Guest Post by The Zman
Back in the 80’s, one of the more irritating things about following politics was watching stupid Republicans walk onto liberal news programs and get ambushed. It was if they were just made aware of the fact that the Left never plays fair. It was not just Republican politicians. Conservative chatters would also fall into these traps. It was very frustrating until I figured out that it was all a show. The “conservative” was hired to play a role in the drama. George Will, in private, thought you people were gross and disgusting.
This model persisted through the 90’s and it was only when Fox News came on-line did we see some fair treatment of people outside the Progressive orbit. Even there, the obsession with being fair often resulted in being stupid. Exactly no one gives a crap what Juan Williams has to say about anything. Yet, FNC felt they needed to decorate the set with him. Even so, it was just one outlet among many so the prevailing model was a Progressive gang-up on anyone not professing the One True Faith.
What made it most infuriating is that so-called conservatives would go on moonbat networks and do taped shows. The producers would then cut up the recording to make the conservative sound nutty or unresponsive. When confronted, the so-called conservative would admit to knowing it was a setup, but they would say they did it to try and change minds. In reality they were just taking the check. The boys and girls from Official Conservatism™ on the payroll of PBS and CNN were taking a dive on purpose so they could get paid.
It’s why the Tea Party was doomed from the start. When guys like Dick Army got involved, you knew it as a con. More important, the organizers were clawing each other’s eyes out trying to get on TV. These were not people motivated by a cause. They were motivated by the desire to be famous and hang around green rooms with the Lefties they saw on television. Those are people easy to corrupt so it was just a matter of when, not if, they sold out their people, which most promptly did for short money.
What has always been encouraging about Trump is he seems to get this. He has done almost no taped interviews and he avoided private interviews with news sites like the NYTimes and Washington Post. In the former case, he knew they would edit the hell out of his interview because he saw it first hand doing his TV shows. In the latter case, he knew these people were not honest. They lie on spec and giving them a private interview would only enable them make up fake news about Trump.
Trump’s live events were big enough to require coverage, but he put the media in pens so they could not pretend to be talking to Nazis and Klansmen in the crowd. The only thing they could do was show the video and moan about it. You also note that Trump uses lots of hand gestures when speaking. He never used to do this, but I suspect he started doing it because it makes editing impossible. As you can see in this Breitbart story, editing is now the main tool of the media.
National Public Radio ombudsman/public editor Elizabeth Jensen has recommended that the taxpayer-funded radio news service bar future live interviews of conservatives who may have controversial views, following an interview Nov. 16 with Breitbart News’ Joel B. Pollak.
Pollak, who serves as Breitbart’s Senior Editor-at-Large and In-house Counsel, defended its Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon from false and defamatory claims of antisemitism and “white nationalism.” He also turned the tables, pointing out that NPR has “racist programming,” including a story that called the 2016 election results “nostalgia for a whiter America.”
NPR listeners were apparently outraged that anyone from Breitbart News had been given an opportunity to defend the website and its chairman.
In her response, “Listeners: Two Recent Interviews Are ‘Normalizing Hate Speech’,” Jensen concluded that the live format had allowed Pollak to get the better of host Steve Inskeep.
She suggested that future interviews be taped: “In addition, in my opinion, these interviews should not be done live. Inskeep is an excellent live interviewer, but live interviews are difficult, especially when there is limited time. A little contextualizing never hurts.”
In other words, live interview make it hard to fake the interview. In the Reagan years, the press complained that Reagan sat for few taped interviews and he preferred giving speeches to be covered live. Trump seems to have learned this and taken it to another level with the use of social media. What he was able to do is keep the media on the wrong foot, always playing defense, even when they thought they had him, like with the fake bimbo stories. By being unpredictable, he was impossible to script.
It’s a good lesson for the Dissidents doing interviews on Lefty media. Avoid anything that is taped and only do live interviews. Supporting media that supports you has a corollary. Don’t support media that is at war with you. If you are at an event, just ignore the people with cameras and microphones. When you see people claiming to be prominent members of the alt-right, for example, begging to be on CNN or FNC, it is a safe bet that they are just in it for the money and you would be wise to tune them out and drop them from your rotation.
Media lies and fabrications have been going on ever since there were “journalists” (I use that term loosely).
From “Remember the Maine” in the Spanish-American war (actually a powder magazine explosion–not an attack) to walter duranty’s extolling the “virtues” of communism while one of the greatest “artificially-engineered (by communists)” famines in the Ukraine” was taking place, in order to force the “collectivization” of privately-held farms, to walter cronkite outright lying about American military effectiveness during the 1968 Vietnam “Tet offensive” (in which much enemy life was lost) journalism has always been a “nasty craft”. In cronkite’s case, the North Vietnamese were ready to settle (and capitulate) until cronkite’s lies about the supposed American “defeat” were publicized. Cronkite’s lies gave the North Vietnamese new resolve, as they realized that they had the American “news media” on their side (as they later admitted). There has always been a certain sympathy for communism and totalitarianism in the so-called “mainstream media”. All one has to do is to look at the journalists fawning over Cuba’s Fidel Castro and how wonderful life is in that communist “paradise”.
Look at NBC’s rigging of GMC truck gas tanks to explode and the “doctoring” of George Zimmerman’s 911 dispatcher conversation to make him appear “racist”. Showing “young trayvon’s” picture as a 12-year-old rather than his current facebook “thug” picture is journalistic malpractice of the highest order.
Journalists HATE the internet because it exposes their “profession” for what it really is…with the internet, anyone can be a true journalist. This is why the same “mainstream media” is calling for the “licensing” and “government approval” of journalists–something that would have been unheard of (and treasonous) in previous decades…
Professional journalism is its own worst enemy…
when the NYT begins to bled even more red ink they will expect tax support. has been discussed. NPR needs to support itself as well. the days of to big to fail must end.
Celente’s making a prediction about the media for the coming year:
He may well be right if the MSM doesn’t get that tax support NPR already has.
I wouldn’t change a thing actually. Just let the media keep on doing what it’s been doing. Viewers and ratings are at historic lows. The 2016 (s)election cycle might just be their end.
Another Celente style pundit stated the powers will fund the networks
and top papers secretly if need be. The propaganda is worth so much
to them, media will not fail by being in the red. Sorry, I forgot who said
that.
BTW, checked in with NPR, (driving) and it was actually nauseating.
Worst = Terry Gross
…in the past I did listen to “car talk.”
Lately the buzz is to have “accredited” journalists do the news, and keep the “fake” news out. Obama has asked for “facts” not fake news – at least in public.
They want to turn the Internet into controlled news sources – so that inconvenient truth-telling operations like Project Veritas, Wikileaks and DCLeaks, 4chan and Reddit, Breitbart and Drudge can be silenced. Having the TRUTH about Hillary come out sank her battleship – and they are still doing their best to suppress “spirit cooking”, Podesta’s links to pederasts and deviants, and the way the MSM is a lockstep subsidiary of the DNC.
But truth has a way of getting out – and making liars into fools. End censorship! Dismantle the MSM news monopolies!
Why did the extensive and revealing posr about Podesta, sprit cooking, and the pizza connection disappear from TBP after less than 6 hours on site?
What was the post title? Sometimes when admin bumps a post to keep it visible the URL gets changed. It happened to Nickelthrowers Lost In Translation post last night. You can usually search on the post title to find it again.
Look at “Down the Rabbit Hole”, which is probably seen as a successor to the earlier post.
Update – now Reddit has banned /r/pizzagate, so maybe Reddit isn’t such a good source (anymore) for real news …