Media Bias

[Brian Peacock]

Well what?

[Brian Peacock]

Edgelord Prime is angry...

Anthony Albanese has dismissed Elon Musk’s claims the Labor government was “fascist”, saying the US billionaire needed to recognise X “has a social responsibility”.

“If Mr Musk doesn’t understand that, that says more about him than it does about my government,” the Australian prime minister said on Saturday.

Musk, who owns the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, made the comments about new legislation aimed at tackling deliberate lies spread on social media, which could see social media companies fined up to 5% of their annual turnover.

Musk responded to a post on X about Australia’s measures by simply posting: “Fascists”....

Guardian

[Brian Peacock]

Edgelord Prime is angry...

Anthony Albanese has dismissed Elon Musk’s claims the Labor government was “fascist”, saying the US billionaire needed to recognise X “has a social responsibility”.

“If Mr Musk doesn’t understand that, that says more about him than it does about my government,” the Australian prime minister said on Saturday.

Musk, who owns the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, made the comments about new legislation aimed at tackling deliberate lies spread on social media, which could see social media companies fined up to 5% of their annual turnover.

Musk responded to a post on X about Australia’s measures by simply posting: “Fascists”....

Guardian

[L'Emmerdeur]

The MAGAs sneer at 'lamestream media' and that's extremely unlikely to change. Meanwhile mainstream outlets like New York Times and CNN do their best both-sidesing and bend over backwards to translate Trump's malevolent gibberish into coherent and at least quasi-reasonable statements (aka 'sanewashing'). I suppose the idea is to be 'objective' but it really comes down to futile pandering and enabling the incoherent and destructive bullshit.

'Trump lobs false attacks at Biden, Harris after Hurricane Helene, and CNN claims he's offering a "message of unity"'

In recent days, Donald Trump has lied about President Joe Biden’s offered assistance in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and Biden’s communications with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, claiming that Democrats including North Carolina’s governor are “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” Yet on September 30, a CNN correspondent claimed that Trump is “offering a message of unity” during his visit to Georgia.

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CNN correspondent Kristen Holmes reported that Trump “is clearly taking this seriously as a politician is on the ground trying to show that he is there in support of the people on the ground in Georgia.”

She also claimed that Trump is “offering a message of unity,” though she acknowledged that he has also attacked Vice President Kamala Harris for not visiting the area. (Harris and Biden have both said they will visit when doing so would not disrupt recovery efforts.)

Holmes highlighted that Trump said he was arriving with a tanker truck full of gasoline, and she noted that “if you've ever covered one of these storms, you understand that one of the first things and hardest things to come by is gasoline.”

...

Holmes did not mention Trump’s false comments from earlier on September 30 that Kemp is “having a hard time getting the president on the phone” and that Biden is being “very nonresponsive.” The same day, Kemp said that he had spoken to Biden the previous day and that he appreciates Biden’s offers of assistance.

Trump also posted on Truth Social on September 30 that the federal government and Democratic governor of North Carolina are “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.”

Trump also accused Harris of sharing a “FAKE and STAGED” photo of her receiving a briefing and said that Democrats have “left Americans to drown” and that “Americans always come last” under Biden’s administration.

[L'Emmerdeur]

The billionaire owners of both the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post have muzzled their editorial boards. In both cases the boards had drafted endorsements of Harris for president only to have the owner of the paper (Patrick Soon-Shiong owns the LA Times, Jeff Bezos owns the Post) put the kibosh on any endorsement. They're exercising their right of free speech or something.

'Legendary WaPo Editor Slams New Bosses for Refusing to Make Presidential Endorsement'

Ex-executive editor Marty Baron eviscerated The Washington Post CEO’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate this year, or any year going forward, in a break from recent precedent less than two weeks before the presidential election.


“This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty,” Baron, who shepherded the paper throughout Donald Trump’s first presidency and oversaw its adoption of the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” tagline, wrote in a post on X. “Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners). History will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”


CEO Will Lewis said in a note the move was an attempt to “provide through the newsroom non-partisan news for all Americans, and thought-provoking, reported views from our opinion team to help our readers make up their own minds.”

It came days after the Los Angeles Times’ editorial board was blocked from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris by its billionaire CEO Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, plunging the newsroom into chaos over its owner’s meddling into its editorial affairs.

...

“The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis—not from the Editorial Board itself—makes us concerned that management interfered with the work of our members in Editorial,” Post Guild leadership said in a statement. “According to our own reporters and Guild members, an endorsement for Harris was already drafted, and the decision to not to publish was made by The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos. We are already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers. This decision undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it.”

[Brian Peacock]

Hedging their bets, like the fossil and Christian extortionaires? I mean, Trump has offered to extend the tax holiday for the wealthy that's due to end in 2025.

[pErvinalia]

I must admit I have always thought newspaper endorsements to be strange. Doesn't really fit with the idea of an impartial media.

[L'Emmerdeur]

The newsroom reporters of a paper are expected to strive for objectivity. On the other hand the editorial staff of pretty much any newspaper in the US (though there are fewer and fewer of them) regularly publish opinion pieces. This includes endorsing candidates. Journalistic neutrality does not generally extend to the editorial staff.

On the other hand, while the owner of a paper is within their rights to control what the editorial staff is allowed to say, a paper being seen as merely the mouthpiece of the owner is detrimental to its reputation and trustworthiness.

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Bezos has been yanking on the reins of the Washington Post to be more conciliatory to Trump. Apparently the remaining editorial staff (several resigned when he quashed their endorsement piece) have decided that they're fine with that and with not even obliquely criticising Bezos himself.

'Why I'm quitting the Washington Post'

I’ve worked for the Washington Post since 2008 as an editorial cartoonist. I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations—and some differences—about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now.

The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump. There have been multiple articles recently about these men with lucrative government contracts and an interest in eliminating regulations making their way to Mar-a-lago. The group in the cartoon included Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook & Meta founder and CEO, Sam Altman/AI CEO, Patrick Soon-Shiong/LA Times publisher, the Walt Disney Company/ABC News, and Jeff Bezos/Washington Post owner.

While it isn’t uncommon for editorial page editors to object to visual metaphors within a cartoon if it strikes that editor as unclear or isn’t correctly conveying the message intended by the cartoonist, such editorial criticism was not the case regarding this cartoon. To be clear, there have been instances where sketches have been rejected or revisions requested, but never because of the point of view inherent in the cartoon’s commentary. That’s a game changer…and dangerous for a free press.


(rough of cartoon killed)

[L'Emmerdeur]

Will news outlets step up and tell the story? I'm not betting on it. The left-leaning/leftist ones have been braying it all along, to little effect. The ones that are owned by oligarchs and multinational corporations have already shown they're willing to kowtow in the interest of the bottom line.

'Trump coverage needs to change and here’s how'

Mainstream media coverage of Donald Trump is a disaster.

The incremental daily stories utterly fail to convey the extent of the danger he presents to the functioning of government, to national security, and to democracy itself.

Even the news analyses rarely put Trump in anywhere close to his full context.

Political journalists and their editors will tell you they don’t craft their stories that way because it could create the appearance of partisanship. That’s a garbage argument, but there’s no convincing them otherwise.

As it happens, however, there is a different framing of Trump that is even more accurate -- and explanatory -- than describing him as a fulminating would-be dictator.

It’s also completely non-partisan, because it has nothing to do with political views.

That framing is simply this: That Trump is a con artist.

He is, in the words of investigative journalist and author David Cay Johnston, “the greatest con artist in the history of the world.”

“You’ve got to stop covering him like he’s just another politician, with a different agenda,” Johnston told me recently. “He’s a criminal and a con artist. And that has to be central to everything you cover about him.”

That framing has a lot going for it: It’s easy to grasp, fully substantiated by the facts, and explains pretty much everything about Trump past, present and future. It’s the unifying theory of Donald Trump.

...

A political journalist’s obligation going forward, then, is to expose the con and chronicle the betrayals.

That’s the big story. That’s the job.

Some of his con is coming undone already, even before he takes office. By giving billionaires leading roles in his administration, he has shown that he will not rule as a populist.

In his “Person of the Year” interview with Time Magazine interview, Trump acknowledged that what was arguably his single most effective promise -- to lower grocery prices -- is no longer operative.

At an August rally in North Carolina, for instance, Trump told the crowd, “From the day I take the oath of office, we will rapidly drive prices down and make America affordable again.” He added: “You just watch. They’ll come down fast.”

But in the December interview with Time, Trump said “It's hard to bring things down once they're up. You know, it's very hard.“

That’s the first con unraveling before our eyes. It should have made for banner headlines and days of follow-up stories, but was largely buried in the mainstream press.

[Tero]

Washington Post is now gone. Bezos orders. Only NYT on the East Coast has some facts.

Online? From TragicMonkey:

Friday at 8:32 PM

I only use Reddit when I can project it from the clockwork oscillosphere onto a curtain of falling water. The whirring of the squirrel-operated treadmills provides a soothing white noise that makes the occasional arcs of lightning less surprising. It costs a thousand dollars a minute to run but it's worth it to see a new Waffle House fight video posting by "PoopingCat90210". They know a quality fight!

[Cunt]

I wonder if governments 'smearing' whorenalists is the kind of story that can show a media bias...

https://eadaily.com/en/news/2025/02/23/ ... nzalo-lira

"I didn't know this man—and I never knew him. I'm not sure that one journalist from Chile, who is half American, half Russian agent, posed such a big threat to our armed forces, so I'm not interested in it," Zelensky said, quoted by RBC — Ukraine.
Подробнее: https://eadaily.com/en/news/2025/02/23/ ... nzalo-lira

Sure looks like a lot of media would rather cover other stories...ANY other stories...Not sure if I believe that VZ didn't know. Sounds unlikely

[pErvinalia]

Cunt's back! How long till he gets suspended again?

[L'Emmerdeur]

A valuable contributor. Who else here is inclined to post Russian propaganda as promoted by the latest all-knowing Greasy Eminence?

[Brian Peacock]

Steady on. They're just asking questions.

[Cunt]

Nah, this time VZ is said to have answered. It isn't a big story when a whorenalist gets greased by 'The Democracy'.

Surely he won't have to answer to some schlub working an admin job in a foreign country.

That would be as crazy as believing he would kiss the ring of the president of the country backing his defense.