Here’s another case where CNN asked a focus group a question and didn’t expect the response they got…
Posts Tagged ‘Media Watch’
CNN Asks Five Republican Women If They Believe Kavanaugh; All Five Say Yes
Saturday, September 22nd, 2018LinkSwarm for September 21, 2018
Friday, September 21st, 2018And you may ask yourself how did I get here why I didn’t do any blog posts about the “bombshell” Brett Kavanaugh allegations earlier this week? Simple: They were as obviously stupid as they were predictable. Thanks to my sloth foresight, I managed to avoid writing about the mess before the Democrats’ unpopular ploy collapsed into the stinking pile of garbage it always was!
The tactics they’re now employing against Kavanaugh, while extreme, are nothing new for them. They’ve always shot from the hip and aimed for the heart, hoping to sway public opinion by means of passion rather than reason. The more convinced they are of the righteousness of their cause—call it their “higher loyalty” to the arc of history—the more antic they get, like chimps in the zoo at feeding time, moving from whingeing servility to outright viciousness the hungrier they get. Left unchecked, even the cuddliest Cheetah eventually will rip off your face.
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
The real news is that Linux, the project, adopted the “Contributor’s Covenant” code of conduct and thereby acknowledged SJW ideological supremacy. The CC is an SJW vehicle promulgated by Coraline Ada and a related group of activist malcontents. While the CC appears on the surface to be a call of civility, it’s actually the tip of a very long and exsanguatory anti-meritocracy spear, one that ultimately seeks to elevate high-verbal-IQ non-technical politics-playing San-Francisco-residing cliques of social justice advocates into positions of recognition and authority in the free software world and beyond. If you write code and you’re good at it, these people are a direct threat to your status, your hobby, and your livelihood, because if these people get their way, your technical excellence becomes secondary to their wokeness.
Also, got in hot water with upper management when I came to the defense of a coworker (unfairly) accused of 'sexual harassment'. His crime – passing out red roses on Valentine's Day. ALL of the women got them – even our 70+ yr old receptionist. This man almost lost his job.
— Miranda Mitchell (@Mashugana_Kat) December 18, 2017
The operator of a Florida-based animal sanctuary says she was the target of an Oklahoma zookeeper who was indicted last week on federal murder-for-hire charges.
Carole Baskin of Big Cat Rescue said she’s clashed in the past with Joseph Maldonado-Passage, who goes by the nickname “Joe Exotic.”
“He’s been threatening me for many, many years,” Baskin told The Oklahoman after Maldonado-Passage’s arrest last week.
Prosecutors allege that Maldonado-Passage tried to hire two separate people to kill an unnamed woman, who wasn’t harmed. One of the unidentified people he sought to hire connected him with an undercover FBI agent, who met with Maldonado-Passage in December 2017. The indictment was unsealed Friday and Maldonado-Passage remains jailed in Florida. He didn’t reply to an email seeking comment and court records don’t list an attorney for him.
Is there a mugshot? Why yes. Yes there is.
Content will also appear in a completely jumbled, totally incoherent order, even more so than before. “Something that was posted a few minutes ago you’ll probably never see, even if you try. But stuff that got posted three weeks ago, we’ll plaster your screen with it to no end.”
Twitter Suspends Bosch Fawstin
Thursday, September 13th, 2018You may remember cartoonist Bosch Fawstin, the winner of the Everybody Draw Mohammed Contest in Garland that two Islamic State jihadis tried to attack at the cost of their lives.
Dear ISIS: Welcome to #Texas. Yippee Kie Yay motherf*ckers pic.twitter.com/3rNtQ9mNaq
— USA!USA!USA!.357 (@SonofLiberty357) May 11, 2015
Well, it seems that Twitter has suspended his account. I’ve written him to see if they gave any reason but I haven’t heard back yet. Some suggested it might be his participation in the (now cancelled) Dutch Draw Muhammed contest:
Twitter and Instagram both BANNED Bosch for his participation in the (now-cancelled) Draw Muhammad contest that was to be held in Dutch Parliament later this year.
FACEBOOK appears to be suspending him back-to-back-to-back for posting screenshots of the death threats he's gotten— Nevermore💋🍺 (@QuotheTheCraven) September 12, 2018
In the meantime, you can buy his book, My Mohammed Cartoons Vol 1.
Houston Chronicle Reporter Resigns Under Suspicion of Making Quotes Up
Tuesday, September 11th, 2018Another day, another press scandal, this time in Texas:
Another Houston Chronicle journalist flagged me with questions about the accuracy of a story written by veteran Austin reporter Mike Ward. Ward joined the Chronicle in 2014 after a long career with the Austin American-Statesman. Specifically, questions were raised about whether individuals quoted in one of his stories were real people.
Our own researchers, after an initial review, had difficulty finding a number of sources cited in Ward’s most recent reports.
Ward has insisted that his work was truthful, that his work involved real people, and that we would eventually find the individuals behind his “man-on-the-street” interviews. However, given the questions this review raised, he offered to resign and I accepted that resignation last week. If we were in another business, that might be enough.
As a journalism organization, we owe the public more. We owe our readers the truth and to tell you if, in fact, there were inaccuracies in anything we published. We simply do not know the full story yet.
To help us ferret this out, we have hired an independent, highly respected journalist to review Ward’s work for the last year, or further, if necessary, and determine whether any reporting transgressions occurred. We have given that journalist full access to our archives and promised access to our editors as well. Investigative work takes time, and it can be tedious. Tracking down and verifying sources, especially across a year or more of work, requires significant legwork.
Ward frequently reported on state politics.
At least the Chronicle was kind enough to make a public statement about it.
Once again: If members of the media want to know why the public has lost faith in them, they need only look in the mirror.
Tucker Carlson on NBC’s Burgeoning Weinstein Scandal
Thursday, September 6th, 2018First came this story about NBC spiked Ronan Farrow’s story on Harvey Weinstein:
In February 2015, Farrow lost his daytime show on MSNBC and began working with NBC News’ investigative unit. In November 2016, Farrow and a producer named Rich McHugh decided they wanted to do a story about Hollywood’s “casting couch,” the longtime practice of producers and other powerful men exchanging sex with women for film roles, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. The story was timed to be released around the Academy Awards, these sources said.
They presented the idea to NBC News President Noah Oppenheim, who suggested the team look into a October 2016 tweet by actress Rose McGowan that she was raped by a Hollywood executive, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation.
Over the next several months, Farrow collected evidence that suggested Weinstein had a pattern of inappropriate behavior toward women, according to the sources and previous reporting by The Daily Beast, HuffPost, and The New York Times. Weinstein has repeatedly denied all allegations of non-consensual sex. Sources familiar with the matter previously told The Daily Beast that at least eight women accusing Weinstein had agreed to go on camera, including two alleged victims with their names and faces.
In an interview with The New York Times published Thursday night, McHugh accused “the very highest levels of NBC” of later stopping the reporting.
“There was not one single victim or witness to misconduct by Harvey Weinstein who was willing to go on the record. Not one,” the spokesperson told The Daily Beast.
By February, according to the sources, Farrow had secured an on-the-record interview with McGowan in which the actress said she had been sexually harassed by a powerful producer, though she did not name Weinstein. (McGowan subsequently named Weinstein during the NBC investigation, according to a source with knowledge of the story, but reportedly pulled her interview after being legally threatened by Weinstein, who had reached a $100,000 settlement with her in 1997 after she accused him of sexual assault.)
Farrow and McHugh also obtained a bombshell audio recording from a NYPD sting in which Weinstein admitted to groping Filipina-Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez in 2015. (The Battilana audio was subsequently published by The New Yorker.)
“The tape on its own was color, it added to an already known accusation,” an NBC spokesperson said. While it was “absolutely significant” to hear Battilana’s voice, the spokesperson said, the tape alone would not expose Weinstein as serial sexual predator, as has been alleged.
NBC’s reluctance stoked Farrow and McHugh’s concerns about NBC’s commitment to the story, the sources said. Farrow did not respond to a request for comment. Ari Wilkenfeld, McHugh’s attorney, told The Daily Beast that his client “has no comment.”
In spring 2017, according to the sources, Farrow played Oppenheim the audio of Weinstein with Battilana admitting that he was “used to” groping women’s breasts. At one point during their meeting, according to two sources, Oppenheim had asked if people still cared about Weinstein.
“That is absolutely false,” a NBC spokesperson said, “and it is clearly contradicted by the fact that Oppenheim assigned the story on Harvey Weinstein in the first place. Obviously he understood him to be and believed him to be a newsworthy figure.”
Farrow had begun to suspect that Oppenheim—who moonlighted as a Hollywood screenwriter—was potentially communicating with Weinstein directly about the story, according to the sources.
During a meeting in summer 2017, Oppenheim mentioned to Farrow that Weinstein had raised objections to Farrow’s reporting—even though Farrow had not yet asked Weinstein to comment on the allegations, according to individuals briefed on the meeting.
“Externally, I had Weinstein associates calling me repeatedly,” McHugh told the Times. “I knew that Weinstein was calling NBC executives directly. One time it even happened when we were in the room.”
Read the whole thing.
NBC news not only spiked the Weinstein story, but provided an ever-changing list of excuses why and made legal threats against Farrow.
Here’s Tucker Carlson on how NBC keeps changing their story, and how MS/NBC News honcho Chuck Todd has a lot of explaining to do:
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
LinkSwarm for August 31, 2018
Friday, August 31st, 2018Just when I think the Catholic Church can’t make itself look any worse in the wake of the burgeoning child rape scandal, they prove me wrong:
In an NBC News interview yesterday, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago insisted that it was more than acceptable for Pope Francis to refuse to discuss Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s shocking testimony, which implicates a host of Catholic Church leaders — including the pope — in covering up sexual abuse and immorality.
“The pope has a bigger agenda,” Cupich told interviewer Mary Anne Ahern when asked about the pope’s refusal to discuss Viganò’s claims. “He’s got to get on with other things, of talking about the environment and protecting migrants and carrying on the work of the Church.
“What’s a few raped children when we might be able to lower global temperatures a fraction of a degree a century from now?”
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) August 28, 2018
Humphrey would be the last Democratic presidential nominee to represent the values of Truman and JFK: compassionate big government at home, and resolute anti-Communism abroad. Instead, a new Democratic party was born, one that increasingly reflected the radical views of the Chicago protesters: that America, not Communism, was the real force for evil that needed to be contained and transformed. That Democratic party would nominate George McGovern in its 1972 convention and become a party obsessed with social justice, identity politics, and America’s past sins — essentially the party it is today. Meanwhile mainstream Democratic voters began their flight to the Republican party, “Reagan Democrats” who would enable the GOP to win four of the next five presidential elections and who later became the foot soldiers of the Trump insurgency.
(Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Judge T. S. Ellis to CNN: “Get Stuffed”
Monday, August 20th, 2018Of course I’m paraphrasing a bit:
The federal judge presiding over Paul Manafort’s trial refused to give media outlets the names of jurors Friday, saying such a move would “create a risk of harm to them.”
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis of the Eastern District of Virginia said he himself has received threats during the trial, in which he has been criticized for a tough approach toward special counsel prosecutors.
“I’ve received criticism and threats. I’d imagine they would too,” Ellis said.
“I won’t tell you the threats I’ve received,” he added, “but I’ll tell you I have the Marshals’ protection.”
Ellis’ decision, rejecting a request Ballard Spahr lawyers filed on behalf of several media organizations, came during a brief hearing Friday afternoon in an Alexandria federal courtroom. Ellis remarked that he had “no idea” about the emotions the special counsel prosecution would incite entering the trial.
Ellis also expressed concern about a chilling effect, saying a “substantial number of people would be scared, afraid” if they knew their names would be made public as part of their jury duty.
The media outlets—including The New York Times, Washington Post and CNN—filed a motion to intervene in the case earlier Friday asking Ellis to also unseal portions of sidebar transcripts, along with other sealed records in the case. The judge expressed concern that releasing some of the records would interfere with an ongoing investigation.
The original motion to reveal their names was one of the most brazen attempts at open jury manipulation in history. “Your honor, my client would like the names and addresses of all the jurors, so Seven Finger Louie can get up close and personal to remind each of them, and their families, that Mr. Gotti is a peaceful, legitimate business men, as attested by the current unbroken conditions of their kneecaps.”
Some tweets on the subject:
CNN & media are trying to make names & addresses of jury members public in a heated federal political trial. I’m sure this is because they just love those people.
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) August 17, 2018
You don’t think a jury in the midst of deliberations, where a judge has required U.S. Marshalls to protect him from death threats, would be intimidated by having @CNN publish their names and addresses? That is EXACTLY what’s happening. Luckily I don’t give you much credit at all. https://t.co/l6nFRE9g1K
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 18, 2018
To be clear, if CNN gets their names and addresses, I'll never serve on another jury. CNN Sued The Government For Names, Addresses Of Manafort Jurors https://t.co/2hzvgGwmJW
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) August 17, 2018
If you’re a juror in the Manafort trial, you’d best delete all your social media accounts NOW, before the carrion-eaters at @CNN can find them.
— Jubal E. Harshaw (@alimhaider) August 17, 2018
I see that CNN is preparing to shame the jurors if they submit any unapproved rulings https://t.co/UUu0mn2gDU
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 17, 2018
Baller move from judge: “Here’s what I’m releasing to the public: an address list…of CNN executives and Time-Warner board members.”
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) August 18, 2018
LinkSwarm for August 17, 2018
Friday, August 17th, 2018Themes for today’s LinkSwarm: Jihad, rape and China. Not necessarily in that order…
A New Mexico state judge ruled Monday that five alleged Muslim extremists accused of training children to conduct school shootings do not have to remain in jail while they await trial for child abuse.
Judge Sarah Backus released the five defendants, Siraj Wahhaj, Hujrah Wahhaj, Subhannah Wahhaj, Jany Leveille, and Lucas Morten, on a $20,000 “signature bond,” according to the Albuquerque Journal. That means that the defendants will not have to pay money unless they violate the conditions of their release
It’s a good thing there’s not a huge foreign nation immediately to the south with a porous border they can flee to…
And authorities just bulldozed the compound?
If China really had a savings rate of 46%, the economy would look quite different. There would be very little debt in the system; the banks would have a very low loans to deposits ratio and low leverage, like banks in nineteenth century Britain. Consumer debt would be almost non-existent, while the Chinese market would have an enormous variety of saving and investment schemes, to take care of all the accumulated wealth. New company formation would be very high, but “venture capital” would be very scarce, because new companies would be capitalized from the savings of the founders’ relatives and friends. Overall, China might well have a rapid growth rate, but it would be a very contented, stable economy.
A recent Financial Times examination of China’s economy illustrates the problem; it shows consumer debt almost doubling as a share of GDP, from roughly 20% to 40% in the last five years and tells pathetic stories of young, highly educated Chinese who max out their credit cards, desperately hoping to boost their earnings sufficiently to pay that debt back. But Chinese elite youths brought up in a society with a 46% savings rate would have neither the desire nor the need for heavy credit card usage. First, they would have been brought up in families with a fanatical devotion to deferring consumption, so would regard the over-indebted Western Millennial lifestyle with undiluted horror. Second, because of their families’ savings habits, such elite youths would be beneficiaries of very substantial trust funds from their relatives, and so would have no need of credit cards.
If the savings rate is fiction, then so are all China’s economic statistics. GDP is at least one third lower than claimed, to account for the missing savings, and growth rates over the last decades correspondingly lower, On the other hand, China’s foreign debt is all too real, and most of the domestic debt also appears to be solid, so China’ s gross debt, already alarmingly high at 299% of GDP according to the Institute for International Finance, is in reality about 450% of true GDP, substantially higher than that of any other country. With such a level of debt, China is not about to overtake the West, it is in imminent danger of collapse. Indeed, it is at first sight something of a mystery why it has not collapsed already under the weight of its excesses.
(Hat tip: Iain Murray at Instapundit.)
A theme that keeps recurring in histories of the worst abusers is that they were trained in seminaries that were run by homosexual men and saturated with gay-liberationist subculture. Reading accounts of students at one notorious California seminary making a Friday-night ritual of cruising gay bars, it becomes hard not to wonder if gay culture itself has not been an important enabler of priestly abuse.
Along those lines, the book Goodbye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption into the Catholic Church made this argument shortly after the original Catholic Church pedophilia scandal broke, and was promptly ignored by the media for not fitting the narrative.
I will not be subject to one of your rules and yet permit you to be free of your own rule. If it’s your rule, you shall suffer under it just the same as me.
We do not (yet) have a formal caste system in America, despite the obvious longing from the left and the NeverTrump rump to establish over-castes and under-castes.
And it’s MUH #SacredPrinciple that we shall not have a tiered system of citizenship that the leftwing establishment as well as the “right”-leaning establishment so clearly crave.
And I’ll sacrifice anyone to make sure that they do not put me in their designated under-caste.
Trump may be both more relentless and obnoxious than his predecessors, but cries of “Fake News!” from the Oval Office are old hat. Presidents always blame the messenger. Even Barack Obama, the object of so much media fawning, groused about distorted coverage.
This time, though, we are taking it personally. Striking at the bait Trump dangles. Joining the war he’s declared. Allowing him to goad us into abandoning the fundamental principles of our profession.
Donald Trump is not responsible for the eroding trust in the media. He lacks the credibility to pull that off. The damage to our standing is self-inflicted.
The independent press was built on a foundation of objectivity. Through a tradition of conscientious commitment to telling all sides of a story we convinced our readers, listeners, viewers that we were the source of fair and balanced coverage. We were equal opportunity scourges of scoundrels on both sides of the political aisle.
Now, too many of us are following the websites, cable networks and blogosphere into point-of-view journalism that presents the news with equal parts fact and opinion. We’ve infused our reports with commentary and call it context.
Journalists once kept their personal views personal, lest anyone challenge the motives behind their reporting. Now reporters post their opinions on Facebook and Twitter. They sob in newsrooms over the results of an election. News meetings and editorial boards are often indistinguishable.
Respected journalists openly question whether remaining objective in the Donald Trump era is a sell-out rather than a virtue. Some have joined the resistance movement, blending journalism with activism.
No one in our profession can say with a straight face that we cover Donald Trump the same way we have past presidents. We are not only giving him more scrutiny — rightly so — but we are making more mistakes in our haste to discredit him. Our accuracy ratings have fallen as we turn to poorly vetted anonymous sources and repeat every rumor that fits the narrative that Trump is a disaster.
Yes, Trump is an extraordinary case. Chaos is the hallmark of his governing style. His personal conduct falls well short of presidential. But his administration has had successes, and the press is not as eager to cover those as it is his failures.
Journalism seems to have turned a corner in search of some higher purpose beyond simply digging out the truth, presenting it to our readers and letting them decide what to do with it.
Nothing about Donald Trump justifies tossing aside the standards that have allowed journalists to remain the trusted eyes and ears of the people.
Yes, the rumors are true…I am considering doing a MILITANT NORMALS book signing at The Gathering of the Juggalos.#Miracles @icp @centerstreet https://t.co/TsJ4b709vd https://t.co/xJGjDNiw12
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) August 16, 2018
Twitter Randomly Banning Conservatives Yet Again
Wednesday, August 15th, 2018Twitter is up to its old tricks:
The following accounts have been 'locked' today alone:@_wintergirl93 @jtLOL @TheRickCanton @HonkyTonkJew @OrdyPackard
Lizzy was able to unlock but only with a phone number. Something is up, @TwitterSupport …
— The🐰Foo (@PolitiBunny) August 14, 2018
Wait, they locked @Shaughn_A again? What for? More Conservative Tweeting While Black?
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) August 15, 2018
What’s the deal, @TwitterSupport @biz @jack @delbius @vijaya? I was locked 4 times in 1/2 an hour last night and had to provide my ph #. Just now, these accts have all been put in lock outs with no TOS violations. @OrdyPackard @jtLOL @HonkyTonkJew @TheRickCanton
— Lizzy Lou Who🌸 (@_wintergirl93) August 14, 2018
Bullshit, Twitter. You're only suspending conservatives. https://t.co/wMbeiGVCky
— Rick Canton™ ℹ️ (@TheRickCanton) August 14, 2018
And here we go again… pic.twitter.com/vEu5R5ou7Y
— Sean Medlock (@Sean_Medlock) August 14, 2018
@OrdyPackard shows up as having a QFD ban. “QFD causes your tweets to be invisible within the latest section of the search, including hashtags, when the quality filter is turned on. Note that this quality filter is located on the search page, is turned on by default and will be reset for each search anew. It differs from the quality filter controlling your notifications. QFD was introduced on May 15, 2018 as part of Twitter’s so-called healthy conversation project.”
And Gavin McInnis was banned outright. “I think what’s really going on here is Proud Boys have been successful in protecting speakers from Antifa.”
I suggested one response:
Hey @Twitter and @Jack: Every time you block or suspend a conservative, I block an advertiser. I just blocked @Citi.
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) August 14, 2018
Sorry @Xfinity, but because @Twitter keeps blocking conservatives without reason, I have to block you now. Bye bye!
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) August 14, 2018