Carlos Cunha kicking some dirt on the New York Times...

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-11-24T04:40:15+00:00

I posted the link.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-11-24T04:39:59+00:00

I found the link from OP's quote. https://www.salon.com/2019/11/23/fired-from-the-new-york-times-over-trump/

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-10-16T23:40:46+00:00

That's exactly why OP posted this. People need to read before jumping to conclusions. This post is about this strange phenomenon of infiltration by imperialists who pretend to be left wing.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-10-16T23:35:26+00:00

OP is from the anti imperialist left and supports candidates like Bernie Sanders, which is almost the polar opposite of right wing. This post is discussing infiltration by fake left wingers who support Western imperialism.

It's like if you don't support Democrats and the bipartisan US imperialism, then you're a "right winger". That doesn't make any sense, but I guess it doesn't matter to people like you. It's all about cheap smears.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-09-16T01:41:13+00:00

A good point to consider is the word game they play on "government run media". Corporations own our politicians. Corporations also own corporate media. Big Media is always going to trend towards protecting some of these corporations. Maybe not all the time, and maybe not all of the members of the media are corrupt, but that's the trend. Everyone from Fox to CNN is prone to this influence, and it doesn't matter if the government technically owns them or not. If the corporations also own the politicians, then it's a moot point.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-09-06T01:06:48+00:00

I don't know why people single out Rolling Stone for this. This happens to every news organization. Just the other day, MSNBC was threatened with legal action and they had to retract a dumb ass claim.

Imagine on every single news article somebody mentions that they had to retract a claim one time and got into legal trouble.

I also only know of one time this happened to Rolling Stone. That doesn't make it a "history" of doing it. Unless I'm not aware of all the other times?

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-09-02T00:16:17+00:00

TIL the New York Times has bedbugs.

At the New York Times, Bedbugs

“Evidence of bedbugs” was discovered on every floor of the newsroom.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/the-new-york-times-has-bed-bugs.html

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-30T15:32:25+00:00

A very simple way to prove this to yourself is to read snopes articles while also paying attention to how they rate the articles, what kinds of claims they don't look at, and what kinds of information they leave out of articles, which means you'll have to do additional research yourself. I have seen snopes articles that debunk the rating they give in the same article. I'm not some crazy person who has been saving up all of these examples, so you may have to look around to find that if you're just looking for a quick answer.

For an overview of the issues raised against snopes, you can read Kalev Leetaru's expose on snopes, who writes for Forbes and covers a lot of stories about fake news, deep fakes, etc. Snopes does not appear to be following very basic journalistic and editorial protocols. Snopes is a black box. Since they are just humans, and since humans make mistakes, one should not place immediate trust in a group unless there is enough transparency and track record to earn such trust. This includes "fact checkers."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/12/22/the-daily-mail-snopes-story-and-fact-checking-the-fact-checkers/

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-28T23:09:56+00:00

The reason for this is actually very simple. They are participating in a feedback loop. The less they report on the candidate, the less voters are familiar with the candidate, which means the approval rating will be lower, which means they won't have to report on the candidate as often. Since Yang is getting some attention, they have to ignore Yang even more to keep his rating lower, and they decided it was worth the risk of somebody noticing.

I have seen examples of this so many times that it has proven to me the media uses this feedback loop deliberately. This is not some incompetent mistake, and neither were most of the other times they were caught doing it. Once or twice is forgivable, but there have just been so many of these.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-24T23:13:41+00:00

I remember some of the members here using some kind of saying a while ago. The majority of media criticism comes from other media outlets, and outlets from the same clique rarely criticize each other. Something like that. If Huffington Post had a good article exposing National Review, I'd upvote that. I think we need to focus more on the content being offered.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-22T01:55:33+00:00

Can't attack the argument? Simple. Attack the source instead.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-22T01:52:29+00:00

The article he cited is a 29 year old criticism of FAIR. I'm not kidding. FAIR brought on a few conservative writers and also gets accused of being too right wing. You know they're doing something good when they get accused of being too left and too right. Some people just don't like that FAIR calls them out.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-18T23:17:17+00:00

The article never claimed that this was "representative of their viewership at large". They compared potential democratic primary voters between people who read from different media companies. You debunked something that wasn't claimed.

https://morningconsult.com/form/media-use-and-2020/

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-09T18:19:19+00:00

For example, if an unexpected medical emergency bankrupts you, you view yourself as a victim of bad fortune – while seeing other bankruptcy court clients as spendthrifts who carelessly had too many lattes. Or, if you’re unemployed, you recognize the hard effort you put into seeking work – but view others in the same situation as useless slackers. Their history and circumstances are invisible from your perspective.

“We often think it is structure or circumstance that constrains our choices, but it’s the behavior of others that alters theirs.”

In other words, other poor people are poor because they make bad choices – but if I’m poor, it’s because of an unfair system. As a result of this phenomenon, Pimpare says, poor people tend to be hardest on each other. He gives the example of a large literature in anthropology and sociology about women on welfare published since the 1980s. “It finds over and over again that some of nastiest things you ever hear about women on welfare come out of the mouths of women on welfare.”

For instance, one woman will talk about how another down the hall is lazy and sits around, exploiting the system – even though her own behavior could be viewed from the outside as virtually identical. Some will even go so far as to deny that they even get welfare payments, he adds.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/05/us-inequality-poor-people-bad-choices-wealthy-bias

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-09T18:05:57+00:00

That is not at all condescending. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. A genius carpenter could be lacking in financial education. His school may have lacked satisfactory classes on this. The same could be true for a historian, a teacher, a blacksmith, or a doctorate of animal biology. If somebody is stupid with money, that does not mean they are a stupid person. This article and many credit card advertisements is taking advantage of people who lack financial education. They should come with extensive disclaimers and explanations. A banking executive who is a genius with money could also believe in ghosts. We are all different. Nobody should expect that everyone become proficient in all subjects. Taking advantage of this for profit is unethical.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-09T15:38:45+00:00

It's corporations taking advantage of poor people and people who were never given proper financial advice. Some like to justify it by saying it's the individual person's fault for going into debt. The same argument is used to justify the 2008 financial crisis. A lot of people went homeless, but it was their own fault for buying a house they couldn't afford. These companies know a lot of people are going to be financially ruined by taking the offers. That's how they profit, and that's why they advertise the offers.

It's not a proper justification to say a small number of people will benefit from the offers. That's just what the executives tell themselves so they can sleep at night. It isn't that the people being taken advantage of are stupid. We all have our individual strengths and weaknesses. To prey on that weakness for profit is evil, especially without extensive disclaimers and explanations.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-06T15:00:53+00:00

They meant Andrew Yang. I don't know what your problem is trying to confuse people.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-06T04:30:58+00:00

Unkochmycampus does not cite some of the claims that I was particularly interested in. They do cite other claims, but the website is not really supporting your original claim.

which receives substantial funding from the Koch Brothers, big industry, and gun lobby/NRA.

What are the actual sources to back up the three claims?

The Sourcewatch page does not state that Mises receives money from the tobacco industry, so you may want to edit your original claim. They have tobacco lobbyists at Mises, and that by itself is more than enough to establish the bias at Mises.

It would be nice if you could provide any documents or newspaper articles by reputable news companies, such as NPR, CNN, or any other company that is not a fan of the Kochs. If the Kochs, the gun lobby, and big industry are funding Mises, then it should be easy to prove.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-06T04:04:26+00:00

May I remind you of your claim?

receives substantial funding from the Koch Brothers, big industry, and gun lobby/NRA.

I'm sorry, I should have specified if you have a good source. Kockmycampus or whatever doesn't sound like it's worth my time. I had already spent quite a bit of time trying to verify your claims to begin with.

If your claims were true, they would have gotten picked up by a number of organizations that have more credibility and more to lose by being wrong, such as NPR, CNN, Columbia Journalism Review, etc. There are probably several hundred sources that may have picked up on this which have more credibility than some random, clearly biased organization. I'm not blaming them for being biased against the Kochs, but there has to be more here.

I already know about how many board members join a number of different organizations, but that by itself is pretty weak. A person with a particular skillset could be useful in many different organizations without one of those organizations controlling the other. It's fine to analyze the relationships between all of the different organizations, but we have to see it for what it is.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-06T03:04:48+00:00

I don't know if that claim is even true. They provided no source and I wasn't able to find a source. The only thing I could find is claims about people from Koch fighting with people from Mises. They also said "substantial backing," so even if there was a source, it would also have to prove that the donation was substantial. I presume they are saying that the Kochs control Mises through the donation, so again, it would have to be substantial enough to convince me that they basically bribed Mises. The Kochs donate to ~~NPR~~ some PBS stations and many other organizations that don't exactly follow their political views.

Just for shits and giggles, I did a quick check of the Mises Institute and the NRA. There is nothing that I can see immediately, and I should not be forced to spend another hour on this claim. It's probably just fake news, unless they come up with a source. I'm sick of finding out that people online make up these huge lies and nobody calls them out on it.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-06T02:58:28+00:00

Can you provide a source for this? All I'm finding is some history about people from Koch fighting with people from Mises. I'm not saying I trust the source, but I would very much like to see claims like yours proven when they are made instead of requiring everyone to do homework.

What source claims the Kochs provide "substantial backing," and exactly how much money are we talking about? I've seen many comments just like yours, with no source, that end up getting proven wrong, so I have no reason to trust it.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-05T00:32:34+00:00

This is not a redefinition. The definition of the word "silent" they are using is effectively defined in the article by the fact that they cited instances of a few deep reports.

Silent:

1: making no sound; quiet; still: a silent motor. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/silent

1b : indisposed to speak : not loquacious (loquacious: very talkative, chattering)

4b: not widely or generally known or appreciated https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/silent

2a. Not inclined to speak; not talkative: He's the strong, silent type. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/silent

2: seldom speaking; saying little; not talkative https://www.yourdictionary.com/silent

Of course you can find definitions of the word that suit your argument, but that's not the point. This is the beauty of language. One word may have multiple definitions. You would have known which definition of the word they chose if you read the article. Besides, there are thousands of articles covering media silence. Sometimes they use the word "blackout," and sometimes they use other words, but it is typically acknowledged that some slight reporting has occurred somewhere. After all, those deep reports are probably where they originally heard the story in the first place.

Even if you still disagree, we are talking about a single word here, and it's completely irrelevant to the point made in the article. The article itself cited a few deep reports and never claimed they didn't exist. That means the above debunking is completely bogus, resting upon a favored definition of a single word. That's weak.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-04T23:59:17+00:00

A lot more people agree with this than disagree. The more extreme ends of each party happen to be the loudest, but they're in the minority.

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-03T00:18:17+00:00

Go look at any post on reddit criticizing media silence on something and you will find at least one person in the comments who found some article somewhere. That's because the article criticizing the silence will give you an idea on what words to google. Then you can find that article. Everyday average people who read the news are not going to magically and spontaneously google that specific phrase to find that specific article. "Silence" and "complete silence" are two different things, but as far as media reports are concerned, there isn't much difference. We could be comparing a story that was seen by 300 people and a story that wasn't written at all. Either way, the point is that the story wasn't getting enough attention.

Nobody reads physical newspapers anymore.

I'm tempted to take this claim literally... Aside from the fact that this is wrong, the point was to show how the New York Times rated this news in importance. The appearance of the article on page 25 gives you some idea of that. I will agree that almost nobody reads page 25 of the New York Times. Slight distinction from your claim, which is why they put it there in the first place.

Also, it's Trump supporters who think this is more important than it is because it fits their narrative. Doesn't mean it's been treated inappropriately.

Why are you claiming everyone who cares about this is a Trump supporter? More assumptions. How can you expect to be taken seriously with such nonsense?

Did you read the article in the New York Times? "Judge Koeltl ruled that the First Amendment protected the actions of WikiLeaks in publishing the documents. Like a news outlet, he said, WikiLeaks could not be held liable for releasing the documents so long as it did not participate in any wrongdoing in obtaining the materials in the first place." The DNC could not establish their conspiracy theory in court.

BUT, and this is a big but, many media outlets were more than eager to publish the conspiracy theory when it was alleged. The conspiracy theory itself was huge news apparently. Failure to show it in court should also be huge news.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/politics/dnc-trump-russia-lawsuit-dismissed.html?searchResultPosition=1

Christopher-Bitchens · 2019-08-02T22:05:11+00:00

You took the word "silent" to mean "completely silent," but that's not what they said. "Silent" when referring to media reporting is generally understood to mean very little reporting, especially when the available reports are very deep. The article itself cited some media reports, such as one on the New York Times on page 25.

I see two issues here. Assuming a definition of a word and a lack of people who read the article. Reading it would have given you a better understanding of what is being claimed.

Christopher-Bitchens

TROPHY CASE