Create a false narrative then report on the narrative as if you had nothing to do with creating it.

[kpete]

Some mornings, I just can't. I don't have the patience to read the "news." Today, my special problem are stories that are written as though they are about someone or something but are actually about the media, the reporters writing them.

Examples include an NYT story today saying that @VP is "struggling" to define herself--when what she is struggling against is unfair coverage and false narratives about her that are perpetuated by the media itself.

We also have a WaPo story saying Americans don't believe Biden has gotten much done during his first 2 years in office. Since it's a provable fact he has gotten a historic amount done, this is actually a story about media failure written as though its about a Biden failure.

We also have multiple stories about the China balloon story impacts the president and/or US policy when a huge percentage of that story is media hype of an otherwise not terribly significant event. The formula is the same in each case.

more plus links:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1622584088115785729.html

[Oneironaut]

2. The 24/7 media just makes stories up now and uses themselves at the source. lol

It’s really pathetic. They miss the days of Trump where they could pull in big ratings because of the drama. Biden is much too boring to them.

[John1956PA]

3. Cheney did that in the Vice Presidential debate with John Edwards in 2004.

Cheney had leaked some propaganda lies to the New York Times. Then, in the debate, Cheney cited the NYT article as evidence in support of his lies.

[louis-t]

6. He did that a lot on the Sunday shows also.

[John1956PA]

8. Thank you for correcting my post. It may not have been in the debate that he did that.

My memory may have conflated events. Maybe what I am thinking about is a Sunday morning TV show interview in which Cheney used the poison-source NYT article (spawned by his very own machinations) as support for the propaganda which he planted. Al Franken was on AirAmerica at the time. Al was adept in impersonating Cheney's voice. Al reenacted Cheney speaking to an interviewer and promoting the propaganda which he had secretly planted.

[hibbing]

20. That debate

Was that the one when asked about Halliburton and the money he has made, said something about government having absolutely nothing to do with it, a flat out LIE which of course he was not challenged on and it got a cheer from the idiots in the crowd. Yeah, Halliburton doesn't make any money off taxpayers and government, yeah, okay.

Peace

[John1956PA]

28. Thank you for stating this. I think of that debate now and then.

I wish that John Edwards' advisors would have had him better prepared for the debate. In fairness to John, though, with the onslaught of lies spewing from Cheney's mouth, it would have been difficult for any opponent to find a foothold and stage a rebuttal.

However, there is one point which I think some debaters in John's position would have corralled Darth on. The point is that it was Cheney's job to oversee the counter-terrorism panel in the spring and summer of 2001. Cheney did not convene even one meeting, but he held closed-door, non-recorded meetings in the spring of 2001 with energy company executives. I think John should have landed that point in rebuttal to Cheney's accusation that John had a mediocre senate record.

[Cyrano]

4. With no election on the horizon, they've got to fill up space

Last edited Tue Feb 7, 2023, 12:25 PM - Edit history (1)

They love election time because it gives them hundreds of opportunities to cover every time a candidate says something, or cuts a fart. They get to go to coffee shops in Kansas and ask people dumb questions. They get to speculate on every "what if" imaginable. They get to cover each and every moment of the horse race.

Without elections, they pray for some crazy Republican to say something crazy. The earthquake in Turkey and Syria was a gift to them, as long as they have sufficient film to go with it. And it even gives them a chance to put up a BREAKING NEWS banner every time the death toll rises. (It's really ghoulish.) And, of course, the once or twice weekly mass shootings give them plenty of space to fill with grieving friends and relatives, the wait for the names of the dead to be released, and speculating on the shooter's motives.

Given the state of today's journalism, the biggest exception I can think of is Rachel Maddow. She always digs up a story no one else has and she might be the best investigative reporter since Woodward and Bernstein.

But overall, what we used to call "Journalism" is dead.

P.S. Forgot to mention that you really nailed it, kpete. A vibrant media is necessary for a thriving democracy. And as you've pointed out, they're failing us badly.

[treestar]

18. +1

"they tell you about the plane crash with a gleam in their eye"

I hate their excited, almost happy demeanor when something terrible happens to people.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. Glad others have noticed it and are calling them out

The characterizations of multiple polls that released recently, complete with click-bait RW trope headlines that portend the usual "doom" for Democrats, continues unabated - even after their complete 2022 election forecasting fuck-up.

Sadly some on DU fall for it too.

This OP nicely compliments another with the same observation - https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217620472

It featured this tweet -

Link to tweet

Simon Rosenberg
@SimonWDC
·
Follow
Inflation! Recession! Balloon! Fentanyl! The Border! Hunter's laptop! China! CRT! Antifa! Debt!

Our national discourse has become a never ending stream of red wavy right wing bullshit.

Media has to get better at not taking the bait, recognizing the bad faith behind it all.
8:51 AM · Feb 6, 2023

[markodochartaigh]

22. When someone shows up at your house with a hammer

and keeps hitting people in the head with it, sooner or later you figure out that he is not a carpenter. Almost all of our "news" networks are not news, they are mostly entertainment at best and reich-wing biased propaganda at worst.

[Lonestarblue]

9. That's our media today. Sadly, we no longer have the free press that Jefferson envisioned as a

truth teller and a check on government. What we have is a profit-driven press is siding with fascism and not democracy.

[gratuitous]

10. It happened again over the weekend

chucktodd had Secretary Buttigieg on to chat, and Buttigieg had a nice rundown of all the accomplishments of the Biden administration. chucktodd grudgingly agreed that those accomplishments were indeed accomplishments, but why wasn't the administration getting any benefit from those accomplishments. Buttigieg, a far finer person than me, stated that he was confident the American people were noticing things like infrastructure spending and better jobs at higher pay. chucktodd again retreated to his safe haven to note that in the circles he runs in, nobody's talking about the Biden administration's record.

Me? I would have reached across the desk, smacked that stupid goatee off his insipid face, and told him in no uncertain terms and at greatly increased volume that reporting the news was supposed to be his job.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

25. Meanwhile a sunny State is demonstrably turning full fascist and the national media takes no

notice…almost like they don’t want to report on that at all?!

[Duppers]

11. It seems the NYT is just trying to compete with Fox News.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

26. No, that's bit extreme, they just are employing some dense people to cover so many things.

Fox is full on fascist propaganda for dense people. I see a big difference.

[KS Toronado]

12. One "false narrative"

everyone is calling it a "Spy Balloon", meanwhile we have engineers trying to piece it back together so they can
make the decision exactly what it was. But weather balloon doesn't sound threatening or frightening.

[momta]

13. I was getting so frustrated yesterday.

Even Nicolle Wallace, whom I love, was saying (and I'm paraphrasing), "Why is there so much interest in this balloon story? Why are the American people paying so much attention to the Chinese balloon?"

I was yelling at my radio, "Because of YOU!"

[CaptainTruth]

14. "this is actually a story about media failure written as though its about a Biden failure"

That's a very astute observation. I'll add that it's also a story about messaging failure. I believe that if the media was being bombarded with effective messaging highlighting Biden's accomplishments they would report on them.

It seems like we keep expecting the media to do our job for us. We keep expecting them to figure out our messages on their own. I hate to break the bad news, but they won't. The only way they will report our messages is if we bombard the media with them.

That won't be easy, we don't have a huge propaganda network like the right (Fox etc), but that's no excuse for not trying. We can do a lot better, & we should.

[markodochartaigh]

23. And when we see an article

with some negative take on the Democratic party or candidates, don't take the bait, don't click on it. And if we seen something good about the Democratic party or candidates, click on it, scroll, read or skim it. And if we see another article that is similar or the same, click on it too. Let our media oligarchs know that if they want our eyes they will only get them when they report true, good things about Democrats, not lies or untrue bad things about Democrats.

[hay rick]

15. We are watching the development of a Pavlovian electorate.

This would not be possible without complicit media, yet here we are.

[dlk]

16. Blame women first...

When women are being undermined by institutionalized sexism, of course, it’s their fault.

[IronLionZion]

17. There was a time when news was just news

no opinions, no speculation, no talking heads spewing complete nonsense

[Stainless]

19. Blatant Gaslighting

Most people are too poorly informed to even comprehend how they are being misinformed, manipulated and lied to by most media sources.

[maxrandb]

21. It's the literary equivalent of mutual masturbation. NT

[peggysue2]

24. This is so true, kpete

So many of these stories are driven by the press, hyped and repeated endlessly as if journalism were simply an act of agitating readers, creating firestorms for idle amusement, stirring things up and then doing it all over again (wash, rinse and spin). The press is competing with the likes of Fox News, pure horseshit punditry, so too many reporters and editors tweak, put an edge on subject matter/headlines in much the same way Tucker Carlson will shrug and say,"I'm just asking questions" after a hyper-inflammatory spin on the topic du jour.

We're living in the Age of Performance Art and even journalism has been tainted by the need of See Me, See Me antics to feed the revenue monster and burnish egos.

Earlier this week I saw an article dedicated to explaining how the astounding jobs report and inflation reduction stats were bad for Biden.

Sometimes good news is just good news.

Journalism too frequently has tweaked its own mission from 'inform the public' to 'entertain the public,' be it through cynicism, hype or laziness.

In doing so, it fails us all. And it fails itself.

[Mblaze]

27. Why would anyone

Need to “define themselves” unless it’s to create a vapid social media meme? Being above the shit swamp is a plus, not a minus.