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Dennis Prager: How the Mainstream Media Operate
Townhall.com ^ | Dennis Prager

Posted on 08/23/2017 3:33:48 AM PDT by RoosterRedux

"Our leading media" are characterized by "indefensibly corrupt manipulations of language repeated incessantly."

Patrick Lawrence in The Nation, Aug. 9, 2017, on the media's reporting of the alleged collusion between Donald Trump's campaign and Russia

To understand America's crises today, one must first understand what has happened to two institutions: the university and the news media. They do not regard their mission as educating and informing but indoctrinating.

In this column, I will focus on the media. I will dissect one issue that I know extremely well: the national and local coverage of the invitation extended to me to guest-conduct the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. The concert took place last week.

I am well aware that this event is far less significant than many other issues. But every aspect of the reporting of this issue applies to virtually every issue the media cover. Therefore, understanding how The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and NPR covered my story leads to an almost-perfect understanding of how the media cover every story where the left has a vested interest.

When it comes to straight news stories -- say, an earthquake in Central America -- the news media often do their job responsibly. But when a story has a left-wing interest, the media abandon straight news reporting and take on the role of advocates.

(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: agendajournalism; bodyguardoflies; dennisprager; fakenews; leftism; mediabias; propaganda; townhall
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1 posted on 08/23/2017 3:33:48 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
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To: RoosterRedux

What the news media has become....is simply an illusion. It’s like a magic act where some elephant is moved from one side of the stage to another. After a while, the public figures out the movement trick. In this case, the news media has relatively no new tricks left to play upon....just repeat and repeat.


2 posted on 08/23/2017 3:40:11 AM PDT by pepsionice
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To: RoosterRedux

You can take the fake news media apart - by ridiculing them.

Then watch them say and write stupid things.

Its like training a dog.


3 posted on 08/23/2017 3:50:47 AM PDT by goldstategop ((In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever))
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To: RoosterRedux

Thanks for posting.


4 posted on 08/23/2017 3:52:22 AM PDT by bankwalker (Immigration without assimilation is an invasion.)
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To: RoosterRedux

All journalism today is tabloid journalism.


5 posted on 08/23/2017 4:17:30 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: circlecity

It is outright propaganda; if my local news has a story about a flooded roadway, some puppet talking head will squeeze in something about how Trump hasn’t given infrastructure money to fix it. They are fitting attacks against him into every segment, regardless of how far a stretch it is to informed people.


6 posted on 08/23/2017 4:32:40 AM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: kearnyirish2

Yep. Local news is Trump-hate too. The worst where I’m at is the CBS/Hearst affiliate. It’s embarrassing.


7 posted on 08/23/2017 4:38:15 AM PDT by jjotto ("Ya could look it up!")
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To: jjotto

They’ve even added obese black women as newscasters here in the metro NYC area; that is something new, probably to draw them as viewers. There are NO non-black women with these waistlines doing the news on any network...


8 posted on 08/23/2017 4:43:21 AM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: jjotto

The non-black females newscasters are increasingly dressed (or not dressed) like Spanish-news networks; anything to try to drum up interest in/viewers for their BS news...


9 posted on 08/23/2017 4:44:43 AM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: kearnyirish2

A brilliant piece. Should be required reading for Conservatives.


10 posted on 08/23/2017 4:49:45 AM PDT by Bookshelf
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To: Bookshelf

Bttt


11 posted on 08/23/2017 4:55:29 AM PDT by carton253 (Jesus is everything.)
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To: Bookshelf

It is spot-on when it describes pinning views or thoughts on people without ever being able to quote anything. They have been able to insinuate that Trump is racist, for example, without a single quote.


12 posted on 08/23/2017 5:00:24 AM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: kearnyirish2

Wanna see something funny? Ask a leftist to give an example of trump being a racist.


13 posted on 08/23/2017 5:09:45 AM PDT by hillarys cankles
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To: RoosterRedux

I was in college during Watergate. The pattern became that every new disclosure was cause for outrage, and no fact could be repeated too many times. They’d produce another ‘expert’ who would analyze the event then feign outrage; over and over and over. Ask most people today ‘what were Nixon’s crimes, other than the break in at the Watergate?’ They can’t answer because it was all about feelings, impressions and manufactured hysteria. There was no substance. And it’s happening again.


14 posted on 08/23/2017 5:32:59 AM PDT by Spok ("What're you going to believe-me or your own eyes?" -Marx (Groucho))
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To: hillarys cankles

It is anything but funny; I’ve done it with co-workers. First you get a puzzled look, as though the person is trying to figure out the punch line to a joke. Then you get a dismayed look as they realize you must be one of the racist millionaires who voted for Trump.

This is the intended consequence of a post-literate society, where people are looking to a few “scribes” to decipher life for them. What had started in the ghettoes has spread far and wide throughout the country, as people find critical thinking difficult, and thus turn it over to people who seem more knowledgeable (and accept their interpretations as gospel truth).


15 posted on 08/23/2017 5:54:35 AM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: RoosterRedux

Bkmrk.


16 posted on 08/23/2017 6:07:10 AM PDT by RushIsMyTeddyBear
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To: RoosterRedux; sickoflibs
Then, The New York Times decided to write a piece on the controversy.

The first question is why?

Why would the Times write about a controversy begun by a few members of a community orchestra in California?

I am quite certain that one reason was to protect the left. My original column on the issue, titled "Can a Conservative Conduct an Orchestra?" went viral. And it made the left look bad. Not only was the left trying to prevent conservatives from speaking; it was now trying to prevent a conservative from not speaking -- from just making music.

The left keeps attempting to grind their boot into our faces and we keep complaining about it...

Then the the thug arm of the Democrat Party - the press - jumps in... on the side of 'elite' totalitarians. "Are you Trumpers complaining about the boot?" "How DARE YOU."

We're going to win this one... but it gets scary sometimes.

17 posted on 08/23/2017 6:21:18 AM PDT by GOPJ (Trump stood behind Hillary for 47 seconds in a debate - now she wants an eternal pity party.)
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To: governsleastgovernsbest
Then, The New York Times decided to write a piece on the controversy.

The first question is why?

Why would the Times write about a controversy begun by a few members of a community orchestra in California?

I am quite certain that one reason was to protect the left. My original column on the issue, titled "Can a Conservative Conduct an Orchestra?" went viral. And it made the left look bad. Not only was the left trying to prevent conservatives from speaking; it was now trying to prevent a conservative from not speaking -- from just making music.

The left's grinding their boot into our faces and we keep complaining about it...

Then the the thug arm of the Democrat Party - the press - jumps in... on the side of 'elite' totalitarians. "Are you Trumpers complaining about the boot?" "How DARE YOU."

We're going to win this one... but it gets scary sometimes.

18 posted on 08/23/2017 6:22:50 AM PDT by GOPJ (Trump stood behind Hillary for 47 seconds in a debate - now she wants an eternal pity party.)
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To: circlecity
"All journalism today is tabloid journalism.

"Journalism" today isn't.

19 posted on 08/23/2017 6:23:59 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel and NRA Life Member)
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To: RoosterRedux
Journalism is bad news. That is their business, and anyone who tries to perform journalism without focusing on bad news will fail as a businessman.

Given that fact, anyone who claims that journalism is objective is equating negativity with objectivity. And I put it to you that "the conceit that negativity is objectivity” is a very serviceable definition of “cynicism.”

I do not say that everyone who falls for the con that "journalism is objective” is a cynic - at some point that would take in just about everyone:

The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
But I do say that anyone who falls for the con and is not disturbed by the reality of what journalism actually is is a cynic. Which includes all leftists.

Note, however, that cynicism toward society - journalistic cynicism - does not correspond to cynicism toward government. To the contrary,

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others. - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

indicates that skepticism toward society is the very raison d'être of government. Thus, cynicism toward society corresponds to faith in government - not cynicism towards it.

20 posted on 08/23/2017 10:18:29 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (A press can be 'associated,' or a press can be independent. Demand independent presses.)
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