S. “side.” If not, the next time there’s a major event – say, a U.S. military strike or the preparation of a government report on a foreign crisis – your competition will get the inside-story “tick-tock” or the document “leak,” not you.”
This is a critical point, but also important is the vetting that goes on for media folks to become media stars. You have got to believe, and you will not make it there if you don’t go with the deciders. The Rather’s who became stars because they bucked the government were in fact “believers” because they were bucking very unpopular politicians and policies, and were not only safe in doing so, but became even greater stars in the process.
Mr. Parry is right on, as he is with most things, but anybody who has any influence will simply pretend that such opinions don’t exist. But don’t give up. Ever so often one of those seeds floating through the air drops to the ground and grows.
Regarding Trump, by saying he will talk to Putin makes our foreign policy establishment apoplectic. Think about it. No Cold War. No arms sales. No nuclear arms improvements. No more NATO. God in heaven, what is this crazy man up to.
Does it bother you that Ken Salazar , an oilman, who doesn’t believe in climate change, but believes in fracking, and TPP head’s Hillary’s transitional team? How can you possibly be able to distinguish fact from fiction in the type of propagandistic coverage Trump has received during his presidential campaign? As Norm Chomsky said when you have a dictatorship you hit people over the head with the “truth” but in a country like ours you need the press to control the way people think. Think Iraq war and those weapons of mass destruction, and aluminum tubes then remember how the NY Times helped the Bush/Cheney team get us into that war on a lie.
Remember;
remember how the NY Times helped the Bush/Cheney team get us into that war on a lie.
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/
Really great article J’hon Doe Il, thanks.
https://bracingviews.com/2016/08/18/hillary-and-the-earth-wreckers/
Absolutely Annie! The above link will take you to an article about Salazar. He fits right in with the company Clinton keeps. He blatantly lies, saying that “there’s not a single case where hydraulic fracking has caused an environmental problem for anyone.” And yes, he’s a TPP guy. If their lips are moving, as the saying goes…
Greg, thank you for the link on Salazar. This is probably Hillary’s way of assuring tha PTB of her loyalty. Also Greg on that link I found a response to a book review that sums up what our enlisted men must be feeling right now. For those interested see here…
https://bracingviews.com/2016/08/17/on-leave-the-costs-of-war/
Jill Stein: The real choice for first woman president.
Would if she could. You need to look at this http://www.gp.org/ballotaccess and learn the real reason the Greens don’t stand a chance. Ballot access was one of the original reasons Sanders ran as a democrat. It’s a shame but there aren’t going to be any political solutions to our troubled evolution any time soon.
We are spirits…in the material world.
Jill Stein,
Waste your vote, no problem, I voted for her last time and write at least a dozen articles. Here’s one you might like:
Don’t Tread on Us: Occupy, Jill Stein, and the Decentralization of Democracy
Thursday, 01 November 2012 13:35
By Bart Gruzalski , SpeakOut | Op-Ed
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One of the most respected TV ads of all time begins with men, shaven heads, grey clothing, expressionless, marching in unison into a theatre. Suddenly a woman, in bright colors, runs after them with a sledge hammer. Police chase this woman, visors pulled down over their faces. As the expressionless men sit dumbly and stare at the talking-head of Big Brother blabbering away about the danger of thought and the impossibility of failure, the woman throws the hammer at the screen. It explodes into a flash of light. The voiceover tells us “you will see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.” We are left to imagine that these men, enslaved by police and propaganda into forsaking their own human capacity for governance, are freed from the spell of Big Brother. The entire ad takes only 58 seconds and aired only once in January, 1984.
The book 1984 introduced us to doublespeak and to severe punishment for independent thinking. We have a doublespeak democracy “of the people” controlled by the 1%. Our ability as ordinary citizens to participate in the decisions of “our” government are nil. Obama in the past year has threatened any activist, dissenter, or critical journalist with indefinite detention without trial. Obama himself hasbroadened the tools of surveillance on Americans, approving the use of drones in the USA. The Democratic party itself significantly weakened its position on civil liberties in its 2012 platform. A person can be hauled before a Grand Jury for having anarchist literature, and three activists are currently in jail for not identifying their anarchist friends. We have reached a point where we are told we have no choice but to vote for the lesser evil of two talking-heads chosen by the Oligarchy. We do not meaningfully participate in the choice of president when we are cajoled into choosing between one of two corporate candidates. Our need as human beings to participate fully in our own governance is no longer available in the USA.
As human beings, we have a need and a desire to participate in our government. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum designates this capability for governance as part of what we need to be able to exercise to be full human beings: “being able to participate effectively in political choices that govern one’s life; having the right of political participation, protections of free speech and association.”
The public recognition of this need is one of the two great contributions of the Occupy Movement. The other is the emphasis on the every-widening income disparities in the USA that has brought “99%” and “1%” into common parlance. These two contributions are interconnected. Occupy showed us that we need an alternative to a top-down government of, by, and for the 1%. That’s why the 1% couldn’t tolerate the Occupy Movement and suppressed it brutally.
Green Party Candidate Jill Stein embraces the need for people to participate in their own government. This is the second point in her platform, immediately after the need for political reform. She calls it “political participation” and it aims to revive “direct democracy as a response to local needs and issues where all concerned citizens can discuss and decide questions that immediately affect their lives.” It rests on decentralization, so that local citizens and groups can be involved. A couple of highlights:
We support citizen involvement at all levels of the decision-making process…
We demand re-enforcement of our civil liberties of speech, assembly, association and petition. Citizens may not be denied the right to public, non-violent protest….
Jill Stein sees her campaign as an opportunity to give people “a voice in this election, everyday people, and a choice at the polls that isn’t already bought and paid for by Wall Street. My job is to put real solutions on the table that the American people are clamoring for.”
Jill Stein represents and expresses the demand that we participate fully in the political decisions that affect us. She’s not unlike the woman coming down the aisle with the sledge hammer to break us out of our mesmerization with talking-heads and the false illusion that politics as usual is perfectly alright. It’s not. We the 99% are becoming fully disenfranchised; our children and grandchildren are facing serious economic and ecological threats; the 1% has trod us into the mud. We have a duty to rise up and tell them that “it’s over”: Don’t Tread On Us.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
BART GRUZALSKI
Prof. Emeritus Bart Gruzalski’s most recent book is On Gandhi. After 9/11, Bart lectured across the country about a nonviolent solution to terrorism. Bart lives in Ireland where he writes and teaches meditation. His current online articles are published by CounterPunch and PolicyMic.
http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/12534-dont-you-want-to-tell-your-grandchildren-you-voted-against-climate-change
The Salazar thing is a key issue. While Perry is right that the media has always been in the bag for the establishment, it seems more open this year than it was, for example, in 2000. The stakes are also higher, since we can’t be sure the Clintons won’t instigate nuclear war. Threats to survival mean that desperate measures, even the election of a guy who appears to be a buffoon, may be necessary. I don’t see the Sanders element being very enthusiastic about supporting a proven war criminal. I notice that Danny Haiphong in blackagendareport republished the fact last week (also alluded to in earlier consortiumnews reports) that the harpy’s jihadis in Libya committed a mass-murder of Africans Khaddafi had settled in Sirte, Libya after their triumph. I am still hopeful that the resulting enthusiasm gap will be fatal to the harpy’s campaign.
First, I just wanted to comment, “please, spare me”. But it occurred to me that even if one item in your paragraph is true, Mr. Trump is still a more viable and trustworthy candidate, with better judgment. than Mrs. Clinton.
Amazing but true.