Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Tuning the Mainstream Media Out


The Gateway Pundit has the story. (via Maggie’s Farm) The liberal media has shot itself in the head. For having transformed itself into the propaganda arm of the Resistance, the media has lost its credibility. It's so bad that the New York Times has noticed. Will a mea culpa follow?

Jim Hoft writes on his site:

The New York Times admitted on Monday that no one is listening to the liberal fake news anymore.

After three years of fake news and hysteria Americans are tuning out the fake news outlets.

The liberal media did this to themselves.

As Rep. Andy Biggs said, the leftist media has cried wolf once too often. People no longer believe in news reporting because news reporters no longer believe in news reporting. They learned from their college professors that everything is propaganda, so they do not believe in facts. In this The Times has led the march. Ted Koppel said that the Times had been slanting the news. Former Times executive editor Jill Abramson has said the same thing.

It’s good that the Times has noticed. It would be better if it revised its policy and started reporting information, dispassionately and fairly.

The Times reports on the devolution of the media:

The Democrats in Congress took their case against President Trump to the public last week. But after hours of testimony, thousands of news reports and days of streaming headlines, one thing was clear: A lot of Americans weren’t listening.

The Times trots out the usual suspects:

But just when information is needed most, to many Americans it feels most elusive. The rise of social media; the proliferation of information online, including news designed to deceive; and a flood of partisan news are leading to a general exhaustion with news itself.

It is right about this point:

The loss of shared facts can be corrosive for rational discourse, as in Russia, where political leaders learned to use the online explosion far ahead of the United States.

One suspects that it will continue until it shows up on the bottom line. As of now, the first glimmerings are starting to appear.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

"The Times trots out the usual suspects:

But just when information is needed most, to many Americans it feels most elusive. The rise of social media; the proliferation of information online, including news designed to deceive; and a flood of partisan news are leading to a general exhaustion with news itself."

Information isn't needed, "valuable signal" is what is needed.... ie "signal to noise"

In discussion with a poster on another forum, he mentioned the Tech concept of a "minimal data set" as necessary for solving a problem.

The thought occured to me that old-skool journalism had WHO-WHAT-WHEN-WHERE-HOW as a foundation, and then, after, some speculation / summary about WHY...ie a "minimal data set".


"It is right about this point:

The loss of shared facts can be corrosive for rational discourse, as in Russia, where political leaders learned to use the online explosion far ahead of the United States."

What were the Russian politicians using "the online explosion" FOR? Rhetoric and propaganda??

Can someone not buy them a mirror (and a clue)?

- shoe

Anonymous said...

"The Times trots out the usual suspects:

But just when information is needed most, to many Americans it feels most elusive. The rise of social media; the proliferation of information online, including news designed to deceive; and a flood of partisan news are leading to a general exhaustion with news itself."
_________________________________

I suspect , rather than being ignorant, the Times is being coy about their knowledge of the "Information Pyramid", which can be found in many forms via a google image search.

Roughly described, the base is DATA,
the next level up is INFORMATION, the succeeding level is KNOWLEDGE, and the peak is WISDOM.

The Times condescends to dispense WISDOM, while it more regularly struggles to convey DATA and INFORMATION.

I'm not struggling under the illusion that they've a grip on either KNOWLEDGE or WISDOM.

- shoe

A-Bax said...

As Rush is fond of pointing out, the Times is lamenting the death of its control of the megaphone when citing the proliferation of alternative sources of information.

The Times, the Post, the major networks, et al. recall fondly the days when their shared worldview had a monopoly on information distribution. They rue its passing. The "fog" the NYT refers to is contrary viewpoints & inconvenient facts bubbling up from other sources, obscuring their glorious vision/version of current events.

Similarly, the GOPe has suffered from the existence of the internet. No longer do Bucklyites decide what counts as respectable conservatism. No longer can National Review banish a badthinker to the hinterlands for daring to articulate rightwingery they disapprove of. Ann Coulter, Mark Steyn, Steve Sailer, and John Derbyshire can still easily get their ideas into circulation despite the disapproval of Rich Lowry and Jonah Goldberg.

I doubt the NYT will reverse course or even make meaningful changes. They might bleat here and there, and make noises about correction. But Carlos Slim wants what he wants. Same with the Jeff Bezos Post.

UbuMaccabee said...

The NYT can burn to the ground and America would be a better place for it.

The NYT knows what happened in Ukraine, they just prefer to remain silent. They sit by and let Glenn Beck (yes, Glenn Beck) explain it to the American people while they keep repeating "debunked" and "discredited" over and over. When Glenn Beck is doing your job, what good are you at all?

The NYT has a job, but it's not what you think. Their job, and it's the same job as the WaPo: putting the imprimatur of credibility onto outright lies so they can be packaged by social media and television for world-wide consumption.

Burn, baby, burn.





Sam L. said...

The NYT IS one of "the usual suspects". The WaPoo, also. The TV networks, also. I trust NONE of them. I expect them to lie. As I have said elsewhere, I despise, detest, and distrust them.

UbuMaccabee said...

I also note how they are beginning to get "we do not appear to be listening," but can go no further. They fail to follow along to where we currently reside at "because we despise you and think you are cancer." We're not just ignoring you, NYT et al, we hate you. We left "not listening" in 2004 or so.

When I think of the NYT, I think of a deranged black man roaming through the streets of Brooklyn with a hammer screaming "white privilege must die" at the top of his lungs.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

Jim Treacher: “Modern journalism is all about deciding which facts the public shouldn’t know because they might reflect badly on Democrats.”

Democracy dies in darkness.

trigger warning said...

This "admission" by the Times is what it looks like when you pour salt on a garden slug.

Russians. I might have known. :-D

Anonymous said...

https://youtu.be/RSt9CWAgdJg

The sad part is that the NYTimes has not figured out that this, in many ways, describes the NYTimes.