Old media no longer holds truth to power

The role of the media is to be the watchdogs for the American people. Their job is to doubt everything that comes out of Washington until it's proven to be fact. They did this for many years, but no more. The media, most of it anyway, is now just an extension, a satellite, of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). If you want to find doubters, you have to check the new media, or what is often referred to as conservative media.

Today, the media is a part of the state, and by state I mean DNC party. They are liberals, and they are in bed with the Clinton's, and I say that figuratively. They are no longer suspicious or doubtful. They no longer hold truth to power.

I will give you an example. Obama released his latest unemployment numbers which show about a 5% unemployment rate. The New York Times, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, etc, all put this out as breaking news, claiming, "Economy doing great!

Now, a part of me thinks, "Yeah, this is good." But another part of me thinks, "How accurate is this unemployment number?" I mean, I shouldn't have to think this way, because what we are getting from the media is supposed to be facts. We are supposed to be getting both sides of the story. But, knowing what we now know about the modern media, we must now question the media the same as we question the government, because they are now one and the same.

So, as we check into our conservative news feeds, we learn that there are 94 working age people who have given up looking for work. These good folks are no longer counted on the unemployment roles. So, based on this figure, the unemployment rate has declined because people quit looking for work, not because they are working.

You see, the new media, so called the conservative media, is now doing what the old media, the mainstream media or traditional, used to do. The new media, a.k.a conservative media, holds truth to power. The new media is suspicious and doubtful of what comes out of Washington.

So, now armed with the news from two sources, we can see that the unemployment number is not 5%.  If you add the 5% unemployed and still looking for work with the 94 million who are unemployed and no longer looking, you get an unemployment number of about 23%.

You want to know something? The unemployment rate in 1933 was 25%. Back then there were people in soup lines, so you could see them. Today, they are watching TV on their laptops and talking to their friends on phones they received from Obama.

If you just watched CNN you wouldn't know that. If you just watched CNN, you'd think the economy was perfect. But, the American people aren't stupid. We see our friends out of work. We see ourselves not getting raises for five straight years. We see that our wages are at the bottom of the scale. We see that median wages are down from ten years ago.

We do not see this as acceptable. We do not see this as good. We do not become tolerant to it. We do not say, as they want us to, that this is just the new normal; that this is just the way it's is from now on; just the way it's going to be in the modern world. Such talk is defeatist talk. It's like saying, "We're cooked. This is the best it will ever be." I do not believe that. Most people don't believe that.

So, people in government are only watched and analyzed by the new media. That's the only place where this occurs anymore. The old media has failed us. The old media is nothing more than in bed with the government, and that should explain why you don't see anything good about Trump in the news, and Hillary Clinton is made out to be a saint.

Journalism 101: The Narative

In journalism school, we learned that the narrative sets itself, and the journalist reports about it. However, that was back in 1988. It was hard to do. In today's journalism classes, they must teach that the narrative is set by the journalist, and then they search for material to support their narrative. It's not hard to do.

A perfect example here is a story in the New York Times, May 14, 2016, "How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private."  It began on the front page and covered, I think, 11 pages in total. So they decided that Trump is setting the narrative, and they can't handle that. That's not selling papers. So Michael Barbaro and Megan Twohey, the authors of the hit piece, decided to set the narrative that Trump, in his younger years, was a womanizer who treated women poorly.

Rather than letting the news happen, they created the news. Rather than gather the evidence and report the news from the narrative as it was happening, they created the narrative  and searched for evidence to support it. They talked to as many women as they could, women who had contact in one way or another with Trump, and twisted their words. Their story made page one.

Then Trump woke up the next morning and saw the hit piece. He said, "You know what, I didn't say that. They lied about what I said."

About 20 years ago, before social media, the media would have won. The people would have no way to know who was telling the truth, so they would have just assumed the media was telling the truth. Today, however, social media has a way of finding the truth. You cannot hide behind a lie. You cannot hide behind a false narrative. And so the New York Times was busted.

Then Times has now admitted that the story was false. They were lying. They were misleading.

When asked if he was going to sue, Trump said he is currently in talks with the Times.

Maureen Callahn, in the New York Post, "Everything Today is a Lie," also from May 14, 2016, wrote how everything in the news today is a lie. This is because the media is setting the narrative. She said nothing we see in the news is real because the narrative is being set. The piece is very long because she gives many examples.

For instance, she talks about Sharron Osborne crated the narrative that her husband had an affair and had gone missing. This was all over the news, and people actually had sympathy for Sharron. Yet then the two were seen together later in the week and the whole thing was learned to be a scam. Sharon couldn't rely on her own talent, or her husband's fame, to get headlines: she had to create her own fake narrative.

She basically gave examples of how narrative has become a substitute for substance; how the narrative is set; how the narrative is spun. Substance does not sell newspapers, so the narrative has to be set to make the narrative more interesting. And a busy public doesn't have time to do fact checking.

And this type of narrative setting happens in politics too. Obamacare was passed not because the bill was a good bill full of substance, but because it was spun as a good bill. The narrative was set by the Obama administration, and this narrative was picked up by the media and reported as news. And a busy populace didn't have time to fact check.

Now, the media reported the narrative set by the Obama Administration as opposed to doing their own fact checking. They didn't want to report on the substance, because they didn't like the substance, or so we are lead to believe. They did not look into the substance of Obamacare and report on that. They did not want to report on that narrative. So they just wrote about the narrative that was set and went with it, as thought they were satellites for the White House rather than watchdogs for the people.

As noted by Rush Limbaugh:

"The only thing that was important to the media was: "Would Obama get it? Would Obama be the first ever to get national health care in America? Would Obama succeed? Will Obama get what he wants?" Not, "Is what Obama wants good? Is what Obama wants helpful? Is Obama being truthful about the details of what he wants?" None of that. The press didn't cover one syllable of that. Not one page of Obamacare. The media covered the villains: The Republicans and people like me on radio and in blogs trying to stop Obama from getting what he wants.

But they didn't report on us by telling people we were covering the substance of Obamacare. They just portrayed us as what have you: Racist, bigots, homophobes, who wanted to deny the first African-American president a signature legislative proposal. So the media -- which most people instinctively rely on to learn what things are -- doesn't tell anybody what things are anymore. All the media does, because they're all Democrats... They're all part of the Democrat agenda. All the media does is try to make sure that Obama or Clinton or whoever, get what they want."

So, you have a media claiming to be unbiased, and yet they are biased. The New York Times is a good example of that. Then you have outlets like "National Review" that only report on substance, and they struggle to stay afloat because they do not create interesting narratives, they just report on the substance of the real narratives. They ask the questions. They get to the bottom of things. They report on what people might not want to hear, "That Obamacare has no substance. That it will fail."

And they are honest and call themselves conservative. The only difference between the New York Times and National Review is the Times lies that it is bias and National Review is honest about being unbiased. Of course, if the New York Times revealed it's true liberal bias, no one would read it. So they lie. They spin the narrative. They create it. They only get to substance when republicans are trying to get their agenda passed.

You see, I was taught in journalism 101 to hunt for the real narrative and report on that. It was hard, because you had to dig. You had to go out of your way. You had to talk to people. You had to gather information and report on what you learn. And, what you learn, may not be what you expected, and it may not even be what you want. You may not agree with it. But, regardless, it was the narrative, it was the substance, and therefore it was the news.

Today, however, journalists must be taught that they are to create the narrative. Now they are taught to advance their own version of the story, spin it just the way they want. They can make bad news good, or good news bad. They can do whatever they want. And it's easy, because all they have to do is interview one or two women in Trump's lives and spin what they say as news.

Further reading:

• New York Times: How Donald Trump Behaved with Women in Private
• New York Post: Everything Today is a Lie
• Rush Limbaugh: How to Deal with the Narrative as News

We get our news from many sources

So I was discussing politics with a friend of mine recently, and he said, "All you do is listen to like minded people all day; people you agree with."  I did not respond to that, although I wanted to say, "You don't know me very well then."

It doesn't even matter what we were talking about.  Every one of my liberal friends get their views from the same places. I can honestly say that.  I'm pretty confident none of them watch Fox News or listen to Rush Limbaugh.  They have no idea what people they disagree with think, other than what the people on MSNBC say we think.  

Okay, I'll give one example.  I was debating Planned Parenthood with my cousin.  He said the attacks on Planned Parenthood are unfounded.  I said that even the founder of Planned Parenthood was opposed to abortion, and so she would be appalled that her organization is killing babies in order to sell their body parts."  

This was when my cousin said that I live in a bubble, and that all I do is listen to people I agree with.  I was actually accused of doing this by an atheist friend of mine a few months ago as well.  So it's not new that I'm accused of only reading to, and listening to, things that I agree with.  

My cousin had no clue what I was talking about.  He had never heard the story from that angle before. In the world he lives, with all the smart people he talks to, with all the media he watches and listens to, Planned Parenthood is a noble organization, the only one of its kind, that is capable of helping women. He wasn't even aware that the founder, Margaret Sanger, abhorred the idea of killing unborn babies. He was clueless to this.

Yet rather than look it up on Google, rather than find a book, rather than debating me with facts, he took the usual Saul Alinski route and attacked me.  He called me dogmatic. And I don't deny that I am dogmatic, but he was saying it to hurt me; to break my spirits.  He said that I only hang out with people that I agree with, something he had no evidence of and is not true.  Sal Alinski would be proud of him. 

Look, I don't care what my liberal friends think of me. I don't care how they decide to debate, or not debate, the issues.  I don't care if they think I'm stupid.  The fact of the matter is, they enjoy discussing politics and so do I.  So we will continue to do it.  But, just because I can do it here on this blog, I'm going to defend myself.  I'm going to do it just this one time and be done with it.  

In the world my cousin lives, in the world my liberal friends live, Hillary never lies, Obama is a great president, the economy is doing great, or at least better.  In the world they live a video was the sole reason for Benghazi.  In the world they live, they have no idea that most Americans see Planned Parenthood as a wicked organization for nonchalantly, without even a second thought, killing unborn babies and selling their body parts for science.  Or maybe they kill babies for the sole reason of selling their body parts.  My liberal cousin not see this. 

He doesn't because his own media doesn't report those things, and he doesn't read media that he's not familiar with, like I do. If I were into defending myself, I would have told him him I read leftist media, centrist media, moderate media, mush media, and whatever else media is out there.  I read it all because I want to know what everybody out there happens to be thinking and saying.

I want to know what conservatives are saying, but I also want to know what liberals are saying.  I want to know what conservative republicans are saying, and I want to know what the establishment republicans are thinking.  I want to know it all.  I want to know it all because I think that's important.  And from there I make an informed decision.  

You see, that's what the media should do.  That's what an un-biased media should do: read all the news; get it all from different angles. That's what schools should do: teach all the different angles of thought.  But instead they only teach one thought: the liberal thought. They do this because it's all they hear by the people they hang with and the media they listen to and read. 

There's truth the the notion that journalists and teachers should be open minded in their thought, and honest in fair in their reporting and teaching. This is not possible unless you get all your news from many sources, and not just the mainstream media, and not just CNN, and not just MSNBC, and not just CBS, and not just Rush Limbaugh, and not just Fox.   

Further reading:

• The Evils of Planned Parenthood
• Planned Parenthood: The heart of aborted fetus was still beating
• Planned Parenthood: The undeniable truth (a history)

Get your news from more than one source

One of the neatest things about the American Constitution is it protects our natural born right to free speech, at least as far as it comes to our government. This is great because every opinion, every fact, and every new idea can be communicated. This allows us an opportunity that many of our ancestors did not have, and many people in the world still don't have.

Through most of history commoners were not privy to any news, and if they received news it was full of bias and from the king or queen or government.  Even as recently as the 1980s most people received their news from the few media outlets based out of New York, and lead by the New York Times.  Copying their news were CBS, ABC and NBC.

Today we have so many news options thers's no way any idea can be shunned, and all voices are heard. Yet still you have people saying things like "Well, he's only a blogger."  

Yet every blogger is a voice, and a voice that should be heard.  Still, we continue to have many people who want to go back to the old days where voices not agreed with are shut up, or at the very least mocked and ridiculed. A good example of this is Al Gore saying that people who don't believe in man-made global warming should be punished. 

Personally, I think it's a great thing to have every voice heard. I also think it's good to listen to voices you don't agree with. You might even learn something. This is why I don't understand how some people can email me and tell me I shouldn't watch Fox News or listen to Rush Limbaugh or read the Wall Street Journal.

I think it should be just the opposite. I think a wise person would listen to all the voices and come to radical conclusions based on the facts.  I say this because there are many voices who form opinions based on feelings over facts.  You even see this in the news, and we see it in the form of bias. 

It's actually quite easy to get news from many sources today, and you can start at websites such as the Drudge Report.  Some say Drudge is conservative, but I don't care, because he takes me to nearly every news outlet in the world. 

I'm sure there are other sites similar to Drudge, and one example is pages Liked on Facebook.  You can also use Twitter for this.  Although I tend to stay away from social media sites and prefer good old Drudge.  

Will the Catholic Church ever support gay marriage?

Remember a few weeks ago when Pope Francis spoke before an assembly of Bishops, saying that the church must take a more accepting approach toward gays, unmarried mothers, and unmarried couples. Journalists were so excited they could hardly contain themselves.

Yet when Bishops failed to approve even a watered down version of it, this wasn't even reported.  Also not reported were the words of Pope Francis at the International Miriam Conference, where, as reported by CNA:...

He warned against the common view in society that “you can call everything family, right?”

“What is being proposed is not marriage, it’s an association. But it’s not marriage! It’s necessary to say these things very clearly and we have to say it!” Pope Francis stressed.

He lamented that there are so many “new forms” of unions which are “totally destructive and limiting the greatness of the love of marriage.”

Not a word was mentioned about this. And I don't care whether you are in favor of gay marriage (as I am) or opposed to it.  I think this is simply bad journalism.

On the other hand, will the Catholic Church ever accept gay marriage?  Personally, I think the first step is for the Church to decide to accept gay people as equally deserving of its blessings.  I think if there is any group deserving of respect it's gay Catholics who are living in hiding.  And there is evidence this is already occurring.

I think it would be a dangerous slippery slope for the Catholic Church to cave on the issue of marriage, particularly considering it is one based on principle, and one must never back down on principle.  Besides, if the Catholic Church caves on this issue, then the government will find some twisted and perverted way of forcing Catholic priests who don't accept gay marriage to perform marriages between same sex couples.

Sorry media, but your excitement might have just been a little premature.  Regardless, your giddiness is evidence of your bias.  Instead of pushing forth your agenda, you might best serve the people by doing your job as watchdogs for the American public.

(11/8/14) Update:  Pope Francis participates in significant meeting in Rome to determine what to do about the increased acceptance of gay marriage, and it appears as though he is closer to deciding to accept both gay marriage.  Many U.S. Bishops are outraged.

The media: the fourth estate

The founding fathers noted that under the British monarchy, people were not allowed to speak out against their government.  In fact, they were aware that this was how it was for about 99.9% of history for the entire world.  When they were creating the founding documents, they yearned to preserve the natural right to speak out against a government.  

The reason we have freedom of the press is because the media is supposed to hold politicians accountable.  In fact, they used to call themselves the fourth estate, as though they were one of the branches of government.  However, the key here is that they have to look at both sides of every story as unbiased shepherds of the news and be impartial, regardless of whatever opinions they hold.  

Results from polling data compiled by Media Research Center

Since about the mid 20th century this has all changed, considering most polling data on this subject shows that greater than 80 percent of journalists favor democratic candidates. Still, that doesn't prove media bias.

What does prove bias is how the news is reported. For example, polling data showing George Bush disapproval ratings made the front pages of newspapers nearly every day.  Yet since Obama has been president, such polling data has either een bunder reported or hidden deep within the paper.

Consider for a moment that there are a ton of people in the United States, including myself, who believe that Israel has been poorly treated since its inception.  But if you read newspaper accounts, Israel is the bad guy in nearly every war it fights.  If you were a person who simply read a few newspaper accounts regarding Israel, you'd think it was full of evil, wicked people.

Honorable, unbiased journalists should not be trying to shape the news with a political agenda.  But that's what they seem to do now-a-days, and that's why bloggers like myself feel the need to report the truth about Israel.

Truthfully, I'd much rather just read the news and spend my time writing the history of asthma.  Rather than just buy into the first account they hear or see, good journalists used to naturally take information with a grain of salt and do their own investigation.  Such a simple investigation might reveal to them a more revealing side to the Jewish story.

The media in this country has even tanked itself in the polls, as most Americans don't even trust the news they get from CNN, ABC, NBC, and the New York Times.  According to a 2014 Gallup poll, under 20% of Americans have confidence in the media.

This is not good.  The media is supposed to be our watchdog.  The media is supposed to report history.  The media is supposed to be reporting not just a fact, but all facts. The media is supposed to be digging up dirt on both republicans and democrats.  The media is supposed to be unbiased shepherds of the news.

It used to be taught that the powerful were corrupt.  Even when I was in journalism school back in 1988 I was taught to always be a skeptic of those in power.

As a young and naive reporter for the Ferris State University Torch, I was asked by my editor to investigate the 99% job placement number the school reported. Was it really true that 99% of students who graduated from that school were getting placed in jobs.

After an investigation I learned that it was true, although that 99% figure included jobs like McDonalds and Burger King.  So upon a simple investigation that took me only a few minutes to conduct, it was learned that this number was not accurate, and that it was only reported to make the school look good.  If we had reported that 99% figure The Torch wold have been acting as public relations consultants for the school.

But I hated journalism, I hated to snoop on people, so the job of snooping for the truth was left to other people.  Quite honestly, I was naive enough at this time to suspect that what they reported would be both sides of the story. Yet as the years crept by more and more evidence crept up showing to me that what I was reading did not match what I was observing with my own eyes.

Recent evidence of media bias came in June of 2014.  June economic numbers released by the White House showing a 6% unemployment rate and 275,000 jobs created.  The White House championed that the recession was over because Obamonomics had resulted in 200,000 plus new jobs each month in 2014.

Most media reports, but not all, reported these numbers without questioning them. I could understand this from the point of view of a small town newspaper where reporters are mainly interested in local news.  But larger conglomerate newspapers such as the New York Times should further investigate these numbers.  Large media outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News should not settle for numbers alone, lest they merely become public relations satellited of the democratic party.

If the media were still acting as the fourth estate, a simple investigation would have revealed that 523,000 full-time jobs were lost in June.  This is horrible economic news.

If the media still acting as the fourth estate, a simple investigation would have revealed that 699,000 low paying part time jobs were created in June.  This is horrible economic news, unless you're fine with a person working 2-3 part time jobs to support a family.

So by dissecting the the 275,000 jobs growth numbers reported by the White House we learn this is not an indicator of positive economic growth.

The net result was a net gain of 275,000 jobs in June, most of which were part time and not full time jobs.  The fourth estate, you see, would have reported not just the number released by the White House, but the dissected numbers as well.

In conclusion, we learn that on the surface the numbers reported by the White House look good.  But, after a simple yet thorough investigation we learn that the 275,000 jobs gained in June of 2014 are not so indicative to the robust economy the White House is champion.

You see, reporting what is released by the White House merely turns media outlets into satellites for the party in power, which in this case so happened to be the democratic party.  Such poor reporting does no justice to freedom and liberty and the quest for truth and accuracy in the news.

Truthfully, and in my humble opinion, Watergate would never happen today unless those involved so happened to be a republican.  A strong and robust economy is never strong and robust unless you are a democrat politician.  Tanking political numbers are never significant unless you are a democrat.  Body counts during wars are never counted unless you are a republican war president.

Media bias is the only thing that can explain why events leading up to the bombing of a U.S. embassy that killed four Americans was never reported. It's the only thing to explain why the fact that global temperatures have not increased since 1998 is rarely mentioned.

In my opinion, reporters and editors and producers and camera men and women who do not report both sides of the story are lazy and biased.  Based on an abundance of evidence, when democrats are in power they cover up scandals and bad news and report only news that benefits democrats.  When republicans are in power they act as the fourth estate.

All in all, this probably explains why most journalists, but not all, usually vote democrat and report from a democrat perspective.  When democrats are in power they become lazy, and when republicans are in power they work hard and investigate and think.

The founding fathers are probably rolling over in their graves as they see a left leaning media expressing their privilege to criticize the government only when it's to the convenience of their political agenda.